Overheard a guy at the parts counter say 'just throw a new board at it' and it got me thinking

Stopped by the supply house yesterday morning in Phoenix to grab a capacitor and there was this younger tech talking to the counter guy about a fridge that wasn't cooling. He said he was just gonna replace the main control board without even checking the thermistor or the condenser fan first. I wanted to say something but I bit my tongue. It reminded me of when I first started out 8 years ago and I did the same thing on a Whirlpool side-by-side. Ended up swapping two boards before I found out it was just a dirty condenser coil. That cost the customer an extra $200 for parts they didn't need. Has anyone else noticed newer techs skipping the basic diag steps and going straight for the expensive fixes?

2 comments

2 Comments

victor_butler501d agoTop Commenter

Ain't it funny how we all think we're saving time by swapping boards when we're really just making more work? I used to be that guy who'd throw parts at everything 'til I got burned enough times to slow down and actually check stuff first. Now I waste ten minutes with a multimeter before I even touch a control board.

angelab6219h ago

That 10 minutes with a multimeter still beats the hour or more you waste when you swap the wrong board and gotta put it all back together. I'd rather gamble on a bad part than spend all that time chasing ghosts when 90% of the time it's the board anyway.