Thermapen Cratered

[Soonerpop]

Cooking my beef tenderloin Saturday, I opened the Thermapen, and it didn’t come on. I just changed the batteries and it still doesn’t. I’ve had it several years; I’ll call them tomorrow. Anyone else have one just not work anymore? Any fix, suggestions, etc.?

[BBQPhil]

Typically they offer you a new one at 30% off.

[briano52]

I have several Thermapens as old as 13 years or so. Never had a failure. But the company has been very good with customer service. Call them and see what they say. I have never heard of Thermapen failure before. I have given many away as gifts. Everybody loves them.

[jfmorris]

Mine failed like that and they fixed it out of warranty for a flat fee of something like $29 which covered return shipping. Mine had gone swimming _ DIL washed it in a sink full of soapy water! - and the micro switch that turns it on failed after being flakey for a year or two.

I think the warranty would cover it if it is under 2 years old.

[Soonerpop]

Unfortunately it’s not. But I’ll call.

[N227GB]

They offered me a Thermapen One 35% off when my original regular Thermapen stopped working out of warranty. The older design had an odd clip to retain the battery and provide an electrical contact.

[jfmorris]

I got the same type of offer, but it was a lot cheaper to just get my Thermapen (Classic) repaired than buy a new one, even with the discount.

[RonB]

As said above, call 'em. They will try to make you happy.

[smokenoob]

mine sometimes needs to be opened a few times to wake it up

[jfmorris]

That happened to mine after it got wet, and it took more and more flips open to get it to turn on, until eventually it stopped entirely. Bad microswitch, and they repaired it for me, recalibrated and sent it back.

[J-Melt]

My first one had that problem pretty bad and was under warranty, so they replaced it. My current one has that problem here and there, but I don’t think it’s bad enough to need repair or replacement.

[Soonerpop]

Well whaddya know?! Called them when I logged off here. They couldn’t have been nicer. Turns out my Thermapen was bought in 2014-old. Uses the button cell batteries which they don’t use anymore since they’re pretty hard to remove/insert. I explained what had happened—opened but wouldn’t come on, replaced batteries, still wouldn’t come on. She asked if I had the packaging from the new batteries, and did it say it had a child protective coating? It did, and she said I think I know the problem, asked me to remove the batteries and use a light abrasive to remove that. I took a dry scotch brite sponge and rubbed both sides of the batteries, and they went from shiny to dullish, reinstalled. Drum roll please…….opened and voilà! It came on. She said the coating—used to make them taste bad so if kids try to eat them they spit them out—messes up the contact just enough to make them not work properly. Who knew?

[TripleB]

I’ll have to remember this.

[N227GB]

Sometimes, my cooking develops that same coating that makes people want to spit it out.