It’s become very common for the Volkswagen Golf Mk5 air-con compressors to stop working. This is due to a lack of lubrication within the mechanical unit and basically a manufacturing defect. Although Volkswagen acknowledge this manufacturing defect, whether or not they’ll replace it under an extended warranty in goodwill is questionable. What we do know, however, is that an air conditioning compressor never just fails, there is always a root cause and in this case it’s unfortunate to be a costly manufacturing defect.

The lack of lubrication inside the air-con compressor unit causes metal fatigue and eventually leads to a broken compressor shaft distributing metal particles (better known as swarf) around the entire air conditioning system. Swarf will block up all the pipes, valves and filters in your system, blockages cause a pressure build up and the metal particles can damage the internals of mechanical units.

Unfortunately, in such instances you can’t simply replace the air-con compressor without flushing the system properly, we suggest flushing for 4hours minimum to ensure all metal particles are out of the system. That way, you can rest assured the new compressor when fitted, will not be contaminated and will not fail. I wouldn’t suggest buying a second-hand unit either because chances are it will be an original manufactured defective unit coming off another golf which just hasn’t failed yet.

We currently stock the latest superseded air-con compressors made by Sanden to overcome this problem, they are brand new units and do not carry the manufacturing defects meaning they should with due care last the lifetime of the vehicle.

Not only do we supply the part, but we offer the full service.. supplying, flushing, fitting and re-charging your air conditioning system and.. if you’re within our vicinity, we’ll even offer you a free collect & return service of your vehicle!

For more information, call us on 0203 815 9441 today!