On the People' s Court today or yesterday, someone bought a second hadd fridge and was satisified with how it worked, at first.
He said one has to use it for a day to see if it's really working, after it has been moved.
He's all confused, isn't he? Moving it is no problem unless it's been laid on its side during the move, right??? (or maybe shaken op and down like a cocktail)
And if it has been on its side, it's supposed to sit withOUT running for a day, right, to let all the freon settle to the bottom, or whatever, right??
I saw the episode too. Having to wait a day after you plug it in to find out if the fridge really gets cold and works correctly is what I thought the plaintiff meant.
For the peanut galley, the case was a guy bought a Sub Zero fridge that new would cost $7k for $800 on craigslist. He claimed that the seller assured him that it worked, but the buyer never saw it working, never tested it, etc. Seller delivered it and it started up when plugged in. But it didn't get cold, or not cold enough. Buyer claims he had
2 appliance guys look at it and they told him it has a bad condenser and is not repairable. Seller claims the buyer told him he had an estimate for $800 to fix it.
Seller claims he got the fridge from a builder that was doing a remodel 2 years before. He was going to use it himself in his own kitchen, but didn't finish the remodel, even though his business is kitchen cabinets. He had the fridge sitting around, never tried it in 2 years, and decided to sell it.
They both had major credibility problems. The plaintiffs big gap was that despite claiming he had 2 appliance guys tell him the thing is not repairable, he didn't bring either guys bill, statement, anything to court. Yet, he was also suing for $250 to cover the cost of the two service calls..... His other huge problem was that he had no proof whatever that they seller had guaranteed him that it worked.
Plaintiff lost the case.
The bad condenser not repairable got me thinking. In another thread there was discussion about the refrigerant circuit running all the way over to the front to provide heating around the doors to prevent condensation. I also have a vertical type freezer where the side gets hot, as they evidently use that to get rid of the heat. In the old days, the condenser was a coil on the whole back of the unit. Now they are buried inside. I'm wondering if it's true that if a condenser goes on some of these new units, it's impossible or just way too much labor to replace the condenser? On that Sub Zero, given the $7K cost, it would have to be impossible for it to not be worth fixing.?
Yes, a lot of times they do. If for example they have a loan agreement in writing, or a bill of sale for a car that concurs with their version of events.
The Sub Zero units I've seen were built like commercial systems which are very easy to service and repair. Of course it depends on the model and age of the fridge but the ones I've seen used standard service valves and repairable condensing units. ^_^
Everything is humanly possible if you're willing to throw enough money at a problem.
But, in the case where the condenser tubing runs all the way around the fridge to heat the mullion between the fridge and freezer doors, then replacing the condenser may be economically unfeasible. That's cuz getting the old condenser out means taking the fridge entirely apart.
What they might do is cut the condenser lines at the back or bottom of the fridge and pressure test the part of the condenser tubing that's hardest to replace, and if it pressure tests ok, then just replace the part of the condensor that's easiest to replace if that's where the leak is.
But, if it's the "hard to replace" part of the condenser tubing that won't hold pressure, that's where the leak is and finding that leak may require taking the whole fridge apart, or at least cutting into the side of the fridge cabinet to access the leaking tubing and brazing another piece of tubing in and patching that hole back as best you can, and calling that a "repair".
In that case, the fridge will work, but it just won't look like it's worth $7,000 anymore with the duct tape holding that piece of galvanized metal on the side of the fridge cabinet.
The more practical option might just be to walk away from the used fridge so as not to start throwing good money after bad.
Personally, if I were talking to someone about buying their old fridge or freezer, I would tell them to plug it in on Tuesday or Wednesday with a plastic glass of water in the freezer compartment and a pound of butter in the fresh food compartment. Then I'd come down on Saturday or Sunday after the fridge had been running for 2 or 3 days to check that the water is ice and the butter is fairly hard. That's not an unreasonable request for anyone who's buying a used fridge to ask of the seller. And, if the fridge does work OK, the seller will be happy to comply.
(I once had a tenant tell me their fridge wasn't working. When I got to the apartment, they'd moved all of their cold food into the trunk of their car (cuz it was winter) and had moved the fridge close to the suite door in anticipation that I'd be replacing it. I had no way of telling what was wrong with the fridge, so I got an extension cord to plug the old fridge in and discovered that there was no power to the plug. It turns out the fuse had blown and there was nothing wrong with the fridge at all.)
That's what the judge kept saying too. The buyer was saying that it takes 24 hours to find out if it works and the judge asked why he didn't just do that before he bought it. The seller claimed that in the two years since he acquired it he never tried it out either. I think his credibility was shot by the fact that he's in the kitchen cabinet business, yet he claims he had this acquired fridge sitting in his torn apart kitchen for two years, unused?
Buyer lost mainly because he had no proof that the seller guaranteed that the fridge worked. And the fact that buyer also claimed he had two repair guys that he paid $250 tell him it was not repairable, yet he had no reciept, no statement, nada to support that sure didn't help his credibility.
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