Freezer Rant..

[hemi]

One of my freezers quit over the weekend. I noticed it before I had any major losses. It was a maytag that was JUST outta warranty.. FIGGERS..
I got on the home depot site and priced a cooling fan from their parts
department. over 125.00. will ship monday if I punch the button.
I went to the lowes site and priced a complete new freezer. 198 ??
I live within sight of a lowes and in an hour it was at my house and set up.
198 bucks and tax.. 125 plus for a replacement fan. seems unreal..

Went to EBAY and found a universal replacement fan for less than 20
bucks ,with shipping..

Just WHY would ANYONE pay 125 bucks for a fan when they would buy a complete , new freezer for 198 bucks with free delivery ? Hemi..

 

[bmudd14474]

I think alot of people dont think they can get a new one cheaper sometimes.

 

[gnubee]

I dropped my computer off at the Staples tech shop. They said it needed a new power supply. $130.00.... So I stupidly said sure go ahead and fix it. They say it will probably need a good dusting too do you want us to vaccume it. I say why not. They asked about a bunch of other stuff too so dumb ole me says sure do the lot. Did I ask for a final estimate? No of course not. That would have been smart, I have no claim to smart.

It serves me right because when I went to pick it up and was told that now the computer works but will not accept Windows anymore???? $80 bux to re load it. Then $80.00 to recover my stuff which admittedly I never backed up. That plus some extras came to $338. I could have bought a new one for $400.00

When the Clerk handed it back to me, He said it works but just not all of it, We couldn't fix some of the stuff.

How on earth is that possible with a unit that is completely modular and every module is replacable? Something smelled rotten so I looked up the manager. He was upset because his employee would hand back a unit that had been certified as fixed that wasn't in fact fixed. He said The tech has gone home sick and I would have to come back after the weekend in 3 days and it would be done.

Instead of leaving it there, I took it home so I could use it for some important offline work on the weekend. ( I do a small newsletter )

The kicker was it still didn't work which bugged me. Plus I checked the bill and there was a charge of $30 for blowing the dust off of it. Made me mad to think I paid $30 just to blow dust off the darn thing. So I taught myself how to back up my stuff this time. Then I figured out how to do a complete format of the hard drive. With my new found skill I was able to re-load the original stuff that came with it when it was new. After several hours of re loading all the drivers and odds and ends it now is working like a charm. I even took out the power supply and re installed it just to prove to myself that I could do it.

If I had applied myself a little sooner I could have bought a power supply, figured it out, because its not that hard, and done all the other stuff in the first place and saved myself about $200.00

So on Monday I go into staples to buy a 1 into four hub. The kid who gave me such a hard time under his breath says to his buddy Uh oh here comes that Jerk who complained and got me into trouble.

Now I am mad, Smoking mad. I went over to him and I tore a strip off of him a mile wide.

The lady on the till near the door says to me as I leave, He sure needed that He's rude to everyone, thank you.

I am too mad to answer.

Back at home I even looked for and found my vcr manual, then learned how to make that damm clock stop blinking 12pm .

I have since found out that you can get a good power supply off of ebay for about $40.00 or for $10.00 at the downtown computer repair guy.

You live and you learn.

PS I think part of my problem is that initially I had a mindset that it was worth the $1800 I paid for it in 2006 and didn't realize that for $400 I could get an even better faster computer. At the time I figured $338 was a reasonable price for fixing an $1800 unit when in reality it is probably only worth about $200 now.

 

[the iceman]

When you go to the manufacturer for non-warrantee parts you will alway pay a premium price. I deal with warrantee situations all the time & typically you would pay anywhere from 50% to 200% above the same part you might be able to find elsewhere.

As you discovered, there are many times alternative sources. And then other times you have no choice but to pay the price because it is an OEM part.

 

[beer-b-q]

Almost everything made today is made with the intent that when something goes wrong it is replaced not repaired, it is the cost of living in a throwaway society...

Televisions are a good example of that, remember when TV repair shops were around? Try to find one now...

If a person is able to perform the repairs themselves there are good sources for replacement parts for computers and home electronics. If you need a serviceman to do the repairs you are better off buying a new item with a warranty...

It is the new China Syndrome...

 

[forluvofsmoke]

Hmmm......Hemi, you reminded me of a situation 4 years ago with a nearly-crashed 4 month old Kenmore upright 20 cu ft freezer we have. It all started when the temps started climbing in the top of the freezer on my first day off work, and I kept cranking the thermostat. The weird part was, only the upper areas of the freezer were warming up. The bottom foods were still frozen solid and the thermometer was reading -15* down low, +25* up high. My wife or kids mentioned that it was noisy the day before...cause unknown. My first thought was: Noisy, ooooooh crap, the compressor is shelled........now, I'm frantically trying to figure out what plan "A" is, and have no idea what plan "B" could possible entail...never had a freezer crash before...ever.

I finally decided to start emptying the freezer into coolers and come up with a makeshift plan on how to salvage as much of the more expensive items as I could. During this process, I noticed what looked like a missing screw in the lower portion of the freezer where the circulating fan is located. Just an empty hole in the back panel. I grabbed my tool kit and a flashlight and set out to find what the missing screw belonged to. The fan mounting base had the missing screw (actually, broken screw head, the screw was still in the mounting base), and the other of the two screws had vibrated loose, allowing the fan blades to contact the air discharge outlet hole in the panel, hence the noisy freezer.

When I got around to finding the problem, the fan had been stalled overnight and half the next day (no more noise...I'm thinking, yeah right, what noise?), so, yeah, the freezer temps are gonna be strange. The broken screw had obviously been over-torqued during assembly and then failed after a few months in service. Easy fix, just darn glad I was home to catch it.

We kind of got suckered into buying this freezer, as I didn't want any more kenmore appliances in my house. In NE Wyoming, if you own anything requiring tech field service by Sears, you will be waiting a very, very long time. The service tech is a contractor for the last 4 or 5 years now...that's right, they no longer have any local Sears repair techs in this area. What a CROCK! And we wonder why Sears and K-mart are partnered up?

Anyway, the guy will show up, check out your appliance, order parts and says he'll return in about 3 weeks to repair it. When he shows up (usually a week or more late), he finds more problems and needs more parts because he got cocky and thought he'd figured it all out the first visit to your home. So, he orders more parts, and about 2 months after your initial call for waranty service, you MIGHT have a properly working appliance again. We've been through this twice with two different appliances...those appliances are no longer in our home.

I like Craftsman tools for their warranty service which is great...if you break it, call a "reputable" Sears store for a replacement. When it comes in, you exchange it for yours, no questions asked. But, Kenmore no more...for us.

Eric