new air conditioner or repair 10 year old unit

[rockwind1]

greetings. i have a 2007 attitude FSAKG 34' fifth wheel. man, i am always working on this thing but it has 2 ac's, one in the master which is a 12,500 i am pretty sure and the "main" one which is a 15,000 btu unit. the main one has taken a dump, i think it is toast, although i am not a air cond tech, have the guages though but the rv shops here in vegas are pretty cut throat. I would be better of having ISIS work on it. between driving the trailer down to ISIS headquarters, having them fix it for no doubt in the hundreds of $, i can get a new unit and put it on myself for 5, which seems really easy (except for getting it on the roof)

so my question is for those who have experienced a similiar problem

are the newer models a lot better and more efficient than the 10 year old models?
is it worth getting repairs (assume the worst like the pump is bad)?

is it as easy as it seems?

thanks in advance for any helpful responses. (fyi, i asked on another forum also)

[dougrainer]

1. 13,500. They don't make a 12,500
2. What good are the gauges??????? RV AC units have NO service ports. Since you are a novice, I would advise against trying to tap into and install clamp on ports. Clamp on ports are good for one thing---making money for qualified service people because they all leak eventually from the compression of the copper tubing. You always solder in fill ports after draining the system with clamp on taps.
3. The ONLY way to test an RV AC is by temp corrected compressor amp draw. Which you can do by buying an inexpensive clamp on AC amp meter. Doug

[wa8yxm]

I replaced two 13,500 BTU's with two 15K's. one of them (Advent air, which for maintenance reasons I do NOT recommend) takes the exact same current, running, as the OEM, bit more starting,, The other (Coleman) takes 0.4 amps more The originals were Carrier AirV's

But at 10 years.. It depends on why it has failed, a New A/C, installed, is roughly 1,000 give or take a bit depending on where you do it.. Less if you DIY but I really don't recommend DIY as it's about 70-90 pounds you need to raise to the roof.. Within my capacity when I was 30, not so much today :).

On mine I have spare blower motors, fans, blowers, and such (For Carrier if you need one) even cowling.. But the cooling system,, Compressor, evap, condenser, dryer and piping and valves.. if that's shot, or dry (lost coolant) replacement is indicated in most cases.

[rockwind1]

i'm pretty darn handy but i also don't want to waste my time polishing a turd to save 200$ for 10 hours worth of work. (although i love learning something new ) i guess the big mystery here is what exactly is wrong, i've messed around with house ac's, and these ac's on my rig and from the way it is acting, i think the pump/motor went. i will switch out capacitors cause i think i have a spare and see what happens

[ScottG]

I think if mine failed at this point I would go new. To get them to repair it will likely cost 50~75% of new.
The new ones dont seem to employ the modern technology that makes all residential AC's so efficient but at least it would be "new" and maybe give us a good chance to upgrade the BTU rating.
Anyway, that's one opinion. YMMV!

[Big_Katuna]

The rules of thermo dynamics havent changed so the new ones arent really any more efficient.

But labor rates have gone up. I replaced the motors on mine that failed about two weeks apart. A little over a hundred each but if it is the compressor I would replace the entire unit.

It could also be something cheap like the starting capacitors or the startup device PTCR.

Depends how handy you are. You might try to find a decent rv guy that says he can take a look.