OLD BEFORE THEIR TIME?

A subject that more and more people are talking about recently is that "printers are now built to just last the term of the warranty then fail". A sore point with a lot of business owners who also point out that printers of what ever size are financially not worth repairing either.

This was pointed out to me by a customer who had spent quite a few thousands on a large format colour laser printer 3 years ago. A fault developed and as always happens the machine was just out of warranty( the lady had taken out the extended manufacturers warranty on purchase). On phoning the printer manufacturers service department, she was informed of a call out fee of over £80.00 just to get some one to come out and look at the machine. Which she did, and then found out it had cost her £80.00 (Plus vat) to find out that her printer was going to cost £1300.00 plus vat to fix! This was on top of the £80.00 as well. The conclusion was it was madness to fix this printer as a replacement printer to the same specification now cost pennies short of £1500.00.

The out come of this is obvious, she purchased another printer, but the costs did not stop there as she had to pay a liciensed IT recycling company to dispose of her 3 year old printer.

So, Are printers designed for a short fixed life? Please post a comment, the results could be revealing.