Too Many Problems October 12, 2008
Reviewer: A Customer from Central Coast California

I never should have sold my first unit (the Green Life juicer); it worked great. The two subsequent units have had warranty issues including a replacement of the second machine I bought due to a motor defect.

My latest unit now makes a rhythmic scraping sound while pushing foods through to juice. I was told by Tribest that the noise was normal and nothing to worry about, but I've have three of the units now and only this one makes the noise. Another thing is the motor is now 10 watts less in power. No mention of that on any of the websites, as I believe there should be for such a change. I read this information from the sticker on the bottom of the unit detailing electrical information; I compared my original unit’s information to the new unit’s information and noticed the change. I did this because I noticed with my new unit, the motor sounded more labored (not as strong as my original unit) while I pushed though my juicing vegetables.

Tribest customer service was top notch with the replacement unit (my second machine), while my being told the rhythmic scraping noise was normal (my third machine), I'm still skeptical it is a "normal" noise to hear; especially since the two other units I used do not produce the noise; nor do the seven other machines (all Green Life units and two Green Star units) my friends and family bought over the years.

The quality of construction and molding of parts has decreased. Some examples include the nylon molding around the front of the gears being malformed and not uniform like the older gears are (I have a few extra gears I have bought over the years to compare with). Also, the chute that presses onto the bottom of the feed tray is not molded correctly to allow it to fully seat within the feed chute that houses the gears. This causes juice to be expelled out near the top of the sleeve causing a mess on the outside of the gear housing.

Again, my original Green Life juicer never had any of the above issues. One issue however with my original unit of nine years ago is that it cam with a fruit outlet knob instead of the regular vegetable outlet knob. The fruit outlet knob at that time was supposed to have a red dot on it to distinguish it from the vegetable outlet knob. The difference between the two is spring tension, with the fruit one being less stiff than the vegetable knob. The lesser tension allows the pulp from soft fruits to pass through more easily to help prevent backing up within the feed chute (a real mess when it happens).

I discovered the mistaken knob because my family and friends could never juice fruits like I had been doing for years with no trouble. What I did notice as a result of the wrong knob, was I would get a large amount of additional juice upon re-juicing my pulp--something I've always done.

In my final analysis, I would likely not purchase another Green Life (now the Green Star) juicer, nor would will I be recommending it to my family and friends any longer. I am actually looking to sell my latest juicer, or even donate it to someone, and buying the Omega juicer. On the latter, I hear good reviews from several owners who have been doing extended and juice fasts requiring juicing pounds of vegetables. That to me seems like a pretty good track record and votes of confidence in the Omega juicer. I personally have not used the Omega juicer, so I cannot give any commentary other than what I’ve heard from customers who are doing juice fasts and buying their organic vegetables from the Co-op where I do part time work.