I tell ya Marine, I was at the shop to get the compressor replaced, moving the car to the lift when the darn AC went cold and I almost lost my nerve right there! :-P

I myself didnt do it until the delays got so long that it would hardly go cold anymore and there was nothing to lose anyway.

Let us know if and when you go though with it, we are the first people talking about solving this problem online that I know of, I know because when I was going through this there was hardly any info on the BMW forums.