There's so many thing to fail, you can't just go by what happened to someone else. One guy has a really slow leak so he adds a can of refrigerant every year and he's good.

Trouble is, the next guy has a plugged expansion valve. He doesn't measure high & low side pressures, he just adds a can of refrigerant. So his compressor explodes. Then he's angry at the world because HAN gave him bad advice.

You have to DIAGNOSE. You have to check stuff, measure stuff to find out what's broken on YOUR car.

OK, I'll quit ranting now.

Since this thread started out asking what has happenned to our cars, here's mine. I had a very slow leak in an '89 Saab, right where a hose made a crimped transition to a metal tube. I haven't had any AC trouble with my current cars, yet...