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Good morning, beautiful day here in western Pa. Question, my Food Saver vacuum machine is almost 20 yrs. old and is getting slower and slower to vacuum pack pkgs. Looking for suggestions on a new one. I only do a couple of deer and maybe 25-30 lbs of fish and items on sale at the market once every month or two. Thanks, Mike

Weston

Mine is a 2300

New Food saver

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Weston is a better machine than Food saver costs s lot more.Weston has no customer service if you have a problem they will not get back to you.If you call you get a message to email them which I did many times no reply.Weston is a good machine and seems like most work fine but if you have a problem you’re screwed read the one star ratings on Amazon

There is really no such thing as customer service with these things, they are "buy em and use em till they break" then toss in the garbage and buy new. Unless the item schits out while under warrantee.

After the warrantee is up, like most products these days, it's cheaper to buy new than to have them fixed.

I did have an issue with my Weston early on, the sealing heating bar burned out. I contacted the seller, they gave me a number to call. A week or so later I have two new heating bars and two new sets of gaskets.

At one time Weston advertised there units as repairable that was one of there selling points.Do you still know that number?

I use s cabelas ( rebranded weston? )

I works ok for no more than i use it.

Couple deer, fish, veggies from the garden.

Worth the $150 or so i gave for it, maybe 8 yrs ago.

Have to use care with moist foods, itll suck liquid and not seal correctly.

If you want hazzle free buy once and cry once and invest in a chamber vacuum. It's a night and difference. Every now and then meatyourmaker.com has a site wide sale for 25% off

Picking up our ordered one from Wally today.
Like the OP our basic, 20 year old Foodsaver is plum wore out.
Have the fresh parts from half a hog coming in a day or two.


Have been watching chamber sealers, trying to decide what will make me happy.
This unit will still be used for bigger items or small jobs where I don't fell like dragging a bigger unit out.

A 150 buck Foodsaver/Cabela's amortized over 20 years comes out around 7.50 a year.
Also, you can soften the gasket a little with the judicious application of a little mineral oil occasionally and every now and then, a drop of mineral oil down the vacuum port. If you have an old auto vacuum guage, it should pull around 20 inches Hg if the pump is still good.

Use the search feature. There's about 30 threads in the last year.

"a drop of mineral oil down the vacuum port"

What a dumbass? I should have thought of that.
Never occurred to me.

Might want to try some food grade silicone oil, works better on vacuum/pressure pumps

I looked at Consumer Reports about an hour ago...it seems kitchen counter vacuum sealers don't suck...for very long after you buy them. The reviews, for whatever they may be worth are terrible. CR's highest score is currently an 87 for a 200 dollar plus Food Saver....then you go down and read the reviews, 2 people said the new one never worked out of the box, one guy had to exchange 3 until he got one that worked. If this is the kinda schidt the Chinese are going to throw at us when they invade Taiwan...we got nothing to worry about.

I bought a food saver 10 years ago and hated it, so never used it. Bought a chamber vac a few months ago and that is definitely the way to go. Pricier, but much better product. You can seal with liquid in the package. Cost about $1k

Had a good Food Saver. Sucked tomato juice into the vacuum pump. That was the end of it.

I've been using a food saver quite a lot for 5 or 6 years and it still works fine.

I doubt I will ever buy another vacuum sealer. They have all sucked ass, even $500+ 'commercial' grade ones and with quality bags.

Chamber Sealer, or back to freezer paper, for me.

VacMaster VP 215 Buy Once Cry Once>>>>>>>>.......