Central air conditioner not working well; do I need to replace?

Question

We had a technician in NJ come to our house last friday to look at our central air system, which is not blowing very cold air. He said that the outdoor unit had a leak and we need to replace the outdoor unit, as well as the indoor unit including the furnace, since the outdoor unit's seer index needed to be at 13 which we would need to match with the indoor unit (the blower and A/C). He quoted us $6755 in NJ for a 2.5 ton 80000 BTU unit (including furnace and A/C). We live in a 2 br townhouse roughly 2200 sq ft. Does this seem unreasonable? seems like it....

Answer 1

Most leaks even inside the outdoor unit can be repaired.  Weather you should repair or replace it depends on the age of the unit, efficiency vs. the new unit and cost of install.

In either case GET A SECOND OPINION.  Also if it does need to be replaced get several price quotes.  By the way for California that price does not sound extremely high but our wages are high compared to other areas..