A/C fix and excellent customer service

[MBNuB]

I hope this is an appropriate place to post a recommendation for my local air conditioning man? [Gary Osgood of AVACS.co.uk at Alton]
My W203 has ponged a bit since I bought it. I assumed the previous owner must have had a car-sick passenger but no amount of Febreeze or air freshner would fix it.
I took the car to Gary and asked for an anti-bacterial spray fix, as suggested in http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=27788
After starting the car and sitting in it for a couple minutes, he reappeared and told me the knocking noise behind the dash [see http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=24104 and
http://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/showthread.php?t=23172 ] was probably the cause of my problems and my request might provide only a short term solution.
To cut a long story short, he was right. I took the car back a few days later, he diagnosed and replaced the broken stepper motor and applied the requested anti-bacterial fix. Not only does the A/C now freeze me upon request, but the smell has gone too.
He did a similar fix on my TT a couple of years ago, which is why I went back to him with the Merc. Not only is he fast, efficient and much cheaper than the dealerships, but he kept me informed throughout. Excellent service, again!

 

[Andy Wr]

Just checked out his web site, he seems to know what he's on about, the only thing I dont agree with is the need to replace the filter drier every two years, moisture just does not just "appear" in a sealed system, it is introduced externally, Halfords were replacing the filter on systems that they serviced as routine, unecessary expense.

 

[MBNuB]

If he says it needs doing, maybe it does on some cars, Andy.
My initial request on this visit was to put anti-bacterial spray into the system and to replace the pollen filter, as suggested on one of the posts I indicated.
Gary brought the pollen filter to show me and said it didn't need doing. It would have been very easy for him to have replaced it and made money on the bits.
As I said, his customer service is really top notch.
He could do with spending a few minutes tweaking the web-site, though!