Buying a secondhand Gaggia Classic: what I checked
I picked mine up for a bit less than half the new price from someone who was moving abroad. It was a 2019 model and it had clearly been used, but it hadn't been abused. A few people asked what to look for, so this is the list I used. I'm not a technician, this is just what I learned from forums and a long phone call with a friend who repairs machines.
- Ask when it was last descaled, and with what. If the answer is "never" and they live somewhere with hard water, budget for opening it up.
- Pull a shot there, even with their beans and their grinder. You're not judging the taste, you're checking that the pump sounds steady and water comes out of the group evenly, not in one corner.
- Steam for 30 seconds. It should build pressure and not spit water endlessly.
- Look under the drip tray. Rust or white crust there tells you more than the shiny front.
- Check the group gasket. If it's hard and cracked it's a cheap fix, but it's a good bargaining point.
Mine needed a new gasket and shower screen (around the price of a bag of coffee) and a proper descale. The steam wand was also the old single-hole "Panarello" style, and I swapped it for a Rancilio wand, which is the most common mod and worth doing if you want to steam milk properly.
The one thing I didn't check and should have: the temperature swings. The Classic without a PID controller is famous for this, and you learn to "temperature surf" (run a bit of water through until the light comes on, then wait a set time). It's fiddly at first. After a few weeks it becomes muscle memory.