Comments on: Refurbished gear: Good or bad?

Have you ever purchased a refurbished item? If so, did it turn out to be the great deal you expected, a total disaster, or something in between? Share your stories and read one by The Cheapskate himself.

[peteyboy84]

I just purchased a Sansa e250 factory recertified from Buy.com.

http://www.buy.com/prod/sandisk-sansa-e250-2gb-mp3-player-fm-tuner-fm-on-the-fly-recording/q/loc/111/205562657.html

It was only $39.99 with FREE shipping. Sounded like a good deal. I was also able to get a 1gb microSD for it for $8.95 from Buy.com as well as a leather case for it for $11.81.

Total came to about $60. Not bad for a 3gb mp3 / video player with a case. I bought it yesterday and it already shipped, just waiting for it to arrive now. What do you think Mr. Cheapskate?

[rickbroida]

Score! Those Sansas are nice. Hope you enjoy it.

[buffalosam]

peteyboy - i bought the Sansa e250 from Buy.com also, got it before christmas. Plan is to use it to entertain my 3 yr old on plane and car trips. I can tell you from playing with it so far it is a nice piece of electronics, and the software allows drag an drop importing and converting of video files. By the way seemed brand new with only a recertified sticker on it.

I have bought several refurb gear over the years (chop saws, nail guns, vcr ...), and as long as you stick with a well respected brand name i think you should be ok. I would not be suprised to find out that some manufactures actually sell perfectly good equipment as refurb. even when it is not just to keep their certified retailers happy and to make sure that they dont dilute their brand. In addition it allows the reseller to act as a simple warehouse by refusing to handle any "DOA" issues. i.e. Buy.com [I dont mind trying to save, and have bought into taking some risk along the way, who knows if it actually save significant money in the long run, but i like working the system to find a way to get my way if i do eventually get a lemon product.

[mmlowe]

I bought a refurb Roomba a little over a week ago. No problems (so far)... It was a good deal on Buy.com and I've always kinda wanted one, so I took the chance.

[rickbroida]

Actually, I bought a refurb Scooba last month and it didn't work well at all. I'd forgotten all about that! Okay, that's two bad refurb experiences...

[munkeefunkee]

I bought a 12" powerbook refurbished, with the full one year warranty. It was also in the middle of the battery replacement drama. I got my new battery and have had absolutely no issues with Apple. Took it in for a stuck drive and they fixed at the store. The next one I am going to buy is going to be the same.

But my experience with brick and mortar has been miserable. I buy new in the box, even if it is a great discount. Too many people return crap and the stores resell it. It is a cheap disposable item, I will risk it but not for large items

[stampy932]

i think it depends on the type of refurb thing. For me, things that have more moving parts are alot less attractive to me as refurb b/c i dont know where the product has been or how used before[paranoid?]. So, i wouldnt buy hard drives or dvd players like that but would buy monitors and computers - even tho a computer has a hard drive (an exception i guess :) ) My last 2 computers came from dell outlet

[jamostew]

Bought a refurbed LaCie NAS from eCost. It was DOA. They're taking it back w/o any fuss. However, to me it just isn't worth the time and hassle to save $20-30. Also, eCost told me that they do the refurbishing themselves! Needless to say, I'm not impressed.

[yanchineseguy]

I've purchased a number of refurbished items, including a CRT monitor, several telephone handsets, a desktop, and various PC parts. So far, no problems. I do, however, anticipate that sooner or later I'll get a refurb that will be DOA or have major problems, but I try to stick to major and trusted brands, and I look for manufacturer warranties like the one Apple has. I think for small, no-name sites, the hassle of having to deal with a broken item just isn't worth the money saved.

[moebsghost]

I'm a huge Apple fan, but I bought a refurbished mac portable that has been nothing but trouble. Wintering in Mexico meant the warranty was useless. SO NO....DON'T BUY! refurbished can equal TRASH, even from a great company like Apple.

[losoldato]

They weren't refurbs, but I have bought two open-box items in my life: The HP Pavilion ze4210 notebook that I am typing this on (I bought it in February 2003) and a Panasonic PT-50LC13 1080i 50" LCD HDTV (That I bought in February 2005). I had some initial trouble with the notebook, but since then other than to replace the hard drive in notebook this past summer, it has been trouble-free! The TV has never been any trouble.

I got the notebook for about 35% less than its original price and the TV - a 2004 model - was less than 50% of the 2005 model! (The current year's model - which had the additional feature of a headphone jack on the front of the TV - was then $3200)

[BPS277]

I bought a refurbished computer from Tiger.com and saved $300 from what Best Buy wanted and so far it has been fine. I'm using it right now, so if I see a deal like that it's hard for me to pass up. This is my first time buying refurbished, but it has been a good experience, I will probably do so again.

