Is an extended Laser Warranty worth the money?

[Alex Marton]

We have a Xenetech Laser that's only 3 months old. We recently were offered an extended warranty for $2500+. I have no idea if the cost of the warranty is justifiable due to a lack of laser experience. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Alex

[Al Mutairi]

We have a Xenetech Laser that's only 3 months old. We recently were offered an extended warranty for $2500+. I have no idea if the cost of the warranty is justifiable due to a lack of laser experience. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Alex

I did not get one , applying the laws of probability = better to keep my money in the bank > the chances of something going wrong later !

What if you decide to sell your machine 6 months from now ?

Keep in mind that during the original warranty period you are learning to master the machine & by the time your warranty is over the chances of you doing something stupid to the machine have been reduced to almost zero.

2 1/2 years later I am glad I made that decision .

[Bruce Volden]

Alex,


Nah...get to know your machine, do your preventive maintenance, learn the "lingo" and you should be all set. Know what is 'sposed to happen and when. I have "blamed" my machine for having "problems" only to find out that sometimes on occasion SOFTWARE is to blame!! I don't know what is out there for warranty anymore, when I bought my 1st machine it was 3 year bumper to bumper~so I felt safe. Also, the mfgr was only 6 hours away, so I thought I could just throw it in the back of the pick-up, drive on up and jump up and down on their desk!! I did bring my machines up there once 'tho....9 years later for a good going through. Don't sweat it.


Bruce

[Joe Pelonio]

I passed it up and may live to regret it, but that's a pretty high price, the one offered to me by Epilog was just $1,500.

[Mike Null]

The highest margin item for these companies is their extended warranty. Why do you think every company who sells anything mechanical or electrical pushes them.

It doesn't matter what you buy or where you buy it they try to sell an extended warranty. For every person who says it saved them money there are a hundred who never had need to use it. You do the math.

I retired from just such a business. Believe me, we would have rather sold warranties than manufacture appliances. Sears, who I worked with (not for) for years sold more appliances than any 5 companies combined. They would fire sales people who did not sell extended warranties; they also paid more commission for warranty sales than for appliance-tv sales.

And, yes laser engravers, power tools and automobiles fall into the same category.

What is different is that the extended warranty you buy with the laser is for parts. You get to do the labor.

[Rodne Gold]

That question can't be answered without a lot more info.
IE what does it cover , for how long , what is considered failure and what is wear and tear , how is it better than the original warrantee , who is underwriting the repairs/replacements , does it pay out for extened downtime etc.
Lasers are essentially flaky objects , especially sources. The source or motherboard are generally the 2 most expensive items on a laser , the motherboard is the item that will probably give the least problems of these 2.
A source can be VERY expensive and if the warrantee has a no quibble or question asked replacement policy covering this , $2500 might be a very small price to pay.
Amortise the price of the warrantee over 3 years and its $5 a working day (600 or so days). If the warrantee is worth the paper its written on and there arent like a million weasel out clauses , its not a bad deal.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Mike,

I have always told our customers to put the money into a savings account if and when they need to address the laser tube situation they would have more than they need to deal with it. On the ULS tubes the extended warranties are only $630.00 per year for a 60 watt laser tube, now the typical warranty for the tubes is 2 years and the re-process charge is only $1050.00 once it is out of warranty. We would normally state that you should get from three to five years life from a laser tube (not guaranteed) however the statistics have shown that to be a fairly reliable number.

Now if you purchased two years additional warranty for the laser tube you would be buying the laser tube reprocess once it is needed. And if you don't need it during that extended warranty period then you are just giving your money to the MFG.

Now if you put the $630.00 x 2 into the bank so once it is needed you have it to reprocess the laser tube + you will have $210.00 extra for other things if necessary.

This is a scenario for the uls system if you take the 2500 and divide it up by 12 and then just put that amount into an account you will be covered once it needs the work if you start now by the time the laser tube needs to be worked on you should easily have enough to cover the cost.

[Alex Marton]

...thanks to everyone for great feedback! We will chew on the information provided, but if I had to choose today, I wouldn't purchase the warranty given my history and the feedback received.

Thanks again!
Alex