I'm living in a rental home in south Texas and the other morning my air was blowing hot air. I checked the fuses and the compressor outside and noticed it was not working. Since this is a rental I called to have a service tech come out and take a look. As the service tech was troubleshooting he pressed a contact switch that started the compressor but the fan did not turn. With a little push the fan started to spin. He took some Vac readings and said everything looked fine and it was probably the capacitor. I'm not sure what he replaced but I had to leave and he told my wife that if it happens again to press the reset buttor and use a stick to start the fan! Well guess what it happened again, reset and happened again. It will run for about 15 minutes or so and then trip, the high pressure line is very very hot. I called the tech back and he said that the coils probably needed cleaning but he'd have to get permission before doing a job like that from the realtor. Last night I stayed up late cleaning the coils myself and still have the same problem. It was running good, with a reset and push with the stick, and then nothing. I tried to reset and push start the fan but it will not start and the compressor tripped again. So am I looking at a bad motor? It will spin freely when moved.

Sounds like the fan outside is defective since he already replaced the capacitor.

Replace fan motor.

Thanks for the help, turns out that the tech never switched out anything. He just hit the reset and started the fan and left. I found a similar capacitor at a used appliance store and it works fine.

I guess the service tech lied to you. That is never good. We can only try to help here if we get the strait facts about a unit. Glad you got it going.