Is A/C failure common?

I did a search on ac issue, ac failure, a/c issue, a/c failure and didn't find anything. My wife just called to tell me that the a/c isn't cooling. I guess I'm off to the dealer but wanted to get an idea if others have had this issue. Thanks.

 

Thanks for the responses. Upon investigation last night, a rock took out the conden$er. Major ouch. Not under warranty obviously..... I will be installing a wire mesh behind the grille after we get the car back from the shop.

 

I could.....but she lets me have a race car.... If I piss her off there might be consequences. She feels bad enough.

 

Thanks again to everyone for the replies and comments.

I did talk to my insurance provider today. Comprehensive would cover it, but my insurance provider (Mercury) considers it as a "single person accident" so it would be 1 point against the driver, and raise our rate by $300 / year for 3 years - and does it ever go down??? Over the 3 years, this is basically the delta ($80 diff) between deductible and the total amount.

Plus, if -heaven forbid- my wife gets in another accident, she'd have 2 points and our rate would got up $1000 / year. I've cross-shopped insurance like a mad-man over the past 2-3 years and I'm at least $800 less per year than AAA, Costco, State Farm, Farmers....etc.... because of my 18 years with Mercury.

So, I'm still money ahead and am just going to suck this up - annoying as it is. Just need to work on a plan to prevent it on this car, plus my other 2, from ever happening again.

 

Car is only 5 months old, and all the panels were intact. Definitely just a dose of bad luck. Following the instructions by a fellow PriusChat person, I installed 1/4" mesh (same stuff I use on the race car) down from the top near the hood latch for all 3 frontal openings. Doesn't look half bad, and you don't notice the black tie-wraps unless you are reallllly looking for them.

 

Finished in the dark....so crappy cellphone pics are all I can muster at the moment. I should have taken pictures to show the access technique and attachment technique I used, but just too tired. I removed the license plate in order to have better vision to where I was putting the black tie-wraps. Pictures coming in about 15 minutes.

 

If you look closely, you can see that my mesh wasn't quite wide enough, so I had to stitch an extra 3 inches on the right side - so there is some overlap that I safety wired together. If it bothers me looking forward, I'll redo it. I just didn't want my wife to drive another day without some protection. (Upper left if just the license plate hole).