On Tuesday, August 11, 2015 at 7:00:09 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Tue, 11 Aug 2015 16:28:28 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

Bearings are cheap

I never met a customer who wanted to pay $300.00 parts and labor to install new bearings in a $100.00 condenser fan motor. ???

If the OP was going to call a contractor, we would not be having this
conversation.
OTOH bearings are about $10 each, less if you got them online (then
more like a couple bucks) and would take 20 minutes to replace once
you got the motor on the bench.

I fix pump motors all the time and I keep a bunch of the common
bearings here.

Yea, but you and I have the tools and experience to do that sort of thing. I agree with you on the pump motors especially if they have ball bearings but most consumer grade condenser fan motors have sleeve bearings which tend to damage the shaft when the bearings fail. By the time a service tech gets to a customer's home or the customer notices the problem, the shaft is pretty well damaged. I've changed the sleeve bearings on my own motors but not for a customer because it would be hard to guarantee and a quality new motor usually has a 1 year warranty. One thing I did do for commercial customers was to install long lived ball bearing condenser fan motors in their rooftop units because those AC units are mission critical, especially for a restaurant. The largest motor I ever pulled was a 60 hp 3 phase motor on an open drive Carrier AC compressor which required an engine hoist to remove it in order to load it on a truck for a trip to the rewind shop. That was a fun job for me and my brother. à²*€¿à²*

[8~{} Uncle Motor Monster