Not sure what happened with my post. I was just saying, fortunately for me, I live five minutes from LKQ. They are going to have a compressor for me tomorrow for $90. It has a six month warranty.
Not sure what happened with my post. I was just saying, fortunately for me, I live five minutes from LKQ. They are going to have a compressor for me tomorrow for $90. It has a six month warranty.
https://www.lkqonline.com
I'm getting my compressor locally for $90 before core charge. If you go on the website, they have compressors for $115 including shipping. I'm not sure about the core charge if you order online.
MetroMPG (05-10-2018)
I dropped by the junk yard after work today and picked up my 70k mile AC compressor. It didn't take much time to pull the old compressor out.
Once I had the old compressor out of the car, I emptied the oil from it into a plastic water bottle. I was expecting to see at least an ounce of oil come out of it, but as you can see from my picture, very little came out. The good news is, what oil did come out was very clean. I decided not to flush the system, since I couldn't find any contaminants in the oil.
I flushed out the replacement compressor with a few ounces of PAG 100 oil just to make sure it was clean. Everything looked good, so I put a little less than an ounce of oil in the compressor after doing the flush.
The o-rings on my high and low side lines looked good so I decided not to replace them. I had a universal kit on hand, but I figure OEM is better than risking putting on the wrong size o-ring. I bolted the compressor back in place, installed the belt, and lubricated the o-rings before installing the low and high side lines.
After 45 minutes of pulling vacuum, I let the system sit for 15 minutes and didn't notice any leaks. The specifications for this car is 9.5 oz of r134a. I had a previously opened can of r134a laying around. I emptied what was left of that can into the system and added a little more from a new can.
I went for a short drive to the supermarket and vent temperature was about 45 degrees. That's good enough for me.
Attached are pictures of the AC compressor with the bad clutch, the few drops of oil that came out of it, and a picture of my thermometer.
I will keep a spare can of r134a in the back in case I need to top things off, but it looks like everything is fine. I normally get vent temps ranging from 40 to 45 degrees depending on how fast I am driving and the length of my drive. If I don't see it drop to 40 degrees over the next day or so, then I'll just add a little more r134a.
Incidentally, I really haven't done much to this car other than some basic maintenance. I haven't even changed the transmission fluid or coolant yet.
At 40k miles I purchased a set of Goodyear tires.
At 90k miles I purchased a set of Faulkin Sincera tires.
At 100k miles I replaced the front brake pads, spark plugs, air filter and cabin filter.
Around 150k miles, one of the TPMS sensors broke off inside a tire. I bought a new sensor and Walmart replaced it for me when I bought a new tire. Unfortunately their programmer wasn't compatible with my 2014 Mirage, so I've been driving around with a TPMS light ever since. Maybe someday I will get a real tire place or the dealer to take care of it, but to me it isn't that big of a deal.
Around 150k miles I replaced the battery.
At 180k miles I purchased a set of Faulkin Sincera tires.
At 190k miles I replaced the serpentine belt. The old one still looked good, so I keep it in the car as a spare. In the future, I plan to replace this belt every 100k miles starting at the 300k mark.
At 197k miles I replaced the AC compressor with a junk yard part that had 70k miles on it and a six month warranty.
I am approaching 200k miles very soon. I plan to replace front brake pads, front rotors, spark plugs, air filter, cabin filter, coolant, and manual transmission gear oil. I'm going to install that Redline stuff that other people on this forum have mentioned.
Last edited by stevedmc; 05-11-2018 at 03:05 AM.
Incidentally, after my good experiences with Faulkin tires, I will never buy another Goodyear tire.
Thanks for all the useful info stevedmc. Please make a garage entry for your Mirage. You have put a lot of miles on it and I'm sure others are interested in knowing how it holds up for you. Plus it'll be an easy way to see how yours is configured - for example, I can't remember if you have a manual or automatic transmission.
Garage empty: add car
Thanks again.
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View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)
Its a manual transmission. I am still trying to decide when to do the clutch disk. I'm debating on whether or not to simply drive until it starts slipping, or change it somewhere around 250k or 300k miles.