Printer Repair Costs

[doug phillips]

Let me preface by stating I live in Anchorage Alaska.

I just found out that after I buy a printer (roland 54"VC) that if I need any repair work done I will have to pay air fare and lodging expenses for the tech ($600 min) all this while under warranty (boo!). So my question is how often do you have to have a tech repair a problem on your machine and what do the parts run? I need to figure a yearly estimate for repairs. Summa is looking better all the time!

 

[Lonely Fisherman]

A great question Doug! It's one of those unpublished items that all of us worry about before buying a printer. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the answers on your question.

Fish....

 

[Checkers]

Hey Doug,
Did you look into a service contract? Sometimes they will cover those unusual expenses like travel. They cost about $2500 a year though.
Personally, I would budget for a service contract and 2 trips/service calls a year. If the machine is good and you didn't need it, great!. But plan on using at least one anyway, perhaps during a slow time, just to get the machine checked out and factory serviced. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

Checkers

 

[Bob 67]

I purchased mine in Nov 05, So far I have had a pump replaced, 2 servo boards, the motor and the wiring harness. After hours of watching a so called "tech" working on it I wouldn't have any worries of doing it myself in the future. They are a very simple machines.

Bob

 

[gerald]

I have a Mimaki JV3 and I do all the repair work myself. All I've ever had to do was replace a pump, clean the heads and converted it to bulk inks. Had it 3 years. It would be hard for me to pull the trigger on 2500.00 a year. Then again, I don't live in Alaska.

 

[doug phillips]

Checkers, service contract was not offered, but the impression I get is I would still have to pay the travel piece (contract or no) just based on the fact that I would have to pay even under warrantee. Let me do some math here -- service contract $2500, two trips a year $1200 (min) parts (after waran.) $500-1000? Round it to $5000 a year = $416 a month -- YIKES! If service contract includes parts drop it to a round $4000 a year = $333 a month -- still eyebrow raising!

Bob, any idea what parts would have cost if not under warrantee?

Gerald, I am fairly handy and I imagine I could do a lot of the work myself as well. I'm not sure they would allow me to do it? It just chaps my a$$ to get hosed like this just because I live in Alaska -- just bend over -- man, this kind of stuff makes me want to move!

 

[Checkers]

Ya, $2,500 a year (more or less) is a tough pill to swallow when you look at the number by itself. However, when I was a production manager, printing in-house, I could easily loose that much or more in a day, if one of my printers weren't working. A cheap banner stand would retail for $500, and I could produce about 6 per day. Or, a pop-up tradeshow display could retail for $8000 or more, and I could do 2 a day. You do the math
Back then, I was also billing my time out at $85 to $125 an hour for project management and design. So, should I loose my billable time trying to troubleshoot and repair a dysfunctional printer? Or, should I move to the next project and make better use of my time after making a 15 minute call to the printer manufacturer, telling them to get out here to fix my printer?
Here's another way to look at it is this; if you do a fair amount of printing, that $2,500 may add 5¢ to 10¢ a square foot to the cost of a print. So, on a 3' x 10' print, I'm only adding $3.00 to the cost of the print to guarantee my client a quality product, delivered on time. This also provides me with piece of mind, knowing that when (not if) my printer fails it will be repaired in a timely manner at no additional cost to me. In my book, that's money well spent.

Checkers