Subaru Repair: 06 Legacy wagon--? need a/c compressor, legacy wagon, battery shop

Question
'96 has only 79k miles. recently smell of burning rubber and black smoke coming out under hood by battery. shop said i need new a/c compressor ($1100) but they put freon in and it still works fine--had no other incidents of smoke and smell of burning rubber.do i really need to spend $1100 on compressor--could it be something else? hadn't run the a/c that much when this happened. will it ruin the rest of my engine if i don't fix it? does this model have serpentine belt or other? thank you very much!

Answer
You can remove the ac belt or disconnect the ac compressor electronically to disable it from coming on if you want to live without having ac.The ac belt is all by itself .I cant really say if you really need a compressor or not but i can tell you that it is a common problem.I hope that helps.

Justin
All Wheel Drive Auto