[BNME8EZ]

In most situations there are work arounds, way to make something else work until the correct part can arrive. There are some situations where that is just not possible. If they are not willing to see if there is some way to get your system running so you are not left without air conditioning, it would seem to me it is time to find a better provider that will. Please note this may not be the cheapest option as the replacement will have to be done twice not to mention any adaptions that need to be done to make it work for the time being and then changing it all back again.

The other thought is you see the situation as a 16 year old system that has been working well the whole time. They may see things that you do not or may not see as a problem but in their eyes it may not make a lot of sense to put that much money into a 16 year old unit that may only last another year or two.

Not all things are always as they appear.

 

[BNME8EZ]

On the 20 SEER AlliedAir units... the condenser fan motor is an VS motor, driven by a PWM signal... runs off the comm board (not the inverter board).

There was a batch of fan motors that leaked water early on... and that would blow the comm board.
After a couple of those repairs... have not seen anymore of them.

Note that the motor had attached leads, not plug in leads.

(AlliedAir is part of Lennox, and the AlliedAir inverter stuff is 're-branded' Lennox Harmony)

This brings up another point, a lot of equipment out there are sisters in different dresses, for example Carrier, Bryant, Tempstar. Now they may not use all the same parts, but many cross over so the Carrier part may be 120 days out but the Tempstar distributor has the same part with a different number on it sitting on the shelf.

Sometimes it is not just what to look for but where to look.

 

[BNME8EZ]

Trying to find a distributor that can cross over the part#'s to their sister brand is another story.

I think it is more the counter guys willingness to look than the actual distributor. I have seen some counter guys that will just flat out tell you there is no way to do that but then you get another guy and he does it with seemingly no problem. I say seemingly because I have no idea of the hoops he may have had to jump through to get it done.

You would know better about that than me!

When I have done this I usually have done what I can to get the correct part number of the part along with unit model/serial and description so it is not a blind search in the dark.

 

[BNME8EZ]

If we got smacked with two people within a few days struggling with the same issue, we can multiply that by a hundred to a thousand that are currently getting the same news from their service guy, nationwide right now. Of those souls, hypothetically, 40% are just going to roll with the heat and wait it out, whereas 60% are searching the internet and this thread is probably a number one search hit. Thus, we have that number of folks, reading what we would do, and they not knowing much about why we would do what we would do, and are then searching PSC motor, contactor, green motor, and heading down a DIY worm hole that more than likely is going to turn out with very unsatisfactory results, for countless reasons.


Just how I see threads like this needing to be slowed down and kept fairly vague or simply closed and things moved to PRO....judty my 2 cents.

Reminds me, I had a similar situation early summer, had a drive for a VS compressor die from a mouse making a nest around it, so no fault at all about a manufacturer defect.

I called in for the part and got the dreaded 30+ days out. I started thinking about anything I could do to get these people, my customer some cooling for a month.

I came up with an idea but wanted to run it past the FSR to get his opinion on viability. After giving him the scope on the situation, he said give me your number and let me make some calls.

An hour later he calls back, says he has a drive coming and it will be at my door in 2 days.

Turned out he got permission to pull one off a new unit in stock. Apparently he shook the right tree with his calls. When the drive arrived the next day the paperwork was not the way he said it would be for returning the other one when it arrived so he could put the new unit back in working order.

I called and he still had the one he took off, the factory pushed one out the door and they got it before he could get the one he took off shipped.

That is one reason why I use that distributor a lot!