Fuji Acuity or Oce owners, Service Warranty worth it?

[DoubleDown]

To all owners of Fuji's or Oce, what has been your experience with the Service Warranty and is it worth it let's say for year two or what did you do?

It's amazing how many machines I've owned over the years and I've always thought how insulting it is the amount (usually 10% of the purchase price) that has to be paid for a quarter million dollar machine to cover a year of parts and 25% off of print heads that you have no clue if anything is going to go bad or not.

Just a rant but you would think these really expensive machines would last a really long time if taken care of and wouldn't need $22K of maintenance in year two.

I mean I could understand if they came in, did a look over the machine and said based upon X your next year is $10K and the following year is a little more due to more wear and tear, etc, etc.

 

[StarSign]

Well, now heads are not included in the service contract it could be a fence sitter. However there have been a few times that a tech has been here twice a week for a month so the service contract is something we will always factor in. Now I have a great tech that takes care of me, and he's 4 hrs away! You know the rule, pay for 2 yrs and never use it, the day after you cancel your machine will go down.

 

[DoubleDown]

Well, they give a discount of 25% off heads but as I told my reps, the industry really needs to pay attention, as they've been doing this for years. They make money on the inks, tons on the service contracts, gotcha but for people who take care of their machines, this machine shouldn't need anywhere near that amount of maintenance for year 2 and possibly 3 as long as the manufacturers are proactive about parts that wear out quickly and keep an eye on those...you know, like a car that has a maintenance schedule.

That kind of money could be used for sales/marketing/personnel but instead it drains companies in these times and makes some companies take 10 steps back financially, which means less of an opportunity to buy more machines going forward.

It just needs to be a better system, somewhat like the auto industry with maintenance schedules, certain parts can be checked out and watched, things prorated, etc.

 

[StarSign]

Here's the problem, taking great care of your machine won't stop a ink like from breaking, parts that just go bad, lines in the gantry wearing out, or that unforeseen problem the day before a big job. Now like I said I have a great tech with Royce in SLC and if I think the machine isn't running up to snuff I make a call and here he is. There have been many times when he is down here fixing one thing and finds 2 more that could cause problems in the near future. My 2

 

[Omni]

We have a fuji acuity HS, only for about 5 months now. We have had great service when needed, and plan to buy the service contract in years to come. To us, the potential downtime of possibly slower service on the machine is worth the admittedly high cost of a service contract. The machine is great, but high tech, never know when a major problem might come up. Another advantage - they will take care of smaller issues and problems that come up, that, if you had to pay for a service call, you might end up trying to figure out yourself, and wasting a lot of time. Simple things, like a head alignment issue for example.

 

[animenick65]

Our biggest problem with VUTEk service has always been response time, and the way they go about diagnosing their machines. Both have been deplorable considering we pay $25k a year for a service contract. They typically will send a part out, the tech will try that part, that won't work, they'll order another part, have the tech back the next day, try that part that won't work and repeat, all in order to control their parts inventory. Just because you have a service contract doesn't mean you are protected from being down.

 

[ellsmako]

Thats sometimes a fact of tight control,... usually a good tech will be allowed to order a few things at one time, use what he needs, either send back or keep them as truck parts. problem over the years are two fold. one is clients who ordered under contract but only for stocking free spares, also i know of tech's ordering pats but noy installing them in contract machines and then freelance selling them to non contract clints and pocketing the cash,... take a good look at your tech and notice comments.
In the old days you had to return burned out parts , now its only heads that get sent back