# 2 'faulty' Classics on ebay for a bargain price



## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

Just picked up 2 Classics off ebay for £63 the sellers description was -

*"I have available for sale 2 Gaggia Classic espresso coffee machines. Neither are in working order as they have defective thermostats. If repaired, they do make excellent coffee/espresso/cappucino etc. All the manufacturer supplied accessories are present, and I will split them if requested. One has the brushed stainless steel finish and the other has the shiny finish. The matt finish one doesn't steam the milk and the shiny finish one has an intermittent fault where the milk steamer function is permanently on."*

I have just heard from the seller that they are currently using one of them (not sure which) and have just decided to buy yet another Classic to replace it. I have a suspicion that they have never descaled or had them serviced in any way as they surely should not be on their 3rd Classic???

Is it possible that a proper clean & descale (with a strip down if necessary) will do the job? Does anyone think that the seller's assertion of faulty thermostats could be correct or can these issues be caused by scale or something else?


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

Water is 300-400 mg/l CaCO3 in that area so quite hard.


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## gaggiamanualservice.com (Dec 22, 2009)

very unlikely to be the stats, bank on scale or solenoid issues. was gutted coz he would not let me arrange a courier lol. well done. if you need any parts, seals, valves etc. let me know. if you wanna get rid of one once you got one up and going also let me know.

regards

mark


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## seeq (Jul 9, 2011)

haha, i asked as well if i could arrange a courier, seems like you got a great deal if it's easily fixable. In fairness even if it cost you £100 to get them both fixed, it's still a good deal!


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## MartinB (May 8, 2011)

For the price you could use this a learning curve... Stripdown and rebuild I say!


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## seeq (Jul 9, 2011)

agreed! and if you dont want both, i'll take one of your hands for a reasonable price


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

gaggiamanualservice.com said:


> very unlikely to be the stats, bank on scale or solenoid issues. was gutted coz he would not let me arrange a courier lol. well done. if you need any parts, seals, valves etc. let me know. if you wanna get rid of one once you got one up and going also let me know.
> 
> regards
> 
> mark


LOL I knew you'd be sniffing around, after all its your job! I was banking on the fact that you'd not go for it as it was local pickup. It's 90 mins for me but I will still do well out of it as the working machines have gone through the roof recently on eBay.

I saw that your custom job has started to pickup some bids, I didn't go for it the first time as I was determined to land one for under 100.


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## gaggiamanualservice.com (Dec 22, 2009)

you bugger lol. got a beautiful jet black and gold one off too for sale when i take photos

mark


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## gaggiamanualservice.com (Dec 22, 2009)

if you need any help let me know, that is free.

mark


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

gaggiamanualservice.com said:


> you bugger lol. got a beautiful jet black and gold one off too for sale when i take photos
> 
> mark


When I saw your location I thought you'd be a bit tight so not hard to beat at all







- don't know what I'm laughing at as I come from Lancs and all my family now live in Lancaster, even if I'm in Kent. The strange thing about your custom one is that someone could of had it at £100 and now that there is a bit of bidding going on it will end up going for over a ton.

I'll surely come back to you if I need some spares, strangely enough I bought from you last month 2x Group Seals for my Pure and 2x Group Seals for my impending Classic purchase, so you have already been of assistance. Thanks.

That black and gold one sounds a bit bling! You found your lid then?


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

seeq said:


> haha, i asked as well if i could arrange a courier, seems like you got a great deal if it's easily fixable. In fairness even if it cost you £100 to get them both fixed, it's still a good deal!


Quite a few people lurking on here and ebay I see









Can't be the people who are bidding £120-£150 for ebay machines as I suspect that the forum members have more sense.

As you say, if I can turn them both around for a reasonable price then I'll be quids in after selling one on, maybe we'll be having words if your interested but whilst there are mugs on ebay I would be stupid not to let them throw money at me.


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

MartinB said:


> For the price you could use this a learning curve... Stripdown and rebuild I say!


