Originally posted by matth3wh
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Hx shootout - Profitec v Rocket v ECM v Lelit
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A lot of it comes down to after sales and warranty too. It is only one year on most machines but if you could get more, it would be better. You want someone who can not only fix but advise and help and hopefully not too far away.
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Burgeoning warranties are just a means of cost cutting at the development/manufacturing stage for appliance makers. It's selling systematic failure to consumers as 'extra protection' and 'value'. If someone wants to offer me 5 years of warranty on something, that's alarm bells not protection.
My ECM however - along with all the others on your list - are build with proven parts that for the most part aren't proprietary and have been selected by manufacturers for their hardiness and quality. Any issue you might have, then, is when all these parts come together, which is going to happen every now and again with a certain percentage of hand built machines. But those that do experience problems, it'd manifest almost entirely within the first weeks, and almost definitely within the first 12 months.
It's not that prosumer machines don't need a warranty, they do (and by law they do), it's just that the warranty is realistic. Australian Consumer law, as Chris mentioned, then ensures that a consumer is covered for anything that is their right but didn't neatly fit within 'warranty'.
As you say Wattgn, good service is paramount, and having a plan from the outset about where and when you're going to service your machine is better than any extended warranty you might have. In a few years I'm moving back to Tasmania from Sydney, and I already knew before I bought the machine where I would get it serviced adequately there.
"Lock in good service and the rest will look after itself" absolutely.
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... does everybody recall prior to spruiking Berezza as a category killer we had a glut of Expobar Minore's that were trying to be moved (probably successfully to the unsuspecting public) with the promise that they were rocket R58 killers. Then the train moved to ECM Synchronika. I wonder what the next flavour of the month will beOriginally posted by magnafunk View PostI wrote a very long reply to this but have decided to keep it to myself. I will just say, until a month or two ago you were spruiking a bezzera as the category killer and other such gushing cliches, I even seem to remember you had a strega on your bench for a while there when it was your flavour of the month.
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That's absolutely it in a nutshell Al.... Watch the fly by nights as well:Originally posted by readeral View PostBurgeoning warranties are just a means of cost cutting at the development/manufacturing stage for appliance makers. It's selling systematic failure to consumers as 'extra protection' and 'value'. If someone wants to offer me 5 years of warranty on something, that's alarm bells not protection.....
It's not that prosumer machines don't need a warranty, they do (and by law they do), it's just that the warranty is realistic. Australian Consumer law, as Chris mentioned, then ensures that a consumer is covered for anything that is their right but didn't neatly fit within 'warranty'.
As you say Wattgn, good service is paramount, and having a plan from the outset about where and when you're going to service your machine is better than any extended warranty you might have.....
"Lock in good service and the rest will look after itself" absolutely.
This week, an original Giotto Classic purchased from a bloke who used to be in Northcote, but effectively "did a runner". Plenty were burned.
I have seen his "handiwork" before inside machines, but this Giotto took the cake. Unbelievable, illegal and electrically idiotic.
The client complained after purchase that it was not sensing water correctly. Seller X's solution was to disable water sense completely and in the process, use narrow gauge 12v suitable wiring to carry 240V to the pressurestat.
To bring it back to life, there was a box of expensive bits and a few hours of labour.
There are plenty out there who care about sales, not clients. My facebook news feed delivered the graph below last night and it applies perfectly to the experience of our client. It also tells me that I effectively know much less than I did 10 years ago!
All is now well and will end well for our client- but there is a pretty big repair bill for the poor bloke who listened to the sales pitch of the confident noob.
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I think an extended warranty is a great idea and yes I'd like to see coffee machines with a longer warranty. I think that the only reason it hasn't happened is not many do it but that might change.Originally posted by readeral View PostBurgeoning warranties are just a means of cost cutting at the development/manufacturing stage for appliance makers. It's selling systematic failure to consumers as 'extra protection' and 'value'. If someone wants to offer me 5 years of warranty on something, that's alarm bells not protection.
It's not that prosumer machines don't need a warranty, they do (and by law they do), it's just that the warranty is realistic. Australian Consumer law, as Chris mentioned, then ensures that a consumer is covered for anything that is their right but didn't neatly fit within 'warranty'.
As you say Wattgn, good service is paramount, and having a plan from the outset about where and when you're going to service your machine is better than any extended warranty you might have. In a few years I'm moving back to Tasmania from Sydney, and I already knew before I bought the machine where I would get it serviced adequately there.
"Lock in good service and the rest will look after itself" absolutely.
Australian Consumer Law is a hit and miss thing, difficult to enforce. If the seller doesn't budge the complainant has a lot of work to do.
If, of course, all the problems on Prosumer machines manifest within 12 months then sellers should make the warranty 24 months as a rule. This wouldn't cost them anything extra...
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There is a number of costs associated with offering a further year, and it's all around perception, so hard to quantify.Originally posted by wattgn View PostI think an extended warranty is a great idea and yes I'd like to see coffee machines with a longer warranty. I think that the only reason it hasn't happened is not many do it but that might change.
Australian Consumer Law is a hit and miss thing, difficult to enforce. If the seller doesn't budge the complainant has a lot of work to do.
If, of course, all the problems on Prosumer machines manifest within 12 months then sellers should make the warranty 24 months as a rule. This wouldn't cost them anything extra...
