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My next door neighbor who is a pool service tech, tells me the Northstar is a service nightmare. Something about the filter cap or gasket fails often. He recommended the super II.
Any other people feel this way?
I was planning the northstar until he told me this.
I have 2 Northstar pumps running for over a year now with no troubles but I guess time will tell.
Also, the Northstar is slightly more energy efficient than the Super II but not by much.
Gordon, welcome to the forum!! I suspect I know what your neighbor is talking about. I started doing service work back in 1991 and 'cut my teeth' on superpumps. Human nature is such that we don't like large changes - where the superpump needed a 9/16" wrench to 'bust' it open and a 7/16" to lock the shaft, northstars need a #2 Phillips head screwdriver, 2 people to pull/ push the thing apart and a 1/2" wrench to lock the shaft. The reason for all this talk about taking one apart is because (for the past few seasons) the shaft seal assemblies tend to fail quite quickly, at least on some pools. Another problem is that I'm so used to the superpumps that I can tell you the part # for almost anything that needs to be replaced (or ordered) out of memory, the northstars parts all start with SP-4000, but I don't know the rest of the part #s.
Talk to your neighbor and see if I'm correct in my asessment. If 'he' has another 'gripe' about them, I'd love to hear it.
Again, welcome to the forum, and IMO both are good pumps (if you want max energy efficeincy, as Mas said, the northstar is slightly better.) :) - Waste