I’ve got a ’93 945T. A coworker has a ’93 945 (not turbo), I was just talking to him about it and he indicated that he was planning on selling it since it had a bad "compressor". The repair place told him that it would be $1,000 to fix, $350 for the part and $650 for labor since the book rate is ~ 10 hours since they have to completely remove the dash. He bought the car new in '93 and was considering a new car anyway (his college age son doesn't like it), this is the motivation to actually get rid of it.

I'm thinking that he meant a bad A/C condensor since the symptoms lead me to believe that it's the A/C condensor, and the coolant leak is a separate issue. And there is no compressor that I know of hooked up to the coolant system since water is, for all practical purposes, not a compressible liquid.

OK, let's say that it is the A/C condensor, is that a 10 hour job? If so, what would happen if I buy it and just don't use the A/C? How hard would it be to change by myself?

The symptoms are that the car doesn’t hold water (antifreeze) and he has to keep adding it. Also, it leaks water behind the dash (if you pull up the mats, the carpet is damp). Also, steam comes out of the vent (I don't know if this is only when he has his A/C on or not).

He said that a new car dealer offered him $1,500 for tradein and he thought that was an awful lot, so I might be able to pick it up cheaper than that (the compressor being the only thing wrong with it, other than it may need new tires within a year or so). I was just trying to figure out how hard the compressor would be to fix if I were to try to do it myself, I was kind of considering buying the car as either a second commuter car or as a parts car.