A local HVAC company recommended replacing the oil in an 8 year old air conditioning system. Is this type of service something that is becoming a regular service among major manufacturers or could this be some type of scam?

I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you

Scott

It is absolutely a scam!! I am a licensed HVAC contractor and in no way should you do this, ever. The Freon in a unit will last forever until you burn out a compressor, and even then you can install dryers and clean it up after recovering it. That's why you have refrigerators that have been running since the 1930's or so. As long as the unit is kept clean and the motors oiled it will run forever. What shortens the life of a unit is not cleaning the coils and the fans, like the blower wheel. That's what these scammers don't want to do because when you keep it clean and oiled it never breaks down. Just put a surge protector in your breaker box to protect against lightning.