Best place to buy a/c compressor hose?

[archal]

Vehicle: 1990 BMW 325iX

BMW Part no. 64 53 8 391 051

I found a couple of websites online when I did a search, but I'm not sure if they are reliable suppliers or not.

Does anyone know of good places to buy old gen BMW parts online?

Sorry for noob question.

[spike68]

Junk yard

[ELVA164]

I use autohaus AZ for most of my parts, supplemented by Gutenparts and/or Blunttech depending on availability. Always check the same part at multiple sites for availability/price. There are many, many other options, but I've had good luck with these. I also wouldn't suggest using old A/C hose, just seems like asking for a leak.

You keeping R12 or converting to R134?

[jeffnhiscars]

Junk yard

I call bullshit. Don't ever scrounge an ac hose unless your sugar daddy makes refrigerant :)

[spike68]

I call bullshit. Don't ever scrounge an ac hose unless your sugar daddy makes refrigerant :)

That's not true. Nothing a good treating and cleaning the hose can't help. That's exactly what I did with my car cause hoses are hella expensive. I've had no issues. Just use common sense when looking for one obviously

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G925A using Tapatalk

[jeffnhiscars]

I don't recall exactly what year BMW started using barrier hoses in e30s but it was not for more than the last year or 2 of production, so even if you find one that's free of black death and not damaged, it is not designed for a converted system and will leak. I've spoken with the company that made those hoses and the r134a leak rate THROUGH the hose is about 5x higher with non barrier than barrier.

Here are the 2 hoses that go above the glove box. They were NIB but I still had them refreshed with barrier hose for about $80 formthe pair and that included shipping both ways. If you look closely you can see where they sweated the ne crimp fittings to the original steel pipe. Very nice work.

The reason I did that was after doing a complete system upgrade (see my Cabrio build thread) i had to top it up a couple of times each summer. This year it wouldnt hold a charge for more than a few days. The problem was those 2 hoses which were the only original parts I kept were leaking like a sieve along the full length of the rubber.

The EPA says non barrier hoses in converted systems may do ok because they are saturated with mineral oil. I suspect what happened to mine is that any remaining mineral oil got flushed out so I was left with porous non barrier hoses that had to go.

The hoses from the condensor are available and are not that costly. Yes, you might get by with a junkyard hose just as there are systems that have just had the r12 swapped for 134 and they work fine.

it's the luck of the draw and I don't care for the odds. each to his own though for sure

[LateFan]

I believe these are US-made hoses built to OEM specs...4 Seasons

http://ecatalog.smpcorp.com/fs/#/vehicles

That's where we got ours, for 1/4 the price. We had a leak in the metal portion, which is weird.

I was told by the AC man that it doesn't leak out fast if you don't upgrade to barrier hoses, it takes a couple of years. We're going to run it as-is and see if all the components function first. Cold so far.

[jeffnhiscars]

That's consistent with my experience...slow leak and top ups for a couple seasons, then it got worse and I had to make the change. Fortunately I have a pump, gauges and a stash of 134. If you have to pay someone the do the hoses up front

Ps I thought Four Seasons was Chinese made

[Das Delfin]

4 seasons compressors are rebuilt in Mexico

Jeff, where'd you get your hoses redone?