Buying a second hand fridge freezer

Haggle haggle haggle.

ignore for a minute the fact that it's a model you particularly you want, he doesn't need to know that, and see what else is around at a similar spec, then use those prices to work with. if he has been trying to sell since before christmas then chances are he's asking too much.

That's the trouble - there's really nothing to compare it to. Ebay has a similar model for sale, brand new but not from a dealer and that's going to go for around half the new price by the looks of things.

He's asking 375. I think I'll offer 250 as a starting point - assuming it all looks OK when we get to see it.

I think that's quite a lot. I find that things just don't hold a second hand value really now that brand new can be so cheap. Aside from it being a model you want you could surely get a decent FF for £375, I'm not really saying you personally but in general that's decent money to buy a new one.

I think £250 is a better offer and would go up to £300 max.

The FF, when new, was 700 - and yes, we could absolutely get another FF for a lot less than he's asking - especially as it's to replace the one that lives in the shed! Although if we do get this one then it's going in the kitchen and the current one will be relegated.

I'm not prepared to go over £300 either so it's good to have that validated.

When we were buying the car before Christmas we tried haggling with one garage who just wouldn't budge on the price and got really quite aggressive with us when we tried to negotiate. I started to wonder if we were being really rude or naive in trying to get them to shift. We walked away, and despite the predictions of the dealer that we'd never find a better deal, paid £500 less for the same model, with lower mileage and in better condition, less than a day later from a different place who were more than willing to negotiate to make a sale.

Boop,

Just a thought about you keeping your FF in the garage - this article, taken from UK White Goods website, has the following advice about keeping your FF in the garage. I'm in the same position at the moment - we have a small FF in our static caravan which we are living in at the moment. The ambient temp has been very low and therefore the freezer section has not been working.

Worth a read if nothing else.

This leads us to the problem and the reason for writing this article in the first place. Putting a modern fridge or fridge freezer in a garage or outhouse/outbuilding that is unheated is pretty much a non-starter and you are asking for trouble by doing so. Likewise if, like some people I have come across, you keep your home, kitchen or utility area where the machine is, below 16°C then you may well also have problems.

With fridge freezers where there is only a single compressor (easy to spot as there’s only one black “bottle” at the back and/or generally only one control for fridge and freezer) this means that all too often the ambient can be lower than the cut in point for the fridge. Since the fridge thermostat controls the on/off for the freezer as well it means that, for long periods during the colder winter months, the freezer won’t cut in and the food will defrost.

The problem for the service engineer of course is that there is no fault with the appliance, it simply has not been installed in the correct environment.

Conversely, in an environment that is too warm, such as a conservatory during the warm summer months, the compressor can be working overtime trying to keep the insides cold enough. This is because the insulation isn’t designed to cope with the extremely high temperature and the unit cannot repel enough heat ingress or Keep the cold air in well enough, this can and does lead to many an early failure.

In the end most refrigeration products you can buy easily are not designed for these environments and, if you place them under such conditions you should not be surprised when they do not perform correctly.

Boop - I was just about to say exactly what Pud has put above. We've just bought a new FF and they all specifically say they're not designed to be in garages or sheds.

Interesting, Pud, but we've been keeping a FF in the shed since we moved in here 6 years ago. It could be that it's colder than it's ever been before which is why the freezer isn't working so well, but I'm not sure that's true. The FF that's out there is over 10 years old so I think it's just knackered.

The FF that will go out there has separate temperature controls for the Fridge and Freezer sections so it wouldn't be an issue once we replace the current one.