That what dealers are all about. If the dealers went out and worked for just labor, they could not make enough money to cover all there over head. Keep
in mind that a dealer has worked hard to get all the knowledge he has. He has to cover the warranties on the equipment. insurance for the bus., paying for the
licenses. all this is why is has to sell, and not work for labor. So i would say you should buy it from a dealer so you have, tech, insurance, and service.
Later Paulbm

Federal law allows you to purchase the system, but not open the valves that release the refrigerant into the lines.

I'm just about done with this one here. It's not hard to install it but with out any gauges, vacuum pump, refrigerant, flairing tools & hvac and electrical experience, i wouldn't advise you on trying it.

Hope this helps

:It's not hard to install it but with out any gauges, vacuum pump, refrigerant, flairing tools & hvac and electrical experience, i wouldn't advise you on trying it."

It is also illegal.

Very true. I forgot that one.

We bought a system over the internet 4 years ago pretty cheap. We installed the system and ran the lines, and called an A/C company to do the final pressure hook up.
This past winter the unit broke.
No response from the original sellers about buying parts and no answers from the manufacturer about getting parts or repair.
So, in replacing it last week, I hired a local A/C guy and bought the unit through them. They will warranty it and say they are confident that if they need parts, they will be able to get them.
The first unit cost us $600 plus around $400 for the company to come out and hook up. The second unit is around $2000 after the gov't tax break thing.
The first one made it past the manufacturer's warranty period, but if it hadn't, I don't think we'd have really had any recourse. The A/C guys didn't have to run the lines, because they used the original ones, so their price wasn't as high as it would have been to do a first time install, but I didn't enjoy running the lines, and I'm not sure what I'd do if I had it to do over.

It's funny to see this because I just got done hooking up 8 of these (Mitsu Mr Slims) on the last job I was on. We did the electric, the units were already in place and the coolant lines were ran.
The cooper coolant lines were ran thru the building with black insulation around them and connected to both the condenser and wall unit.

To us it looked like the easy part. Now I am curious, what needs to be done to hookup the coolant lines of one of these units and get it running?