I bought a one-owner 2003 SG 2.0XT auto back in february 2018. Had a full service done and all was fine for 5 months, and then the aircon compressor seized when I was driving up to London on the M3. I got the compressor replaced with a service exchange item, and everything has been fine with the car until a couple of weeks ago when the blower vent started working until 20/30 minutes into an extended journey. I've ordered a replacement actuator motor and disconnected the actuator arm leaving the vent flap to the demist/floor position. Easy job! This morning I changed the front disc pads, as they'd got down to the audible wear indicator, and did a fluids check, ran the engine to get it warm, and suddenly got a shriek from the alternator or compressor belt. I turned off the engine, removed the belt cover and ran the engine again and was greeted with the sight of the compressor drive stopping momentarily causing the belt to slip. The compressor unit was amazingly hot, and I think I was lucky for this to happen when it did. I've isolated the compressor by cutting off the belt, and am now looking at sourcing a replacements and a new drier.

My question is: do the Zexel 14G compressors have a reputation for unreliability? Two years of use shouldn't be a reasonable service life, surely?

 

No but if you got debris in the system from the first failure replacements have short life.
It a right struggle clean them proper when have metal fragment within the system without lot of system part replacement

service exchange units can be hit and miss as any reman parts tend be awful QC these days, we don't touch them, prefer fussy selection of genuine untouched used and ideally 100% new when viable cost .

On 11/6/2020 at 3:18 AM, Mr B said:

No but if you got debris in the system from the first failure replacements have short life.
It a right struggle clean them proper when have metal fragment within the system without lot of system part replacement

service exchange units can be hit and miss as any reman parts tend be awful QC these days, we don't touch them, prefer fussy selection of genuine untouched used and ideally 100% new when viable cost .

The replacement lasted two years, and I expect it would have failed earlier if it had been a faulty component, but your theory bout debris still in thesystem: I've just been looking at replacement suppliers and they have specified replacing the drier along with the compressor. Looking through my old service invoices the garage who fitted the last replacement didn't fit a replacement drier..