I'll be taking your advise as it will be interesting to poke around and it may be useful in cross diagnosis of issues if I can't clear them with a simple clean, cannibalising each to confirm exactly what parts need replacing. That's the plan anyway


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## gaggiamanualservice.com (Dec 22, 2009)

yes managed to source a new brass lid, looks a treat. i will photo and put on here soon.


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## seeq (Jul 9, 2011)

tommyturnip said:


> maybe we'll be having words if your interested but whilst there are mugs on ebay I would be stupid not to let them throw money at me.


Too right! I thought I would try my luck if you were only wanting to fix up one of them! The suckers on ebay are so frustrating, stopping me getting a bargain!


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

seeq said:


> Too right! I thought I would try my luck if you were only wanting to fix up one of them! The suckers on ebay are so frustrating, stopping me getting a bargain!


The ebayers are so thick if they are paying up to £150 for 2nd hand, its not that much more to get an brand new import.

Picked my new toys up this morning, one was still warm from making coffee, they had bought a Francis Francis but hated it and are awaiting an exchange for yet another Classic - I guess I swooped in too quickly for them and so its nescafe for the next few days I guess









I had to laugh, I asked them "I understand you had people asking you for courier pickup" and they said "Yes, they were several of them harrassing us, one from Middlesborough, one from Somerset, one from ......" and reeled off several places. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, harrassing a nice old couple like that


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

They said that they descale once a month but if true I suspect they have never been under the shower screen.


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## MartinB (May 8, 2011)

LOL!

I guarantee a bloody good clean and descale and they'll be working 10 times better than they already do!


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

Decided to tackle the Shiney one first as this was the one they was using last. Dripping Group seal and Steam wand.

Grubby PF and basket, not surprising when you look at how black it is under the shower screen (#2 above).









Inside looked generally okay but I noticed that the Steam Stat was loose (wobbles in the brass holder/screw assembly.









Everything soaked in Puly, a Calcinet descale, 2x Puly blackflushes (first one looked like a shot of espresso!) and a scrub of the group area. The group seal has stopped leaking - seems to have been grounds build up, but the steam wand is still dripping.

Anyway got stuck in as was curious, fitted my bottomless PF, tossed shots 1 & 2 and here is the 3rd, which was quite nice - probably just need a tweak of my MC2/tamp to get it spot on.









I'll see how it goes but besides the steam wand it looks like this is yet another lesson in proper machine cleaning, if you can afford to buy a new machine every 3 years then go ahead but you'll be wasting your money and have terrible coffee for 2yrs and 11mths in between purchases.

Now to the other one....


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## seeq (Jul 9, 2011)

tommyturnip said:


> I had to laugh, I asked them "I understand you had people asking you for courier pickup" and they said "Yes, they were several of them harrassing us, one from Middlesborough, one from Somerset, one from ......" and reeled off several places. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, harrassing a nice old couple like that


Damn the nice old couple!!!!! That looks really good though, keep us updated on how the cleanup goes.


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## tommyturnip (Jul 19, 2011)

They were really nice, they apologised for not being able to offer me a coffee as they had just packed the machine away so they offered me a cup of tea and a toasted teacake!

The Matt machine got the same treatment as Shiny machine, it looked a little cleaner throughout which I understand is because the Matt look means a newer machine? Pulled a shot and found it to be as good as the other machine, if a little sweeter (same bPF used). Unfortunately the steam pressure has diminished on the Matt one and although it produces steam its useless for frothing.

So, some jobs still to do, all advice on fixes welcome. Does anyone have an methods for removing scuffs on steel (shiny and matt) and re-blacking the plastics?

Shiny

Solve dripping wand

New group seal

Missing TurboFrother but upgrading wand to Rancilio anyway

Matt

Solve steam pressure

Missing 2/3 of TurboFrother but upgrading wand to Rancilio anyway

New PF handle (cracked)

Missing baskets (got scammed as only got one set







)


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