Aircon repair or replace? How to decide with real numbers

The short answer: repair a young system with its first fault; replace an old one with its third. In between, weigh the repair quote against the system’s age, efficiency and refrigerant type — and because our replacement prices are published (from $2,399 installed), you can do that maths with real numbers instead of guesses.

Repair makes sense when…

• The system is younger than ~8 years
• It’s the first significant fault, not the third
• The fault is a component, not the compressor
• It cooled and heated well until the fault appeared

Replacement makes sense when…

• The system is past ~10 years and repairs are becoming a pattern — here’s what decides lifespan
• The quoted repair is a meaningful fraction of a new installed price — spending $800-ish on a fading unit rarely beats putting it toward a $2,899 Trueline Care install with a 5-year workmanship warranty and a year of included care
• It uses an older refrigerant that makes every future repair expensive and parts scarce
• The compressor is the failure — usually the economic end of the line
• Running costs have crept up: modern inverters simply move more heat per kilowatt — running costs compared

How we keep the advice honest

We do both jobs — repairs and replacements — so we have no reason to push either. You get the repair quote, the replacement comparison in writing, and the decision stays yours. Replacement pricing is on the published price list, old-unit removal is quoted up front, and the calculator gives you the like-for-like number in 30 seconds.

A rule of thumb that serves people well

Multiply the repair quote by the system’s age in years. If the result clears a few thousand, replacement usually wins — an $800 repair on a 4-year-old system passes easily; the same repair on a 12-year-old one doesn’t. It’s a heuristic, not gospel, but it catches the sunk-cost trap most people fall into: paying repeatedly to keep yesterday’s system limping.