[NewPTCruiserInPA]

Hi! I am new to the forum. I'm hoping someone can help me out with our first problem! We purchased a 2006 PT Cruiser at the end of March with 19,182 miles on it, and with the warm weather this past week we turned on the A/C for the first time. We went to Philly and back with no problems, but then a couple days later we noticed the car starting to shudder/stumble, like it wanted to stall, when the A/C was on and you were idling at a stop sign or light. It did this several times, but didn't actual stall. I had my husband drive home from work with it off and he had no problems. Later we went to the store with it on, and it was the same thing. So we kept it off for the whole weekend and had no problems.

I called the dealer to have it looked at and it went in yesterday. They said the diagnostic code led them to a bad compressor, and it had to be replaced. They said they put it up on the rack and topped it off and they could see it leaking. I asked if we would have seen it leaking (we didn't) and he said Freon evaporates, so not necessarily. The car was blowing cold, so I assumed it had Freon. He said they test drove it and it is fine.

The funny thing is, he said you DO feel it when the compressor kicks on and off, and that it's completely normal, but it shouldn't get to the point where it would stall.

Is this true? We didn't pick it up yet to know if it is still like it was yet, but when we first drove it with the A/C on, it didn't do any stumbling. Is this something that is normal for a PT Cruiser, or are we probably looking at some other problem and NOT a compressor problem? I checked online and saw other people complaining of the stumble when idling, and there were several theories for it: A/C, crankshaft/camshaft sensors, wires, etc. Would you think it was the compressor if they actually found a bad compressor? I am worried we are going to continue to have problems...