I had my air conditioning go out on me yesterday, on a 110 degree day of course! Vents start blowing hot, turn off the radio and roll down my window and hear the compressor making noise. Stop the car and pop the hood and hear hissing from the drivers side below the air intake tube.

Took it to a reputable mechanic today, The rubber portion of the A/C line was rubbing against the metal tubing of the clutch line for who knows how long and rubbed a hole in it. They have to replace the entire line that goes from the firewall to the condenser which includes the low pressure shut off switch. That's the only way BMW/MINI sells it. The line itself is about $250 plus book labor is 5 hours because of how much you have to tear the car apart to get to everything plus freon to recharge the system.

I just hope the compressor isn't damaged from running dry.

This is on the drivers side below the air inlet:


Is this a common issue? A quick search of the forum yeilded nothing, unless I'm using the wrong search tags. The car is pretty much stock up front, K&N drop-in, cat-back, that's about it. and to my knowlege no one has ever done any work up in that area so my guess is it's been rubbing since it left the showroom back in '03. The car has about 50,000mi.

 

Nobody?

I highly recomend people check on this before they run into the same problem.

 

i have the ac hose issue but it is the lower ac hose and it rubbed up against the radiator mount n wore threw. can you get away with a pressure coupler? were looking into it for my hose fix which is looken to work for mine.

 

Thanks for the heads up Louie B. I'm going to have a look. If it is rubbing I'll pad the AC hose there.

As far as your compressor being damaged goes. Most AC systems will shut the compressor down if the refrigerant pressure gets too low. Yours did, but it went to zero pressure like right now. I'd think you are OK.

 

Considering the amount of work and $$ needed to replace this, compared to how little it takes to check it, I'd check mine asap, including other lines/tubes while in there.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Mine went today, maybe it should be made a sticky........Not cheap to fix

 

so which hose was rubbing?

left? middle? right?

and is that standing in front of the car or the drivers side top down pic?

 

This was over a year ago for me, but IIRC i was standing on the driver's side of the car looking down @ the front of the engine when I took that pic. the intake tube had to be removed to see this, and the issue was the right hose (rubber) rubbing on the far right line (metal)

 

Mine just blew out yesterday on my '02 MCS w/about 96,000 km. Had to happen out of town, of course, so I had it towed to a recommended shop in the area, and the owner just called to say the main A/C line ruptured from rubbing up against "some metal", but he didn't elaborate which metal. It was quite the dramatic blowout - I actually thought I blew a coolant hose.

The mechanic said a coupler would be the way to go - anyone given this type of fix a try with good results? What a way to go out

 

It seems to me a good mechanic....not just a part swapper should be able to build up a new hose....very common....even if they reused the oem ends and built a new middle...with couplers or something.

 

Just found out that this just occured to me on my 04 this weekend...Is there any easier fix or Im I stuck with the 5 hr book labor???

 

Same problem on my 2002 Mini Cooper S, had the lower condenser to evaporator hose blow out from rubbing against a clutch line. Still trying to figure out how to access the bolt on the evaporator side, really tight space even with everything out of the way.

 

I have the same issue on my 06 mini, lower condenser to evaporator hose. I have it completely disconnected but can figure out how to snake the part out. Does the battery box have to come out for access?

 

Might have to put the car in "front service mode".

 

Well spent the morning tinkering with it and figured out that I could use a pry bar to push the transmission toward the passenger side enough to slide out the hose.