AC Condenser Hole from Tansmission Cooler

Hello, fairly new to the forum so I would appreciate any help. I looked around and didn’t see anything about this specific issue (apologies if I missed a post about it).

I noticed my AC was not blowing any cold air, upon inspection it appears that my transmission cooler has rubbed a hole in the condenser. My truck is a 2019 so I figure Toyota wont help me out but I would like to see if anyone else has dealt with this before. From what I understand replacing the condenser and the 1234yf refrigerant is not cheap.
Attached photo has the cooler moved to show damage.

 

If you do have to pay for this yourself, you do not need to buy a Condenser from Toyota. I had a hole in my condenser and purchased one from O’Reilly’s. It works just as well, and I’ve had it over two years now. It was less than half the cost of the OEM one. Also, most air conditioning shops can do this for you.

People should definitely know this can happen, it is a very expensive repair!

 

Looks like you or a previous owner installed a winch and some kind of winch mount. It's possible the trans cooler was pushed back during that install -- it's not likely it came from the factory that way. Either way, it's probably not under warranty.

 

I didn’t even notice the winch- just looked at the hole. Yeah, you are right, it won’t be covered due to this type of modification. Guess I should have written that people who install winches should check to be sure they don’t push anything against the condenser.

 

The photo does not really do it justice but the winch and front bumper sit in front of the cooler with no touching at all. That being said you are right and they would say the modification would make me liable. I really wanted to see if anyone else had ever noticed this issue and if not, to check before it is potentially too late.
Thank you OnHartung for the condensor suggestion, hopefully the refrigerant isn’t too bad.

 

Hey, I was just looking at the price for OEM condensers, and they’re not as bad as I thought anymore. Back when I was looking for one it was about $400 during Covid. You can buy them for about $300 now. I installed the Denzo one from O’Reillys and it was about $100.

https://parts.longotoyota.com/oem-parts/toyota-condenser-8845004012

I installed and did the whole job myself. The refrigerant will cost about $150 or so if you buy it over the counter, and you would also need PAG oil and a vacuum pump if doing it all yourself. Some places like O’Reilly’s loan out refrigerant manifolds, but I’m not sure they have the right one. I bought one of the refrigerant kits that had a pressure gauge built-in.

Another less expensive way of doing this is to do just the condenser install labor yourself- it’s easy. Then have a AC service vacuum and recharge the system for you. If you go this route just be sure to add PAG oil in the condenser before bolting the lines on it - You’ll have to look up to see how much oil to add, I forget what amount it required.

 

Generally with a winch bumper that cooler gets relocation mounts to make room for the winch. So chances are good it either has relocation mounts or it was just bent back to fit the winch.

 

This! Usually bumper kits will include the brackets to scoot the cooler back. With the amount of scratch marks above and below the hole, I'm willing to bet the cooler is just unmounted and flopping around back there.

 

That looks like the power steering cooler not the trans cooler. My stock trucks sits at least 2 inches from the condenser with 0 rub marks. This is almost certainly from the winch install.