Anecdotal data point:
The shop I work at sells industrial and laboratory weighing and force measurement devices (primarily scales). In addition to selling, we also rent the scales to factories and plants completeing their annual inventories. From time to time, a customer will ask about a cheaper alternative when being quoted a new counting scale. We offer ‘refurbished’ scales to these guys. It’s a significant savings (for example, $995 used vs $1695 new) for the customer and we rotate out the rentals. We warranty the refurb’d units for one year but they seldom ever break or, really, have problems of any kind. We do check them out before shipping them off, though.
As for the automotive world, never buy refurbished alternators or starters…they are complete crap and many don’t even work out of the box (I worked at an auto parts retailer for many years). Cough up the extra $50 for a new one, it will likely save you from a breakdown a month later.
Years back I worked for Nintendo. One of the things our shop did was test, clean and repack returned units. The process was pretty straight forward. Units were brought in on a pallet. Someone would unpack, visually inspect and rack them. They were then powered up and all connections tested. All switches were checked and games were booted up and started. All the good units were placed back on the rack, powered up and left running for 48 hours. If they passed burn-in they were sent to cleaning, reboxed, and trucked out.
Units that failed were sent to have power units or boards replaced (that’s where I worked).
The only problem was the employees.
Nintendo was not a very good employer so most employees didn’t care about the product. Many units were boxed and sent out that failed the first power up.
This doesn’t sway me from buying refurb units. Once of my wireless routers (paid $20) is refurb and my espresso machine (Starbucks Barista which I bought for $80
) is as well. Both have worked fine for years.
Sounds like false advertising. For selling “Beyond”, they’re not doing such a hot job, then.
So, you have a coffeemaker in your bedroom?
I bought a refurb’d XBOX a couple of months ago. (The old model XBOX, not the new 360.)
It didn’t work very well. Would fail to read the CD one time in three, and the controller conked out after a week or so.
I took it back and exchanged it for another refurb.
That one has given me almost no problems since.
FWIW.
When I was buying a new computer earlier this year, I did some research into Apple’s refub program and found that their refurbs had the same failure rate as their new computers. A quick search failed to find the cite, but I haven’t had any trouble with the new machine.
I think Furbies probably are. 
D&R
Q
I manage the refurb program for a small electronics manufacturer. We make Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS, RFID and optical scanning devices for mobile computers.
As noted above, any time a product is returned for any reason it can no longer be sold as new, so we test 'em, fix 'em, and sell 'em at a discount. Every single one gets tested, which is a much better screen than we apply to new units. Our name goes on it and we warranty it to be good as new. A technician who knows every weakness and vulnerability of the product has given it the once over and weeded out the marginal cases. Buying refurbs from the manufacturer is generally a very good value.
Buying refurbs from a retailer is much dicier.
How can you tell who did the refurbing?
My current computer (4 months) and PDA (2+ years) were refurbs. Only problem I had was a loose wire in the computer, which the tech fixed in five minutes for free.
I’ve own four refurbished Dells (the first one died of old age after MANY hours of use and travel, the other three are still up and running).
I’ve never had issues with any of them.
Oh, and my Palm Tungsten is a refurb too. No problems with it either.
FS
ALL of the Sony products in my home are Refurbs. I live near a Sony factory outlet store and buy all of my stuff there. I have never had to return a single thing, they last as long as any other new product. They’re not used, they have been opened or examined or returned as unsold stock, etc.
Great deals, actually. I love that place.
Cartooniverse
I have a refurbished Dell laptop. Been going strong for 3 years now.
Any reputable place will have some kind of guarantee on their refurbished parts. As long as it’s a reasonably new item, it’s not very different from buying something new, except for the price break.
In fact, I doubt I’d ever buy a full-priced new laptop–they’re far too high risk an item for me to feel comfortable paying more than I absolutely have to.
I’ve had bad luck with refurbished cassette decks (ok that was years ago) and VCRs.
If you can get a return policy on the refurb, why not? If there is something seriously wrong with it, you 'change it in for another refurb.
I bought a refurb’d Dyson Animal from Amazon. It was supposed to have been refurbished at the factory, but they packed it in a weird box for shipping and a part broke off, making it unusable. Plus, the lifetime hepa filter was missing from the box entirely.
I returned it and bought a brand new one. Amazon paid for return shipping.
I once bought a refurbished Ryobi gas string trimmer. It never started up, no matter how hard or how many times I would pull the starting cord.
I now realize that it was probably not factory refurbished as I bought it at one of those places that sets up camp in a vacant lot and sells stuff for super cheap. Fortunately I was able to get my money back on it though.
I walked into a Nordstrom’s once to find a nice pair of dress shoes, and instead came out with two refurbished snow tires. And I didn’t even know they sold 'em there!