I’ve written about Amazon’s “renewed” products before, and continue to be surprised at some of the offerings.
Today, I came across “renewed” Hitachi pneumatic tool grease.
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The listing says:
Renewed products work and look like new. These pre-owned products have been inspected and tested by Amazon-qualified suppliers.
Compared to the “new” listing, one lucky customer can save nearly $4 if they choose the “renewed” product. For everyone else, sorry, they only have one of these in stock.
While I steer clear of used tools in general, I’d think that power tool accessories and consumables such as grease or oil would be especially risky or problematic to buy.
A pre-owned tub of grease?
Buy Now(Renewed tub of grease via Amazon)
Buy Now(New tub of grease)
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What kinds of renewed tools or supplies would you buy or avoid on Amazon?
In my tool-shopping experiences, I have yet to be compelled by a “renewed” tool listing. I suppose that if the savings on an item was sizable enough, or I had my eyes on a hard-to-find tool that was only available as “renewed,” I might then give it a chance.
Hilton
In this case buying pre-owned is a slippery slope.
Mark Shelton
Could be a good buy. Better not let it slip by.
Daniel
Its offerings like this that really grind my gears.
Brad
There are some things in life that you just have to let slide.
David
So I thought I’d take a look to see what they had.
N95 Respirator 10pk $13.02 New $13.29. Wow .27 cents savings.
Jon Brown
You mean to tell me I can get the smell of tobacco chew already in the mask and save money! Count me in.
Farid
So… there are laws that prohibit resale of a used toilet, but nothing preventing reselling a used respirator? How can you renew a disposable respirator mask like this:
https://www.amazon.com/3M-8210PP20-DC-Particulate-Respirators-Refurbished/dp/B07N8B7ZQB/
Sometimes, certain things just have to be made illegal.
Perhaps they are taking returns with broken packages and repacking them? If so, for a critical item to my health and safety, I still wouldn’t buy it .
Stuart
The listing says they’re refurbished. Eew.
For cosmetic packaging defects or damage, they could/should mention that for clarity.
At Milwaukee’s media event, I didn’t want to handle the demo face mask since I didn’t know if that’s the one the presenter would have to wear again for the next session. It wasn’t, and I was grossed out to hear that some attendees at the event kept putting on the same face mask for photos.
fred
Maybe they subscribe to the old adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” ( “Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.” – according to Nietzsche – anyway)
Farid
There are more pleasant ways I can spend my money on to cause my own early demise!
But seriously, I think this really falls under predatory tactic
fred
@Farid
I’m with you – as Dorothy Parker said : “vice is nice but liquor is quicker”. But hey maybe under the influence of that liquor – reusing someone else’s respirator would not seem inappropriate. I wonder if there are OSHA rules that cover this.
Farid
It’s been a long time since I did OSHA work, but dust masks fall under respiratory protection. For respirators, , they have to be either assigned to each person and sanitized as often as needed to maintain healthy conditions, or if they are shared, then they have to be sanitized after each person uses them. With disposable, how do you sanitize? Mask of all forms have to be fit tested, so they are typically assigned.
If the use of the protection is voluntary, then an employee can supply his/her own respirator or mask. However, OSHA states: “In addition, the employer must establish and implement those elements of a written respiratory protection program necessary to ensure that any employee using a respirator voluntarily is medically able to use that respirator, and that the respirator is cleaned, stored, and maintained so that its use does not present a health hazard to the user”.
Another requirement for voluntary use is in appendix D of the standard to keep track of your respirator so you accidentally don’t use someone else. The other big issue is the end of use indicator. How clogged is the mask?
I suppose that OSHA would not approve. But how about home users, or small contractors that might not be concerned with OSHA, or ones that are not educated with OSHA rules or health risks? That’s why I think it is predatory tactic.
Speaking of risk education, , I was at Yellowstone this summer and saw many visitors either wearing dust masks or had placed scarves around their nose and mouth while walking around geothermal features. Most were in tour-bus type groups and most were older. I don’t know if the tour operators were providing these masks. The sulfur smell was strong sometimes but it was not that bad.
I was explaining to my son what these people were doing was actually causing more harm. Yellowstone is already at high elevation (7000-8000 ft above sea level) and the air is thin. It takes several days just to be able breath normally going up a couple flights of stairs. So, not only you have to breath harder due to the elevation, but the masks are adding extra resistance to the breathing, which puts heavier load on the cardio/pulmonary system. Heart attack anyone?
