Used Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment in Islamabad & Rawalpindi
Is a used Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment worth buying?
Dawlance has built refrigeration in Pakistan since 1980 and runs company service centres in both cities, which is why job stickers and service receipts turn up on its cabinets at all. The long production run is the other half of it: the used pool spans decades, so the badge alone tells you little about what you are looking at. Read the plate, place the era, then judge the cabinet.
Made or assembled in Pakistan
Spares are widely stocked locally and most technicians in the twin cities have worked on these, so common faults are usually economic to repair.
Dawlance manufactures locally and operates company service in both Islamabad and Rawalpindi, so gaskets, thermostats, relays and compressors are routine and quotable against the model number. What has to be hunted in the used market is trim for discontinued cabinets — inner baskets, glass lids, hinges and handles for models the catalogue no longer lists.
Shop & Restaurant Equipment in stock now
Our current shop & restaurant equipment, across all brands — ask us on WhatsApp if you want Dawlance specifically.
Checking a used Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment
These are specific to Dawlance. The general shop & restaurant equipment checks apply too and are on the shop & restaurant equipment page.
Date it from the plate
The model and serial on the plate are what place the cabinet in time, and with a brand in production since 1980 that is not a formality. An old Dawlance can still be repaired electrically; what runs out first is discontinued trim, and the plate is what a parts counter checks that against.
Match plate to compressor
Open the rear compartment and read the compressor label against the plate. A replacement of another make is not fatal, but it tells you the original failed and that whoever did the work chose their own part and their own gas.
See what was fitted
Look at the thermostat, relay and gasket. A Dawlance-supplied part and a generic market part do not look alike, and the mix tells you whether the cabinet went to company service or to whoever was nearest — which is also a clue to how carefully it has been charged.
Check the trim first
On older cabinets the items that go unobtainable are lids, hinges, locks, glass tops and baskets, not the electrics. Work those before you test the cooling: a cabinet that freezes perfectly but has a broken hinge on a long-discontinued model is the harder problem to solve.
Ask about compressor warranty
New Dawlance cabinets are sold with a long compressor warranty administered against the original purchase record. Ask whether the invoice survives — on a younger cabinet it is the difference between a documented compressor and an unknown one.
What Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment are worth
- Local manufacture plus a company service channel means most Dawlance faults can be quoted before purchase, and a quotable fault is a negotiation rather than a write-off.
- The long production history cuts both ways: it keeps mechanical parts available for years, but on a decades-old cabinet it is discontinued trim — a lid, a hinge, a glass top — that decides when the machine is finished.
- An original compressor with paperwork behind it holds value better than a replaced one, because the next buyer can see what gas went in and who put it there.
Model lines you will see second-hand
- Single-door chest deep freezers
- Twin-door chest deep freezers
- Upright (vertical) freezers
General shop & restaurant equipment checks
These apply whatever the badge on the front says — the shop & restaurant equipment page covers them in full.
Watch the chiller cycle off
A bottle cooler or display chiller that has been running for an hour should reach its set temperature and then switch the compressor off for a spell. A compressor that never stops is fighting low gas, a blocked condenser or a dead thermostat, and you can hear the difference from across the shop.
Test door seals with paper
Close the door on a slip of paper and pull it out. If it slides free with no drag, the magnetic gasket has hardened and warm air is being drawn in all day. Gaskets can be replaced, but a perished one usually comes with ice built up on the evaporator and a compressor that has been overworking for months.
Try a magnet on steelwork
Much prep furniture here is fabricated locally, so the sheet grade matters more than any badge. A fridge magnet grips thin 430-grade sheet firmly and barely holds on 304, which resists pitting far better around sinks and salt. Then look underneath at the legs, where mopping water rusts a table from the floor upwards.
Light every burner
On a commercial range, griddle or tandoor, each burner should light from its pilot or neighbour and hold a steady blue flame with no yellow tips. Lazy yellow flames and soot on the pan bottoms point at blocked jets, or jets sized for a different gas pressure. Check that the control valves turn smoothly rather than grinding.
Check the extraction canopy
Pull the baffle filters out and see that they are all there and can still be washed rather than being clogged solid with hardened grease. Switch the fan on and hold a tissue flat against the filter opening; the draw should hold it in place. Missing filters, a fan that hums without pulling, or grease weeping back out of the ductwork mean a fire risk and a deep clean before the kitchen can open.
Run the mixer through speeds
A spiral or planetary mixer should change speed without a knock from the gearbox and should not walk across the floor on its feet. On a fryer, check that the element and thermostat probe lift clear for cleaning, and that baskets, lid and drain tap are all present, since they are model specific and awkward to source separately.
Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment — questions
Is a used Dawlance freezer a safe buy for a shop?
Does a replaced compressor hurt a used Dawlance's value?
Other shop & restaurant equipment brands
Selling one instead? We buy used Dawlance shop & restaurant equipment for cash.