That $200 meat grinder I bought off Facebook Marketplace was a total scam

Drove 45 minutes to some guy's garage in Tacoma to pick up a used Hobart grinder he claimed was 'barely used'. Got it home, plugged it in, and it sounded like a bag of rocks in a blender. Took it apart and the worm gear was completely stripped, plus the blade was chipped in 3 places. Anyone else had luck fixing those old Hobarts or should I just eat the loss and buy new?

2 comments

2 Comments

noah8801mo ago

Happens all the time with older gear from Facebook Marketplace. People think just because something is old and heavy it must be built to last, but they forget that any machine with moving parts wears out eventually. I've seen it with old tools, cars, even furniture. The Hobart brand is good, but that grinder was probably used hard for decades and the seller just cleaned it up to look nice for the photos. You could try finding replacement parts online, but for a $200 gamble it might not be worth the hassle unless you can get the parts cheap. Sometimes you just have to call it a lesson learned about buying used equipment without testing it first.

harper_owens1mo ago

Yeah, you hit it with "any machine with moving parts wears out eventually." I bought an old Craftsman table saw from a guy who swore it ran like new. Got it home, fired it up, and it sounded like a box of rocks. Turns out the bearings were shot and the arbor was bent. I ended up spending almost as much on parts as I paid for the thing. At least with a grinder you can probably find a motor or a gear set somewhere, but man, it's always a roll of the dice with that stuff.