The mobile engineer who is very familiar with these engines seems to have done an excellent job. The verdict of the failure was that when the pump was replaced about 6 months before I bought the car the condenser was not replaced at the same time. All the crunched up bits when a pump fails go straight into the condenser and then eventually work their way round to the new pump!
A bit annoying when the condenser mounting holes don’t line up but still sorted well be one bolt each side.
Burnt out clutch
The above few pics show the state of the old pump when taken apart ….. could easily have caught on fire.
I was told at Pride of Longbridge by a person in the know that the factory thought that the air con pumps came with oil in …. in fact they didn’t. So the system was pressurised with no oil!! Hence the reason many failed so early.
MG ZT info mods and maintenance 