Printer Extended Warranty / Service Contract

[summit68]

Well, my 7900 printhead died. It did live a long life, no regrets. Obviously not worth fixing. It's an exciting time to replace it, more choices now than ever- new printers from Epson and Canon, or smoking deals on existing machines.

One thing is for sure, I'll never buy another without a warranty/service contract again, something that I can keep renewing each year as I see fit. My question: Any experiences good or bad with extended warranty or service contracts, from manufacturers or third parties? What seems to be the best bang for buck? Western U.S. location. Thanks!

[LGeb]

Can you keep renewing the service contracts? Seems the printers last about 5 years, but the warranties can only extend to 4, for about 75% of the cost of a new printer.

Which channel(s) of the head died? If it's the green or orange you can print with the 7890 driver. Or convert it to Piezography or other black and white inks.

[summit68]

Green channel.

Thought about Piezo, but don't know if I do enough BW to justify.

[Wayne Fox]

Well, my 7900 printhead died. It did live a long life, no regrets.

Is it a complete channel drop or just some missing nozzles that won’t recover no matter what you do?

[datro]

...
One thing is for sure, I'll never buy another without a warranty/service contract again, something that I can keep renewing each year as I see fit. My question: Any experiences good or bad with extended warranty or service contracts, from manufacturers or third parties? What seems to be the best bang for buck? Western U.S. location. Thanks!

Be aware that at least with Epson, you can only extend the warranty for a total of up to 3 years (first year you get with the printer purchase, then you can extend an additional 2 years).  Epson does not allow extending beyond this.  I bought the full extended warranty with my 7900 but never had to use it.  Nevertheless I think it is generally worth it, especially if your printer is being used to provide income.

Like you, my green channel (this is my 2nd head) has died in my 7900 and I'm considering options.  My first head failure (also on the green channel) occurred after 5.5 years of no major problems with the printer.  I replaced the head and ink selector (dampers) myself and things were going great until just recently when the same failure occurred in the green channel.  Now that the printer is 7.5 years old, I probably will not replace the head.  I am considering installing the 7890 driver and hope that this will work.  (I just posted a separate thread on this topic).

[summit68]

Is it a complete channel drop or just some missing nozzles that won’t recover no matter what you do?

Just some missing (consistent) nozzles.

[datro]

Is it a complete channel drop or just some missing nozzles that won’t recover no matter what you do?

I'm not the OP, but FWIW in my case the head failure mode is a block of missing nozzles in the middle of the nozzle pattern.  At first it is typically only a few lines of missing or deflected nozzles, but after gently ramping up the cleaning regimen you start to see the block of missing nozzles get larger and larger.  (You may sometimes see a few nozzles come back, but generally they disappear and never come back.)  I've now seen this failure mode on two different heads and I believe it is indicative of either electrical or mechanical failure in the head, not a clog.

[summit68]

I spoke to a tech at Compass Micro. Pretty convinced it's a head failure. It's my original head and I purchased in 2010 I think.

[LGeb]

Green channel.

Thought about Piezo, but don't know if I do enough BW to justify.

Your printer is actually still usable if it's the green or orange channel. Turn off the auto head cleaning since it will never succeed if the head is bad. Install the 7890 driver for the printer. It will print as a K3 printer. Do all your head cleanings on color pairs.