Air Conditioning - A/C Compressor Failure

No cool air coming out the vents. Checked the thermostat and all set OK. Check the a/c unit outside and its running. Check the cooling pipes and they feel cold. Check the inside furnace blower and it's not running - the problem identified. Two days later, the service tech arrives and identifies the fan blower capacitor to be faulty and replaces it. The fan works fine now but the cooling pipes are no longer cold. The tech checks the outside a/c unit and after many checks decided that the compressor in bad. I tend to agree with him and we talk about replacing the a/c unit which is only 7 years old. The furnace (and bad fan motor) are only 3 months old and under warranty. I believe the inoperative furnace fan led to the failure of the compressor but I don't know why. Can anyone help me with this?

I would suggest a 2nd opinion on this. If it is bad then a compressor replacement is ok on a 7 year old unit and it may be covered by the manufacture warranty.

The reason it died "if it is dead" is that with the indoor blower not operating it will send liquid refrigerant back to the compressor "we call it slugging". It don't take long to kill one when this happens.

The lack of air flowing over the evaporator (blower not running) will cause a freeze-up. Like I have said in other posts, freeze-ups (regardless of cause) place the compressor in great danger. It's possible your compressor was damaged by this event.

Thanks guys. That's my belief also, the fan failure caused the compressor failure . Now I need to convince TRANE that when their 3 month old blower failed it caused their 7 year old compressor to fail. My tech says he'll go to bat for me but he doesn't think TRANE will give me any sympathy. I'm sure glad the blower didn't catch fire and burn down the house. Do you have any other thoughts about why compressors fail? Does TRANE have any track record on compressor failures?

Id say have to check out the compressor for sure. I have been to compressors so iced up that had to come back the next day . To check for leaks and put freon in. Most of the time dirty filter, dirty blower, dirty coil , low on freon or motor out like yours.
Like Matt said slugging Is when liquid refrigerant gets back to the compressor and can take out the valves or flapper valves .

Two days later, the service tech arrives and identifies the fan blower capacitor to be faulty and replaces it.
when their 3 month old blower failed .
Lost here Did you get a new blower motor or just a capacitor????

Just the capacitor was replaced and then the blower worked fine, again it was a new unit. It makes me wonder why the capacitor went out to begin with. As for the compressor, the tech was more concerned about it being overheated than cold frozen. A second more-experience tech came out and confirmed the bad compressor. Its been two days now and still doesn't work. Freon pressure checked OK.

The new furnace unit has a two-stage fan, lo speed for initial demand and high speed for continued demand. Is it possible the new furnace unit is not compatible with the 7-yr old a/c unit? Perhaps the low speed fan did not reduce the freon temp before it returned to the compressor causing the compressor to freeze up and fail?

Just for info here's the last. My service tech called Trane with the problem and they said I should be happy with seven years of service and no they will not help with replacing the a/c unit. However, the service company said they will replace the unit at cost, works out to be about 20% discount. I agreed and they'll be out Tuesday. Bottom line, I'm not happy with Trane and would not buy one of their units again if it's going to last only 7 years. My previous unit lasted 21 years. Thanks for the discussion.