My air con in my VW Bora has gone. Tried to get it fixed by a garage near the Bullring but he said there was a leak in the hose and we needed to go to the VW garage to get it fixed. Went there and they wanted to charge us 1300 euros. When we declined their invitation they gave us an invoice for 102 euros for looking at it!

We were told the cost was due to having to get a new compressor from Barcelona.

Does anyone out there know if we were being ripped off and/or can recommend someone who could do the job a lot cheaper.

Sorry I do not know anyone who can fix it but I can offer some advice so you do not get ripped off by anyone.

The compressor for your vehicle costs circa £300 to fit it should take no longer than 3hrs labour and there will be a regassing fee of approx £60

So by London standards that price is about right, but for anywhere else in the world that's probably reasonably high, I would expect to pay no more than €800 for the entire job.

That's what I had budgeted for approximately.

do you want one bringing over along with ur MP3 player

Sorry but I'm puzzled, if the leak is in a hose why replace the compressor? I have a Citroen xara which developed a leak, the garage replaced the pipe and refilled with gas at a cost of £125.00, but this was a garage that specialised in air con. So I cannot see what was done for 102e

Yes exactly what I was wondering .... a pipe leak doesn't mean you need a new compressor, it means you need a new pipe and it re-gassing.

You would hope that the franchised dealer would of diagnosed the problem better than the independant person who diagnosed a pipe leak.

If it were a basic thing as pipeleak you would assume as it's a DIY job that even he could be capable of fixing that.

German marque franchised dealers are normaly spot on as if they are not and someone complains to head office (ie in Germany in this case) they then run the risk of getting fined or lose their franchise.

In my opinion Glynis should take it to an air conditioning specialist as they will then do a dye test, they put a yellow dye under compression through the airconditioning system to spot the leak.

One thing one can do to check for visable damage is to put the vehicle up on a kerb (so you have more head room) and have alook at under the front of the vehicle for obvious signs of damage.

The compressor is the black radiator looking item that is directly bolted onto the front of the normal silver radiator. The compressor also has a silver canistor to one side of it.

You may find if you live where the roads are not great that a rock has been thrown up and damaged it. You should also have a black plastic undertray to that region of the car (to help limit such things) but it's quite normal for Bora and Golfs to have those ripped off many a year ago.

Will endeavour to do this. Am thinking of just trying to re-fill with gas and hope for the best. At worse we will lose 70 euros. I read somewhere that if the compressor had gone it made a really loud noise, but, this hasn't happened. Also when we were sat in traffic this morning the aircon seemed to come on but as soon as we got moving again it went!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I'm so sorry, I misread your entire post.

I thought your meant the condensor (ie the radiator type thing) as I just jumped to the conclusion when you mentioned leaking hoses.

Yes, unfortunately the compressor goes on the VW bora/golf range a hell of a lot. What happens is the clutch mechanism goes within the compressor, which also matches your description of the aircon working every now and again.

This part is an amazing £700 RRP you would be far better off trying to source a second hand compressor. The only plus side is it should only take approx 1hr to change.

Sorry for the misinfo and shock of the price, so indeed your original price does seem a reasonable price for what is needed.