>SET RANT ON
You're up against a huge corporation. Today, I met a conspiracy. The thing is simple: the main fan on my house AC broke. I found that it's no rocket science to dismantle - and found a shop which would have the replacement motor. However, they needed to see the fans - to see the number of fins, step, direction etc etc. So we decided to ditch the whole outside unit and get a new one installed. They said they can't, by law, sell an outside unit to anyone but licensed contractors. OK, I wouldn't want to handle the freon myself anyway - but I could at least know how much was the unit.
No, for contractors only. No quotes to end customers. I understand that the law requires a licensed person to handle the freon; but I have my serious doubts that there's any good reason for hiding the prices of the parts from the general public, just to protect the contractors. So I don't know how much it is; they can charge me whatever they want.
>SET RANT OFF