Samw happened to me on Thursday. I was (figuratively) shocked when I bought the capacitor, though. I bought the same one for another unit back in 2021 and it was $11. This one was $32. Same brand. Same supplier. It felt criminal but it was better than hiring it out and being put on a two-week waiting list!
I’ve owned a manual for every car I’ve owned for the past twenty-five years and keep an OBDII scanner in all of our vehicles. General curiosity and concern for being broke down at an inopportune time makes it seem like a no-brainer. I have also made most of the repairs on my vehicle thanks to Haynes (and YouTube).
But then I have friends that couldn’t jump start if life depended on it. Seriously. They connected the cables to two random pieces of metal in the engine compartment and fried the whole computer and electrical sub systems. Over $12K in damage.
They don’t get a manual and they don’t want it. Even if you’re well off enough to pay for towing and hire out repairs, it absolutely blows my mind to think people wouldn’t want that security.
I’ve replaced a couple dozen. When I started out, all I had to do was buy a cheap (but reliable) multimeter and spend a half hour or so watching YouTube vids on how to test those kinds of capacitors.
They can be deadly dangerous if you don’t take precautions. It takes very little skill to replace, but the power to the compressor needs to be cut and the Fan and Herm terminals do need to be grounded/discharged to the common post before handling.
It’s still a very basic repair, though, and even in the +100° temps we’ve had here, it was worth the effort and only takes about ten minutes to remove, five to test, and five to replace and close it all up.