My a/c cut out on me a couple weeks ago. Is if ok to take my FD to a regular shop to work on the a/c or should I goto the mazda dealership? no rotary shops around here.

 

Depends on what's wrong with it. Some of the parts of the system are going to be specific to your car, others are going to be more generally available.

Most likely you have a leak someplace which depressurized the system and caused it to shut down. That could be a hose or a connection, maybe the drier.....relatively easy to fix. Next up the scale in probability and difficulty is a problem with the condenser or compressor. This will make things more expensive, but still relatively easy to fix once the right parts are obtained.

Most dealers have an A/C specialist tech on staff. You could take it to him and tell him you want a diagnosis only. Tell them you don't know if you'll want to spend the $ to fix the problem if it's super-exepensive. They'll perform a leak test and look over the system to find out what's wrong.

Then with estimate in hand, you can do some price shopping at A/C speciality shops. Or you can just go to one of them to begin with and do the same thing.....get an estimate first and see how bad it is.

Dealers aren't always bad for everything. It's the FD engine they have a nasty habit of screwing up. When it comes to A/C I'd compare the dealer against the A/C specialist shops and see who I feel the most comfortable with in terms of price and qualilty.

 

I took my fd to an a/c shop, they do other work too, but advertise mostly a/c. I could tell these guys had never seen an FD in the shop before, but with me standing only a few feet away they diagnosed the problem so I left it with them.

There is little a/c work that has to do with the rest of the car.

Is the compressor running? Does the center (the clutch) spin when you yrun on the ac?