Bad A/C compressor

A/C stopped working suddenly in our 2001 Jetta at the end of last summer. Has always worked great, producing sub 40F vent temps. Everything is original and nothing has been serviced. You can hear the A/C compressor engage, RPMs drop but no cooling at all.

Took the car into an air conditioning shop who diagnosed bad compressor that was internally worn. Suggested replacing compressor, drier, condenser and expansion valve at a cost of over $2000.

My question is whether it is necessary to replace all those components in addition to the compressor. I understand if metal got sent through the system it would be needed but do these compressors often fail in that fashion? I have heard there is a valve on the compressor that regulates pressure and that when it fails, will cause no pressure to build up.

I would say go to another shop asap and get another opinion.

There's the valve in the compressor that controls its displacement that's been known to fail. Compressor doesn't pump but it causes no debris in the system.

Drier always should be replaced too but not the rest though some like to replace the "expansion valve" too.

I would remove the pump discharge line and see if there's any debris in it.

The self regulating valve inside the compressor may have failed. Since we have no idea, we are assuming that the system is full of charge, and that when the compressor engages, the high and low side pressures remain static...or barely climb at all. And BOTH the fans are operational?

Control valves are cheap:

https://www.polarbearinc.com/index.cfm/product/405_953/ex-10067.htm

However, I would not expect a shop, especially in Canada wear you no doubt have lots of road salt, to take a high mileage compressor off a car nearly two decades old, and try and fix it. The labor cost alone is probably halfway to the cost of a new compressor, and they certainly couldn't warranty anything otherwise.

You do not need the other stuff unless the compressor blew apart, which by your description in most certainly did not.

I just did the valve and evaporator on mine. Started getting intermittent cooling. Everything else seemed to be working. All is well now. I was surprised how cheap the part are in case I needed to replace the compressor. I got my parts from Rock Auto before I knew about polarbearinc. The valve or the seals they include in their kit (GPD 9441885) doesn't come with the gaskets (GA45678KT). you need for the compressor. Find someone to vacuum and recharge your system and replace the parts yourself.