Who else didn't know fridges have a condenser fan that can run backwards?

I found this out last week while working on a 15 year old Whirlpool that was barely cooling but the compressor was running fine. The customer said they heard a weird buzzing, so I pulled the back panel and the condenser fan motor was spinning, but in the wrong direction. Apparently some of those universal replacement motors they sell at the parts house have a wire pair you can swap to change rotation, and the old timer who installed it years ago never checked. I did some digging online and found a service bulletin about it, which honestly blew my mind because I've replaced that motor maybe 40 times and never once thought about direction. Now I'm second guessing every fan motor I've ever installed, has anyone else run into this or am I just lucky?

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ross.kevin18d ago

I read a tech blog last month that said a third of fan motor callbacks are actually rotation issues.