The masks themselves are not designed for chemicals, so you are still breathing in the noxious gases. Not only that, the moisture build up in the masks (or scarves) increases the concentration of water soluble gases (such as Hydrogen sulfide) increasing the danger.
Kurt
It’s the same idea behind vaccination. Or eating at Jack In The Box.
logir
just for fun, mich and the accompanying conjugation refer to the first person pronoun, I/Me.
your quote is, what does not kill me makes me stronger. would be umbringst/machst, with pronoun du.
again, just for fun!
i think i got the info right. sorry if not!
Robert
The just staple new rubber bands to them
Jason
I am going to play the devils advocate here. I have ordered many things from Amazon Warehouse (including some consumables like this) and have had good luck (but not 100%).
What happens is that people buy products from Amazon, then they send them back for whatever reason. Maybe the items didn’t work, or maybe it just wasn’t what you wanted. The Amazon warehouse workers take a (quick) look at the item and rate it’s level of damage, but based on the limited data in the ratings, they don’t have much time to check it over nor much training on exactly what to look for. Basically, they look at the box and if its real damaged, they mark it as “Used – Fair”, but if the box looks pretty new, it’s marked as “Used – Good”.
Most likely what’s happened in this specific case is that someone bought the grease, opened the box, didn’t realize they got the wrong thing, and mailed it back. I would be willing to bet money that if you ordered this, you would get an unused tub of grease.
The Amazon product listing is basically automatically generated – notice it doesn’t say anything specifically about THIS item (the picture isn’t the item you’ll receive, either – Amazon isn’t unpacking and taking photos and photoshopping the background of some returned tub of grease). The pricing is the same way – some automated system automatically determines the price, I’m sure. Sometimes it prices the stuff way too high and sometimes it prices the stuff way to low.
I ordered a $2000 Canon camera lens for $600 from Amazon Warehouse many years ago because it was rated as “Used – Fair”. It turns out that someone had torn the box open trying to get the lens out, then packed it back in the box and wrapped it with packing tape. The lens was still in its protective bag and clearly had never been used. Amazon’s returns processing person just looked at the box, marked it as “Fair”, the system priced it at a huge discount, and I got a great deal.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, I ordered a Z-Wave remote-controlled door lock that retailed for $300 for about $200 on Amazon Warehouse because it was rated “Used – Very Good”. When I opened the box (which was in perfect condition), it was clear that someone had taken the product out of the box, stuck back in their OLD “dumb” doorknob, and returned it (basically, they stole it). Amazon return processing employee probably didn’t even open the box.
In cases like that, and in the case that this grease tub is actually all used up, you can just return it. From my experience, Amazon gives free shipping and 100% approval rate for returns for Warehouse items, probably because they know they can have quality issues at times. But overall, Warehouse is a great place to find deals on many items, if you have a little patience and willingness to return something if it’s not right.
dave
I second this reply, Many great deals have been found at the Warehouse but if you get a bad one they pay to get it back. I did buy a CD deck that was DOA and looking at the box it had been shipped to a couple of different people meaning that they just keep shipping it out again. I marked in large letters on the outside of the box that it was broken to hopefully prevent it being shipped out again. A lot of their returns get sold by the trailer load to auction sites, I’m lucky enough to have 4 of them within driving distance and get great deals every week. Picked up a capacitor for my AC unit that retailed for $24 for $1.15 but you just have to watch the pictures closely.
Vards Uzvards
Yesterday received a package with vacuum bags, from Amazon Warehouse, at approximately 40% discount. Description read “Used – Very Good – Item will come repackaged”. I received two packs, as intended, neither of the two was even open before.
Sometimes it happens that you’ll receive something that doesn’t even resemble the description, but if you’re not in a rush, and have time to send things back, it’s totally worth it in my experience.
Jp
It’s a gamble, but so is buying new these days. About 30% of my tools are refurbished from CPO outlets. No problem so far and I got a good price for each item. They are all cordless milwaukee products. Tools are the only area in which I have never purchased a new product which was defective. In all other categories, I have plenty of experiences to show new is no better than certified-refurbished
Robert Tripp
And if an Amazon customer returns an item because they received the wrong thing. It gets received into the warehouse and back on the shelf, still the wrong thing. Purchased six inch Mirka disk. Received five inch. Somebody had written on box 5 inch.
Doesn’t cost anything to return.