With the supply and demand issues, summer time, and an unpredictable future as far as I can tell (I'm not HVAC expert, obviously), I am in a predicament that I am unsure how to proceed.

We bought our little farm house just shy of a year ago. We have a home warranty for 3 more months. Our AC compressor is showing signs of an imminent failure (According to the tech, pressures are looking not great). We also discovered the start capacitor was blown and hard starting for about a month or so. We had a hard start kit installed and the unit sounds MUCH better on start up. It heats and cools fine.

My concerns are these...

1. Warranty about to run out
2. Current system is a low end unit
3. Being summer, I'm sure prices will be high, but will warranty pay out make up for the difference? (They are willing to pay $1400 total for whatever we want to replace)
4. Getting quoted $2600 total for system replacement for existing unit, not including upgrade.
5. New unit will have 10 year warranty, replacement parts will only have 1 year.
6. Supply and demand could get far worse (I Have some economic knowledge, so I understand fully what shut downs, stimulus, and this admin will have on potential energy issues)

Lastly, will an upgrade in quality and potentially size have an impact on energy savings as well?

Respect to the tradies here. Y'all are hard workers and worth your salt.

I'd replace it, it's already getting hard AF to find equipment and it's only the beginning of summer

You should be able to extend the homebuyers warranty. They are still emailing me to renew mine after over a year it has been expired...

You are really looking at the seer of the unit. The higher the seer the more energy efficient the unit is. You could probably pay for the new unit with the energy savings over a period of time. I am no HVAC expect but we are currently looking at replacing our 20+ year old unit. An HVAC expect could tell you what the ROI is on a new/higher seer unit, but you will definitely see a reduced cost in energy. Also, you may not need a higher capacity unit. There are calculators online that will tell you what size (ton) of a unit your house needs.

lol @ tradies srs

Replace it before it’s too late. We’re having a hell of a time getting supplies right now.