[n-solis]

I bought a refurbished PowerBook G4 years ago and got a great deal. When it arrived, it had features I hadn't even ordered (or paid for): twice as much memory and Bluetooth. Sweet!

[tarrantm]

Only have 1 good refurb experience - bought an Onkyo A/V reciever with HDMI from their online refurb store. Worked perfectly for 8 months and then I gave it away for a new Sony (which wasn't nearly as good but it had more HDMI ports).

Bought a refurb LCD a while ago and it was wayyyy too dim. Sent it back. Bought a refurb Gallo speaker set - omg the suckage - had to replace em with some brand new Klipsch ones.

If I have to time to spend and if the refurb has a reasonable return/money back policy, I may go that route again. Heck, even with brand new items, I don't buy anything on the web unless it has a reasonable return/exchange/money back policy.

[Scott Gardener]

I've become a bit of a stickler for reliability, and thus you won't find me buying very many refurbs any more. But, back in the days, I used to do it. In the end, I probably didn't save any money, because for every refurb that did well, I had one that didn't, costing me a lot of time trouble-shooting and exchanging or returning.

I had excellent luck in the nineties with a refurbished Hewlett Packard Pavilion. (Back in 1996, people actually spelled out "Hewlett Packard" instead of "HP," which to us old timer geeks could lead to confusion with "hit points.") It survived with upgrades for three years as my main computer and another five as my mother's. Most computers bought brand new haven't had the same track record.

But, I would not recoomend refurbished OEM parts. I built a computer with a "may have been refurbished" OEM motherboard, and it had compatibility problems with four different brands of memory, including Corsair. Note that a lot of the memory was itself OEM, so I first blamed the memory, until premium, well-respected non-OEM RAM had problems, too. Granted, this was in the days of Windows 98, which didn't help matters. But, around 2002 or so, my computer was having major problems all the time.

I'll consider refurbished hardware from reputable brands, but I'll avoid OEM parts like the plague. It's the difference between a "Certified pre-owned Lexus" and a used car.

[Snorri]

I have bought two computers and two laser printers refurbished over they years. I had good results with all of them. The computers lasted as long as any of the ones I bought new. Unfortunately, the store where I got the computers has gone out of business.

The printers were two Samsung lasers. One was for me and one for an organization I belong to. Both have worked fine for over a year. I am still using the original toner cartridge in mine. It was supposed to be a starter cartridge. I am still using it almost two years later.

[One-Eared Gundark]

I've never had a problem with refurbished items. On item I bought, a refurb iPAQ direct from HP, is working great for four years and counting - even after being dropped on a concrete floor from five feet up. Okay, so I have tape holding the battery door on, but what do you expect?

I would not buy a refurbished hard drive, LCD, or plasma display, though. Or an electric toothbrush ;)

I've only bought refurbs directly from the company, however, never from a retailer.

[vchalupa]

One of my family members used to work for HPs sales department and he often told me that the refurb products are much better than the new products because they are tested a lot more than the new products. He often stressed the fact that although there may be a little scratch on the back side of the product of something very minor that we usually don't care much for, they are often well tested and ensured that they work well before they re-sell it. That convinced me to buy a refurb laptop from HP and I have taken it abroad and it worked perfectly.

I guess refurb products depend on who buys what and when. Some work out, and some unfortunately don't.

[vchalupa]

One of my family members used to work for HPs sales department and he often told me that the refurb products are much better than the new products because they are tested a lot more than the new products. He often stressed the fact that although there may be a little scratch on the back side of the product of something very minor that we usually don't care much for, they are often well tested and ensured that they work well before they re-sell it. That convinced me to buy a refurb laptop from HP and I have taken it abroad and it worked perfectly.

I guess refurb products depend on who buys what and when. Some work out, and some unfortunately don't.

[franbvm`]

Love refurbished!
I have purchased 2 HP refurb computers from COSTCO.com and have no trouble with either one. The first purchase is over 2 years old and the other HP is just over a year old.
Both were excellent deals with lots of "bells and whistles" for the money!

[cmabps]

I've got a refub Samung 17" LCD-HDTV for my kitchen. I think I got it from Second Act. No problems yet in over 1 yr. Had a disappointment, though.. it was represented as wall-mountable, which was important in my case. I already had a swing-arm VESA mount on the wall (I was replacing a cheapo no-name set which quit after 2 1/2 yrs). The Samsung would not mount to it and I had to scramble to find the propietary wall-mount kit, which cost an additional $100 + shipping and does not swing.

On a brighter note, that cheapo set that quit? Costco took it back for a full refund.

[mitygrog]

I purchased a refurbed Sanyo 20" TV with digital tuner from Ubid.com a while back and had it shipped direct to a friend as a gift. The set plays well and no problems with shipping. Total price with shipping charge was $98 if I'm remember correctly.