[jaclaz]

>I hope laser printers will never become such a scam product like inkjet...

They can already be, JFYI.

For years I had HP printers (only), when they (particularly their drivers) started to become crap (around 10 years ago) I switched to Brother (small office, 3-4 printers, very little print volume).

Lately, on two different multifunctions, "low cost" but rated for around 10,000-15,000 pages per month (we do like 1/10th of that or less) multifunction B/W laser printers, the fuser (rated for 100,000 pages) failed, on one machine at 18,000 pages, on the other at 46,000, printers are 3 or 4 years old (models DCP-8110DN and MFC-8520DN).

Cost of the spare fuser around 150 Euro! + some 30-50 Euro of labour, total 180-200.

Cost of a comparable brand new printer from Brother around 200-220 Euro.

After some research, I found out that half the world experienced the same on that particular "printing engine", which was used on several Brother models, and new series printer use a different one, with a fuser hopefully more reliable.

Anyway, besides the money involved, the obvious choice, buying two new printers would have meant sending to waste some 15 kg x 2 = 30 kg of material, so searched and found a few videos about the issue, bought for 25 Euro each two "fuser refurbishing kits" from China (roller+sleeve+grease) and in less than two hours time I "fixed" (at least temporarily) the issue (it is too recent to know how long the fusers will last).

Imagine that your car, that you paid some 30,000 Euro and that reasonably could do 200,000 km, at 50,000 and right out of warranty breaks a piston and you can only replace the whole engine block and it is a 28,000 Euro repair.

[sokoloff]

To be fair, if you took it back to the car dealer, the only repair they're likely to offer is a factory engine swap. They're not going to do an engine rebuild in the service bay.

Taking it to an independent or DIY, you could rebuild the engine (analogous to what you did on your printer).

[jaclaz]

Sure, the point is that the car dealer would ask a "proportionate" price for the engine swap (even if not cheap, or not as cheap as a "punctual" repair) in the order of magnitude of 3,000 to 6,000 Euro, at the most 10,000 i.e. 10% or 20% or 30% at the most of the price of the car "new".

Here we are talking of 90% to 100% of the price of a new printer.

[bradknowles]

2011 Nissan Juke with five year/50,000 mile warranty. Bought in 2012, only one owner. In good condition with roughly 45,000 miles in December of 2019, Kelley Blue Book resale value of about $7,000.00 USD.

Timing chain breaks. Out of warranty. Cost from dealer is estimated at $10,000 for a complete engine replacement, plus turbos. No joke.

Takes the vehicle down to net negative value, which can only be declared a complete loss and sold for parts.

NB: Cost estimate from reputable third parties is $7,000-8,000, not a full replacement but only a partial rebuild. Doesn’t materially change the result.

[zrail]

Not quite true. I took our car in for a weird noise and they rebuilt just part of the transmission. The noise happened again and then they decided to replace the entire transmission. Both repairs were under warranty.

[jaclaz]

Well it is what happens when the item is out of warranty the issue at hand.

I am pretty sure that if my fusers went bad within the warranty period I might have had them replaced under warranty, or at least there are several reports that Brother did that.

My rant was only about the absurd prices of the spares.