Carrier Infinity issues

[Ironhorse74]

In 2009 I bought a new Carrier Infinity heat pump and air handler. This thing has been a real piece of ****. Carrier has been worse. My wife who had never failed to send in a warranty card swears she did. Carrier however can't find the warranty card so it only has a 5 year warranty instead of 10. Last year the two stage compressor failed. In the end it was cheaper to just buy a new outdoor unit.

So this year we are getting a code 44. Failure to communicate with blower. The technician is convinced it is a bad blower motor. 1250.00 installed. My question is does this sound reasonable? How do we know it is a blower and not the board? It has been occasionally coming back on.

Any way to test it?

 

[bonneyman]

Hate to break it to ya, but Carrier has always sucked. The Infinity series was no better - the complicated electronic package running the thing was always a pain. And 7 years out of a two-speed compressor of theirs sounds about right.

$1250 for a blower motor sounds like an ECM style. Typical price for replacement. But if it runs sometimes the motor is not the problem - it's the electronics package running it. Technician doesn't know what he's doing - repair by replacement is SOP for service work these days. I don't know if I still have the Infinity book or not - since closing my business I got rid of alot of stuff.

But most ECM motors can be checked out with a $75 tester that anybody with normal aptitude can use. Zebra makes a good test module.

http://zebrainstruments.com/

 

[Brian_WK]

From my experiences the ECM brain or module usually fails and not the motor itself, unless the bearings go. Sounds like the module to me. And as stated above they have a tester for these. Make sure they use the screws that are included with the new module as the old screws can be too long and take out the module before it is ever even put into service.

As for the warranty. If you were the original purchaser and can get the company who installed it to give an install date Carrier has worked with people on it. When I worked for a Carrier shop we would always take model and serial numbers and register the warranty for the people. Always worked out for us as the installer.

Brian

 

[Ironhorse74]

Thanks Bonneyman and Brian. Stupid thing came back on. I set the fan to run continuously at medium. I ordered the tester. Hope it continues to run we have a heat wave coming.

 

[acmikee]

what city are you in

 

[Ironhorse74]

what city are you in

Just north of Battleground.