Firstly, what it costs is implied confidence. This forum isn't full of people bemoaning the fact that their prosumer warranty was only 12 months and now they're stuffed (if they are, it's due to parallel import), but you WILL find that complaint in the areas of this forum where people have a 24-36 year warranty on their appliance-made machine that has just expired, and now it is in repair for 3+ months and $400. To extend a warranty out where historically it hasn't been amounts to implying a reduced confidence in the longevity of these machines.
It also gives the consumer a false sense of security. As Chris suggests above, a vast majority of issues are from misuse and abuse of machines. If the window for warrantable repair is lengthened, then the consumer might neglect maintenance and general daily service of the machine. That's a lose for the consumer, as they've not looked after the machine, and a lose for the business - as they might find themselves needing to defend their business from false claims.
An extended warranty becomes a smokescreen to obscure the consumer law. If something isn't covered under the terms of the so called 'extended warranty' then the customer thinks they're stuck, and now need to pay. The assumption (and what they're being sold on) is that an extended warranty goes beyond the consumer law, although this is entirely untrue. So a retailer gets to double dip selling the extended warranty.
All sales of goods come with the following statement attached to warranty statements:
"Our goods come with guarantees that cannot beexcluded under the Australian Consumer Law.You are entitled to a replacement or refund fora major failure and compensation for any otherreasonably foreseeable loss or damage. Youare also entitled to have the goods repaired orreplaced if the goods fail to be of acceptablequality and the failure does not amount to amajor failure."
Any reasonable seller will give service at the point where consumer law indicates they haven't provided a suitably reliable product. It's up to the consumer to pick their retailers and to ensure that they know they can not only get a reasonable price, but will be able to continue their relationship with the retailer. This is why I chose Jet Black when I bought my machine, and I did have a non-warrantable issue that still came under consumer law (my perception of what the product would do), and they were excellent about getting me sorted out quickly.
Basically - consumers want to outsource their own carefulness to the cost of an extended warranty. If careful work is put in first by the consumer, as has already been put in my the reputable retailer, there shouldn't be an issue.
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Agreed Al,
Buyers need to be mindful that they can't outsource correct maintenance. Negligence is not covered by warranty:
We had a Giotto taken to an office- dead after 6 months. Owners screaming warranty!
Steam wand 2cm wide with milk debris. Run on mineral water (I kid you not
) and almost completely blocked with scale- everywhere. Most of the electronics had to be replaced and it was case of disassemble everything else and soak in acid.
The nett result was $1400 in repairs and no warranty whatsoever!
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Say it runs on crappy tap water (SA WA comes to mind) not mineral, and it still gets blocked with scale. Would it be warrantable?Originally posted by Talk_Coffee View PostAgreed Al,
Buyers need to be mindful that they can't outsource correct maintenance. Negligence is not covered by warranty:
We had a Giotto taken to an office- dead after 6 months. Owners screaming warranty!
Steam wand 2cm wide with milk debris. Run on mineral water (I kid you not
) and almost completely blocked with scale- everywhere. Most of the electronics had to be replaced and it was case of disassemble everything else and soak in acid.
The nett result was $1400 in repairs and no warranty whatsoever!
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Hi Symphonie, no it wouldn't be warrantable, just like your kettle wouldn't be warrantable. As the retailer can only educate on what should be put into the machine, as oppose to control it, if the machine is used improperly it's not warrantable. When you pop open a machine's manual it'll have a section dedicated to water hardness and indicate the importance of an adequate filter, which should be sufficient prompting to investigate what else is required by you to properly operate the machine.
To be entirely over the top, if you put lemonade through the machine, it wouldn't be warrantable even if the majority of the soft-drink is water. Likewise, if you backflushed with inappropriate chemicals, it's not warrantable.
Also entirely over the top, if the reseller specified as a feature that you could put ANY water through a machine, and it would not build up with scale - and then it built up with scale - that would be a warrantable issue as the performance of the machine had not met the advertised standard. You'll never see this claim.
The closest you'll get is if the machine had an integrated water softener/filter which advertised mineral reduction to a safe level for a period of 12 months within specific water quality measurements (which the manual would stipulate you'd have to gather yourself), and then the filter failed prematurely - then it might become warrantable for scale. However, you'll find that most integrated filters are 'consumable' parts, only to be used for a limited time, and generally require significantly reduced mineral deposits in the water source anyway. A seller would likely advise to filter the water in this instance.
Basically - when it comes to scale - the ball is entirely in the consumers court. Don't put a banana in your toaster, don't put lemonade in your Espresso machine.
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That would come under misuse, of course that depends on your retailer informing you of the importance of using filtered waterOriginally posted by symphonie View PostSay it runs on crappy tap water (SA WA comes to mind) not mineral, and it still gets blocked with scale. Would it be warrantable?
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Or....it might also be considered an item of due diligence- like learning that your car may require oil every so often in an ownership period.Originally posted by magnafunk View PostThat would come under misuse, of course that depends on your retailer informing you of the importance of using filtered water
Just today a shagged Alex Duetto. Plumbed and on 5+Bar of inlet pressure since day one. Filter or OPV? Nope. What for?
People abuse espresso machines and many wait for failure before they think of repair. Servicing? What servicing?
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