extended warranty adviseable for inkjets?

[Glen]

Well, after a couple of weeks trying to decide between the Epson R300,
HP 7760 and Canon IP5000 I've decided to go with the Epson, the thing
that decided it was the C$80 off (up till yesterday) and the ability to
print directly to cd media.

I am now tossing the idea around of the added 4 year warranty for 49$, I
normally dont give extended warranties a second thought, but one of the
I.T. people I know said that it can be a good idea for printers. Other
than the odd clogged head (that I fixed with windex) on my old stylus
color 400 I've never had any trouble with it, but it has seen minimal
use compared to the use this new one is going to get.

So.. extended warranty, worth it or not??


TIA

 

[Arthur Entlich]

My recommendation on hardware purchases are this:

1) Buy the stuff on a credit card that offers double warranty. My
Mastercard does this free of any fee (there is not even a annual fee to
use the card, and I get airmiles too). Yes, they an be a pain, but one
rarely need to use them. Usually, they will double the warranty up to
one year. So, a 90 day becomes a 180 day, a 6 month becomes a one year,
a one year becomes two, and a 4 year becomes five.

2) Get an extended warranty on items which are very costly to repair or
are unrepairable. That includes things like digital cameras which tend
to not be repairable and if they are often fail again afterward, or are
very costly, and laptop computers, which often involve either a screen
or motherboard replacement since that's just about all they are made of.

Personally, I do not get extended warranties on items such as printers,
desktop computers, etc. In most cases, a printer, if it has a
manufacturing effect, will fail within the first two years. By year
two, the cost of replacement may be less than the cost of the warranty,
and it may be considered almost obsolete by then anyway.

Know that the main profit big box stores make is on the extended
warranty. If the stuff broke down so regularly, there wouldn't be so
much profit in them.

In all the years I have bought high tech (and it's many) I have only
twice needed to use the extended warranty, once on a VCR (and I had to
sue the retailer (A Canadian big box company at the time, now owned by
an American one) to make good on it) and once with a hard drive that
failed in its forth year, which Mastercard's underwriters paid for a new
one, after some hassling.


Art

 

[Bill]

I am now tossing the idea around of the added 4 year warranty for 49$, I
normally dont give extended warranties a second thought, but one of the
I.T. people I know said that it can be a good idea for printers.

In your example with the rebate, the warranty is about 30% of the cost
of the printer.

So.. extended warranty, worth it or not??

Definitely not.

Extended warranties are just insurance policies, and like insurance, the
company that underwrites the policy is betting that the vast majority of
users will never need to make a claim. It's a very high profit margin
sale with good commissions, and that's why all the stores push them so
hard on just about everything they sell.

Now some people will argue that they needed the extended warranty and it
was worth it. But consider this - if you never get an extended warranty
on all the items you buy, and one does fail, the money you saved on all
those warranties will EASILY pay for replacement or repair of the failed
item. Most people forget about that aspect.

In retail, extended warranties are often 15-25% of the cost of the item,
which is far too high for insurance. Would you pay $50,000 for insurance
on your house? I once had a twit try to sell me an extended warranty on
a $60 telephone for $29. Ack...that's 50% of the cost of the phone!