Beware Xerox Phaser 860 printer

[Dirk Hartog]

I just got off the phone with Xerox tech support, and can't help
feeling -- again -- I got suckered buying a Xerox Phaser 860N printer
for my small business.

Man is this thing expensive. ~$4,000 to buy. Now at just 31,000
prints my Xerox Phaser 860 (rated at 50k prints/month) doesn't work,
and Xerox wants $25 just to talk to me -- to answer ANY questions at
all.
Service is $290 for a HALF HOUR! (only 220 / hour after that!), plus
parts.
A service agreement is $580 per year -- which gives you an idea of how
un-reliable Xerox thinks Xerox Phaser 860s are.

Ink runs $600 per order.
The manual feed tray jams constantly.
Line art output is great but jpgs, tiffs, etc are mediocre.

This is a good printer for a big company administrator basically
spending Other People's Money. I will never buy a Xerox Phaser 860
again, and wish I hadn't bought this one.

Dirk Hartog

 

[Dirk Hartog]

UPDATE

After ony 31,000 pages the repair guy says my Xerox Phaser 860 need a $2,000 repair.

I calculate this thing has cost me more than 36 cents per page.

Xerox Phaser 860: won't get fooled again.

Dirk Hartog

 

[Thill]

Did you use OEM ink?? if not you have messed up your printhead, and for that
you'll have to pay if you want it repaired.

 

[Dirk Hartog]

Did you use OEM ink?? if not you have messed up your printhead, and for that
you'll have to pay if you want it repaired.

I used OEM ink. Yeah I KNOW I'll have to pay. That's the point.
Xerox Phaser 860 unreliable and expensive. Won't get fooled again.

Dirk Hartog

 

[Hueymungus]

What do they want to repair that is $2000?

I used OEM ink. Yeah I KNOW I'll have to pay. That's the point.
Xerox Phaser 860 unreliable and expensive. Won't get fooled again.

Dirk Hartog

 

[Dirk Hartog]

The print head was bad. It cost $2,200 to fix. Then later another
$180 when the paper quit feeding.

Xerox: I won't get fooled again.

Dirk

 

[Hueymungus]

Interesting. The printhead went bad after a full year of being under
warrenty? How long have you had it?

 

[Dirk Hartog]

At the time (the original post was in '03) it was just a few months
out of warranty. Just over a year. And again, only 35,000 pages of
use on a machine with a supposed duty rating of 50,000 pages per
month.

 

[Timothy Lee]

At the time (the original post was in '03) it was just a few months
out of warranty. Just over a year. And again, only 35,000 pages of
use on a machine with a supposed duty rating of 50,000 pages per
month.

Did you not kick up a stink, certainly here, I would be quoting Sales of
Goods Act such that irrespective of warranties/guarantees the product
was not of merchantable quality, I would expect if you wave some
consumer body at them they might be rather more generous with you.
I have a phaser 8200 here - just coming up for a year old and I've been
doing around 2000 pages a month, seems fine.

 

[Anoni Moose]

The print head was bad. It cost $2,200 to fix. Then later another
$180 when the paper quit feeding.

Sounds like the service agreement would have saved you a
lot of money.

Of course, that model is an old discontinued one and it's replacement
is under $1K new according to Xerox's website ... so that makes
the service agreement a bit harder to swallow.

Mike

 

[Hueymungus]

The other thing you have to realize is that the 860 had free black in
for life, the 8200 and later does not. Hence the large price tag. THe
860 is more because the price actually includes in general the black
ink. The 8200/8400 are cheaper because they do not include the black ink.

So, it sounds like that you have had one printhead replacement just out
of warrenty by a few months and now your faced with another one? SOunds
interesting to me. Might want to contact the Xerox Customer Relations
team and see what they might have to say about all of this. It cannot hurt.

I am unclear about the pending repair. Is it for another printhead?

 

[Dirk Hartog]

The other thing you have to realize is that the 860 had free black in
for life, the 8200 and later does not. Hence the large price tag. The
860 is more because the price actually includes in general the black
ink. The 8200/8400 are cheaper because they do not include the black ink.

The 860 was more because when it came out there were few small office
color printing alternatives. HP color lasers was about it.

The newer models are cheaper because there are now plenty of < $1,000
alternatives.

I don't imagine the "free" (with $3,500 purchase) black ink sets Xerox
back much. All the "free" ink I get comes in a box of color ink that
costs me $180. Phaser ink is priced to compete with laser toners, but
with no toner cartridge mechanism to make, must cost a fraction to
produce. I expect Xerox makes a killing on the ink.

Price gouging is what the Phaser 860 was all about. It's been a while
since I shopped, but my memory is Xerox RAM and network cards, etc.
were five or ten times the market rate. Priced for business managers
spending OPM.

So, it sounds like that you have had one printhead replacement just out
of warrenty by a few months and now your faced with another one? SOunds
interesting to me. Might want to contact the Xerox Customer Relations
team and see what they might have to say about all of this. It cannot hurt.

I am unclear about the pending repair. Is it for another printhead?

No. A little plastic part wore out (again, <40,000 pages on a machine
with a 50k per month rating), and needed replacing.

DH

 

[Anoni Moose]

I don't imagine the "free" (with $3,500 purchase) black ink sets Xerox
back much. All the "free" ink I get comes in a box of color ink that
costs me $180. Phaser ink is priced to compete with laser toners, but
with no toner cartridge mechanism to make, must cost a fraction to
produce. I expect Xerox makes a killing on the ink.

Don't doubt that at all. That's undoubtedly true for all printers from
all manufacturers. They all make nothing to something negative on
the printer itself and make their profits on the consumables which also
have to make up for the non-profits on the printers themselves.

Xerox has some programs where they give you the printer for free
(http://www.freeprinters.com/) to make it even more obvious as
to how things work. I can't think anybody thinks they make money
off selling printers for free (meaning off the printer sales
themselves).

Price gouging is what the Phaser 860 was all about. It's been a while
since I shopped, but my memory is Xerox RAM and network cards, etc.
were five or ten times the market rate. Priced for business managers
spending OPM.

I've noticed that too. I think they try to stress how their overall
cost of ownership is much less than alternatives rather than nit picking
the cost of each option. Helps them lose less money on the printers.

Mike

 

[Hueymungus]

http://www.freecolorprinters.com/ is the correct website. All others
are not supported by Xerox. All others are run by companies that buy
their Phasers from Xerox and then get you into their deal.

All Printer OEMS make money off supplies & consumables & contracts.
It's the same in any business model.

In it's day the 860 when it came out was very good and yes, a bit
pricey. However, if you compare what you wanted to print and who you
gave it to, then there is not an issue. A lot of people who buy these
or go through th free color printers program were reali estate people
and other home based businesses that used them for marketing/promotion
and other items and made sales because of it.

We can go on and on about this and that.

I will say that making the toner/ink whatever the printer uses to put
down the image does take a lot to make. However when you make hundreads
of thousands units it gets cheaper.