A few weeks back, I actually had this repair done on my '03 Ram 1500 4.7L and after a Military discount I paid $625 total incl. tax. Took one and a half day.

Included were heater core, coolant, R134a and dryer for the a/c.

 

The black HVAC box has to be removed because there are screws on the backside that can't be accessed without removing it…I tried. Short of cutting a hole in the box it wasn't happening, so evacuating the a/c system is necessary. It's not really a bad job to do yourself, just time consuming. It looks way worse then it actually is:




It took me a day and a half to do my core. I probably could have been done sooner but the fact that my already cracked dash shattered when I took it apart, and my then 5 year old losing screws slowed me up a bit.

 

Somebody hooked you up then or the shop has a really low labor rate, it books 5.7hrs at normal shop rate of 100/hr thats 570 in labor. And that doesnt include evac and recharge the AC, the cost of the heater core itself, or coolant...

 

wow alot of money for sure and the shop near me the guy doesnt want to do it for some reason.guess ill keep the truck for a while and look for another one to much money now i know why the guy i bought it from sold it lol.

 

its not that bad to do yourself. You'll need a trim tab popper or a putty knife works, 7,8,10, 12, 13, and I think 17mm sockets, a phillips head screwdriver, and there maybe a couple T30 torx in there(there were in the durango I did).

The dash is modular and comes out relatively easily. Bigdaddy's pics above let you know what you're in for.

 

You could have saved yourself time by doing it this way



(note the dash is still in the vehicle, I just rotated it out of the way. That heavy metal bracket the steering wheel bolts to, which also holds the brake booster on, was left in place also.)

 

His dash blew up when he took it out. So he had to replace it.

 

The dash was cracked to hades already and when I popped to piece closest to the windshield off it shattered. I ended up buying a new top piece and then putting a cover on.

I took it all the way out with the idea of changing the heater core without removing the box. That hadnt worked out as planned and if I had to do it again I wouldn't pull the entire steering wheel and dash out.

 

First if you have a/c on one drives side and not on other it could be low on Freon. When I replaced my heater core I only had half a can of Freon and that's what it did until I put more in this summer. If you replace the heater core do the evap also for sure. I kick my self for not doing it. Plan on a weekend. took me about 12 hours total but I took my time and laid everything out on a table. There are screws that hold the upper dash to duct lines you do not have to remove. Putting it back together with sun light was much easier than my big shop lights also. I had to replace both my upper and lower dash because they were already cracked bad. in a pinch I put it all back together without the upper and lower dash and drove it for 3 months until I found a good used one. just the radio part and the headlight switch installed. Another thing I should have done is cleaned all the ducts while I had it apart.