This winter (in MN) we started hearing what we thought was our furnace occasionally making a loud noise we hadn't heard before. Couldn't really tell where it was coming from and didn't do it all the time. Finally had someone come out and look at it and they said our AC started running (along with the furnace) because of a short in some electrical wire. They disabled it and said we'll need to have an electrician check it out but the AC may be shot due to running in the winter.

This seems really odd to me - that something like this would happen out of the blue. In any case, do you think the AC is worth trying to fix or just get a new one? We are looking at getting a new furnace - which gets a lot of use in Minnesota. The AC on the other hand only runs a few days a year. They are both 19 years old though.