Short answer: You can save real money with Metso second-hand parts, but you need to separate 'second-hand' from 'verified.' A used breaker bar for a Metso impact crusher is the highest-risk item I know, and we learned that the hard way. The one I bought in September 2023 cost us $3,200 and a week of production. This article is the checklist I built after that mistake.
I've been a maintenance planner at a crushing contractor for eight years. My job includes ordering crusher wear and spare parts, managing inventory, and making sure we don't stop production. I've personally made and documented 14 significant procurement mistakes, totaling roughly $28,000 in wasted budget. Some of those were simple quantity errors. This one was a material failure. That's why I now keep a team checklist and train every new hire on it.
In September 2023, the rotor on our NP1213 impact crusher was ready for new breaker bars. The OEM replacement was about $1,800 each and the lead time was eight weeks. We couldn't wait that long. A local equipment trader listed a Metso impact crusher breaker bar as 'second-hand, serviceable.' It came from a machine being dismantled, and the price was $900. I called, confirmed the part number, and assumed that was enough. It wasn't.
Didn't verify the actual dimensions. Didn't hardness-test it. Didn't ask whether the bar had been welded. When it arrived, it looked fine. Scratches, surface rust, some wear—exactly what you'd expect from a used part. We installed it on a Thursday afternoon.
The failure happened on Friday morning, about three hours into a production run. The bar cracked near the mounting slot, and the rotor threw a large piece of metal into the crusher chamber. No one was hurt, but we had to shut down the whole circuit. The breaker bar, rotor wear plates, and a discharge liner were all damaged. Total redo cost: about $3,200. The lost production was worse.
After that failure, I put the broken bar next to a new genuine Metso breaker bar. The differences were obvious once I knew what to look for. The used bar had a repairable-looking hardfacing overlay on the wear surface, but underneath, the base material had been overheated. There were micro-cracks along the heat-affected zone. The weight was 1.7 kg off. The mounting face didn't sit flat.
What I mean is that a breaker bar in an impact crusher works by momentum. Rotor speed, bar mass, and bar geometry all affect the crushing trajectory. A re-tipped bar with different mass changes the balance. In a high-speed rotor, even a small imbalance creates vibration, accelerated bearing wear, and higher stress on the mounting system. So a used breaker bar isn't just a wear item. It's part of a rotating system. If someone welded it, the dimensions and metallurgy change. That's the part that's easy to miss.
The counterintuitive part: the bar can look great and still be bad. The hardfacing on ours was neat. A portable hardness tester would have caught the problem, because the overlay was coarse and the substrate was softer than OEM spec. But we never checked.
The real gap wasn't the supplier. It was our process. We had no formal verification step for used spare parts. We didn't have a checklist, and nobody was assigned to inspect incoming used items. The third time we had a parts-related issue—wrong quantity, wrong revision, then this failed breaker bar—I finally created the checklist. Should have done it after the first.
Since late 2023, we've used a simple pre-buy verification process for any used Metso component. It takes about ten minutes and has caught 47 potential problems in the past 18 months. Here's the checklist.
We also do a final compressed air inspection before installation. I grab the DeWalt air compressor, blow the bar clean, and inspect the edges under a strong work light. That step caught a hairline crack on a second-hand bar we almost installed in February 2025. The crack ran 40 mm along the bottom edge and was hidden under dirt and grease. So glad I added this step. We were one mounting bolt away from a similar failure.
Here's the part I had to learn myself: buying used parts to save money can be inefficient if you skip verification. Our old approach—order cheap, install fast, hope it works—was faster until it wasn't. Now the ten-minute check is part of the process, and it's saved us a ton of time in the long run.
We also see this mindset in other equipment choices. At home, I replaced an old electric water heater with a heat pump water heater in January 2025. People ask me how does a heat pump water heater work, so here's the short version.
A heat pump water heater doesn't generate heat with electric resistance elements. It uses a refrigeration cycle to move heat from the surrounding air into the water, essentially like a refrigerator in reverse. The unit I installed has a rated COP of 3.2 as of January 2025, meaning it delivers about 3.2 kilowatt-hours of heat energy for every kilowatt-hour of electricity it consumes. A conventional resistance heater has a COP of about 1.0, because it converts electricity directly into heat.
The same system-thinking applies to crusher maintenance. A Metso IC70C control system gives you real-time data on crusher performance, but it can't see a bad metallurgy problem before the part goes in. The automation is valuable; it just doesn't replace simple physical verification.
When should you still consider Metso second-hand parts? For non-critical, non-rotating items like fixed liners or grizzly bars, a used part with acceptable wear can be a smart buy. For slurry pumps, a casing with no erosion is okay, but a rubber impeller is not worth the gamble. But for breaker bars, main shafts, and any other rotating component, I want traceability, test data, and a supplier who doesn't mind questions.
Another exception: if you're buying from a dealer that carries a warranty and has inspected the part in-house, that's a different risk profile. But if it's a random trader with a photo and a part number, use the checklist or don't buy.
Bottom line: efficiency doesn't mean buying the cheapest part. It means buying the right part with the least amount of friction. Verification creates efficiency. A failed part after three hours is the opposite of efficiency. That's the lesson, and it cost me $3,200.
That's it. Use the checklist. It's ten minutes, and it works.
Our application engineers answer crusher and screen selection questions at no charge.
Ask an Expert