SS Brewtech 3/8 hp glycol chiller quality control

[Breweasy]

So i pulled the trigger about 3 weeks ago on a 3/8 hp glycol chiller and have had a few issues with it.

the first issue i had was the chiller has some cosmetic issues as well as i found a loose nut in the bottom of the box and the compressor bolts were loose. i immediately contacted their support and after a little run around we came to an agreement for the cosmetics. as for the random nut they told me”i’d find out where it came from when i turned it on” doesn't make you feel good right? as for the loose compressor bolts i tightened those up.

fast forward two week, i finally was about to use the chiller. immediately upon turning the chiller on and the fan starting i hear a lot of dinging and bam out of the fan assembly comes another nut. upon further investigation i come to find that these two nuts are for the fan motor. I again contacted their support, this time i had to contact them twice and after over a week i finally received a response telling me these probably came loose during shipping and for me to remove the fan cover and fix it myself.

I have a few thoughts on this, if i have had this much quality control issues out the box what other problems am i going to come across in the next year? also, removing the fan cover requires me to squeeze my hands between what looks like refrigerant lines, what if i break something, will SS repair or replace? I have alot of uneasy feeling on this item and SS Brewtechs support or lack there of.

I am still in the process of working with their support but I’d appreciate any suggestions as i feel like their Support is lacking and a little insulted that they would ask me to fix my new chiller.

 

[Drumminguy81]

Return it and get a Penguin chiller. For that kind of money you should not have issues out of the box. Further more they should have offered to exchange it for a new one and then if they wanted to repair that one and sell it as an open refurbished item that is up to them. Asking a customer to "repair it yourself" is ridiculous no matter how easy it may be. Nuts dont "come loose in shipping" if they are properly tightened in the first place.

 

[augiedoggy]

just my 2 cents and nothing more ,
I agree that the customer service should have been better especially for what its being sold for.
But at the same time, This is a chiller and not really designed to be a home consumer product like a fridge or microwave. The possible flip side of this from a chiller companies point of view is, since they are a piece of machinery that normally requires installation and maintenance by the owner or maintenance dept like coil cleaning and fan motor oiling that reinstalling a nut that fell off should be something in the scope of what the owner could handle, They probably figured since there isnt much to the unit or many things bolted down its would be fairly easy to see where the nut came from and reinstall it. I believe theres just a fan, condenser and compressor to look at and see where the nut came from. at least thats the way both my chillers are setup. This is a chiller designed for a business and not really designed to be a home consumer product like a fridge or microwave. Paying to have the unit shipped back to reinstall a nut would certainly cost money and that would be passed down to the consumer in the form of higher prices so its really all about how you want to look at whats reasonable to different people.

as far as the fan coming loose further and the fan blade catching, at that point they should have taken it back IMO and certainly shouldnt be giving you a hard time about it.

These things are more or less meant for beer line chilling before ss has the pumps removed and sells them. And in that type of use they are expected to have some cosmetic scratches and dings without anyone caring as it doesnt effect the function they perform and they will be sitting above a walk in cooler or in a basement in most cases. It would be like being upset about a paint chip on a pipewrench in those situations. They are normally not designed with cosmetics in mind either for this reason.
In this case dont know if they ship directly from the chiller company who normally makes them and sell them under a different brand name or ss brewtech actually repackages them but that could have some effect on things too.

 

[Breweasy]

just my 2 cents and nothing more ,
I agree that the customer service should have been better especially for what its being sold for.
But at the same time, This is a chiller and not really designed to be a home consumer product like a fridge or microwave. The possible flip side of this from a chiller companies point of view is, since they are a piece of machinery that normally requires installation and maintenance by the owner or maintenance dept like coil cleaning and fan motor oiling that reinstalling a nut that fell off should be something in the scope of what the owner could handle, They probably figured since there isnt much to the unit or many things bolted down its would be fairly easy to see where the nut came from and reinstall it. I believe theres just a fan, condenser and compressor to look at and see where the nut came from. at least thats the way both my chillers are setup. This is a chiller designed for a business and not really designed to be a home consumer product like a fridge or microwave. Paying to have the unit shipped back to reinstall a nut would certainly cost money and that would be passed down to the consumer in the form of higher prices so its really all about how you want to look at whats reasonable to different people.

as far as the fan coming loose further and the fan blade catching, at that point they should have taken it back IMO and certainly shouldnt be giving you a hard time about it.

These things are more or less meant for beer line chilling before ss has the pumps removed and sells them. And in that type of use they are expected to have some cosmetic scratches and dings without anyone caring as it doesnt effect the function they perform and they will be sitting above a walk in cooler or in a basement in most cases. It would be like being upset about a paint chip on a pipewrench in those situations. They are normally not designed with cosmetics in mind either for this reason.
In this case dont know if they ship directly from the chiller company who normally makes them and sell them under a different brand name or ss brewtech actually repackages them but that could have some effect on things too.

Thank you for your perspective on this, I do agree that sending it back to repair just a loose nut would be costly on them not to mention a pain for me, the unit holds a 9 gal mix plus weighs close to 80 lbs.

On one hand I feel I should just fix the loose nuts, and move on. they did assure me that the unit is covered by a one year direct warranty, as long as I don’t modify the unit if something were to break they would cover it.

On the other hand I feel I purchased this unit so I would not have to mess around with stuff like this. The item is being sold as a premium home brew accessory and should be treated as such.

Again thank you for your input, I just have to decide which hand I choose.

 

[Breweasy]

Return it and get a Penguin chiller. For that kind of money you should not have issues out of the box. Further more they should have offered to exchange it for a new one and then if they wanted to repair that one and sell it as an open refurbished item that is up to them. Asking a customer to "repair it yourself" is ridiculous no matter how easy it may be. Nuts dont "come loose in shipping" if they are properly tightened in the first place.

Thank you for your comment, this definitely reassures some of my feeling on this matter.

As for the penguin chiller, I did look at them, and read some forums on here about them but ultimately chose SS because i own a few of their products and felt more at ease making a large purchase from them...maybe I was wrong