A Lesson In Customer Service - a.k.a. What NOT To Do
So a couple weeks ago I had one of my printers go down with a fairly common routine problem, the rubber drive belt for the carriage assembly wore out. No big deal, they only last so long and need to be swapped every couple years or so depending on use, and mine certainly gets a lot of use!
HP offers an exceptional on-site warranty service program, but it's also an exceptionally large amount of money starting at several hundred dollars per year. If I was running the printer a lot more say in a dedicated production environment this would be a no brainer deal, sign me up! However I only print for myself and a relatively small selection of clients so I can't justify that kind of expense, especially when I am capable of doing just about everything myself. For giggles I checked how much this one repair would cost, and it was nearly $1,000! It included an on-site HP tech, repair, replacement, cleaning and calibration and would take a few hours to complete.
