Leasing vs Buying.

[kdw75]

We have been leasing our machines through Xerox, but I keep being enticed to try buying one outright. I see these Xerox resellers with Color Press 1000s, for only $70,000, and less than 100,000 clicks on them. That's only two years of our 2100s lease payments.

 

[AP90]

We have a 1000i currently. I'd suggest looking at cost other than the machine. Our parts cabinet is worth probably more than a lot of people's cars. You'll definitely want to have parts on hand. I think I've seen drums on eBay for +/- $400, I think a toner bottle goes for 2-300. Fuser belts are 1500ish and I think in a year I've went through at least 4. I've went through 2 delevoper units. 3500ish a piece. The bigger the machine the bigger the cost. Also, the fiery isn't a cheap piece of equipment either. We had to it worked on once.

Now if if your looking to buy and then put on a click maintainence plan, that's a different story. We looked at doing that. One thing to note is your don't have the full satisfaction guarantee if it's a used unit for a refurbing place. That's risky considering if you use it a lot and image quality goes down, basically you have no leg to stand on. They can say "it's up to spec" or "we've done everything" and you don't have much of a recourse.

 

[kdw75]

We have a 1000i currently. I'd suggest looking at cost other than the machine. Our parts cabinet is worth probably more than a lot of people's cars. You'll definitely want to have parts on hand. I think I've seen drums on eBay for +/- $400, I think a toner bottle goes for 2-300. Fuser belts are 1500ish and I think in a year I've went through at least 4. I've went through 2 delevoper units. 3500ish a piece. The bigger the machine the bigger the cost. Also, the fiery isn't a cheap piece of equipment either. We had to it worked on once.

Now if if your looking to buy and then put on a click maintainence plan, that's a different story. We looked at doing that. One thing to note is your don't have the full satisfaction guarantee if it's a used unit for a refurbing place. That's risky considering if you use it a lot and image quality goes down, basically you have no leg to stand on. They can say "it's up to spec" or "we've done everything" and you don't have much of a recourse.

We would definitely get it on a service/supply plan. The machines are all guaranteed to be eligible.

How would the quality be any different than leasing? If your leasing they only make it do what the customer expectation document states, wouldn't the same be true on any unit they put under contract?

I am not familiar with the "full satisfaction guarantee".

UPDATE: I just searched the full satisfaction guarantee. It really sounds like a bunch of nothing to me. Either way they have to keep it in spec. What good does it do for them to replace the machine? I can only imagine what it would take to get them to actually do that. We have had complaints, but they sure didn't offer to replace the machine when it barely was within spec. Usually if it says the machine should register to 1/16" of an inch, and ours is slightly over, they start backtracking by saying that is front to back specs, not sheet to sheet.

 

[AP90]

I'm not sure it's called "full satisfaction guarantee" but it's the process for xerox where if the machine is not performing up to the standards, you can start the process to get the equipment replaced by a new printer of that model. I've read on here that some people have started the process to get xerox to own up to some quality problems with the machines. When I talked with Xerox about doing exactly what your talking about, the immediately mentioned that this would not be available. And honestly, why would it? Buy a used iGen, 1000, ect and if it has problems make them replace it with a new machine? No company would agree to that. Maybe they've changed it but I don't know. I'd look into it.

I believe your going to be looking at higher click rates. If your company is comfortable with it, I'd look into it. All I know is after running a 1000i for a year, it seems like it could be a big undertaking going through the hassle if the machine does not perform like it should. I'm sure xerox will certify it and will do what they can fixing things, but I have a feeling there won't be much "above and beyond" treatment with it. We had a tech at our office until around 9pm one night because he needed to load another customers fiery hard drives into our machine because theirs crashed. He then drove 3 hours back home to reload their fiery.

 

[gregbatch]

Also remember that an operating lease has tax write-off advantages.

 

[kdw75]

Also remember that an operating lease has tax write-off advantages.

True. It just seems like it would be hard to show where the possible advantages make up for saving hundreds of thousands. Now if you were running huge volumes, I can see where the click discount would nullify the difference, but running a couple hundred thousand a month, not so much.

 

[gregbatch]

Well, the 1000 is first generation. I simply cannot believe a 1000 with under 100,000 clicks on it. That's like half a month of impressions. Something is not right there. And, a first generation doesn't have all the new tech that makes a 1000i so much easier to run. I would take a V2100 over a 1000 any day. Don't know about the click difference. On our B/W it takes about 350K to equal our lease payment on the other machine. As a secondary machine we are way ahead, but if it was our primary machine we would be getting close to lease cost each month.

 

[dabob]

We are big believers in buying and not leasing . . . except in technology areas . . . so we lease all of our "digital presses" just seems to work out better that way . . . .

 

[kdw75]

This company seems to have machines available regularly, and have been doing it for years. A couple years ago they had a C75 configured like ours, and it was $35,000, while our lease payments are about $1,700.

I keep thinking king it sounds too good to be true, and there must be a catch.

What at does Xerox do on a machine under contract that they can't get within spec? I had assumed replace.

 

[Rod Rick]

You've never leased before but you're interested in what makes leasing so attractive and if it's right for you vs buying a car. It sounds simple enough but you'd like to understand the process better to see if this is for you.

 

[kdw75]

The lease wouldn't seem as bad, if at the end you had a $1 buyout, but the FMV terminology makes me wonder. For some reason, I have visions of them saying that a 6 year old machine with 7 million clicks on it is still worth 20 or 30 thousand dollars.

 

[AP90]

The lease wouldn't seem as bad, if at the end you had a $1 buyout, but the FMV terminology makes me wonder. For some reason, I have visions of them saying that a 6 year old machine with 7 million clicks on it is still worth 20 or 30 thousand dollars.

I think your probably pretty close on this. I figured they would offer them dirt cheap to buy out and keep you on a click charge so you can use the machine as a back up and you can continue to make money on it vs. them junking them machine.

Also, you mentioned earlier that this company you saw had machines cheap with low clicks on them. Pretty sure I know exactly what company your talking about. I was told that a lot of times these machines they have are ones that have been replaced by xerox or are machines that have been repo'ed or insurance claims. Maybe thats not true, but I can't see how they can get some of these machines with the clicks they have on them. My 1000i has almost 2 million after a year and we don't even run it to max each month. For them to have a 1000 with 100k, seems fishy to me.

 

[thebluesdude]

For what it's worth guys I have had both experiences. Xerox are a company of their word if you dig your heels in, we had both our Xerox machines TSG'ed in four years (total satisfaction guarantee) replaced with new machines on a lease contract. We also purchased a money pit from Konica which the dealer walked out on after claiming we were using too much parts and toner, leaving us without a service contract. Enter Danwood and every thing turned to Sh@t. The swapped out our 'old' machine for a newer version so we old have a service contract on it and bought it off our old dealer. They increased charges and then turned our purchase into a lease purchase. They couldn't keep the machine running, terrible service agents and bad parts. Two and a half years down the line of paying £1300 per month for a machine that we couldn't produce a saleable print out of, we asked for an upgrade or if they could move it on to someone else as we couldn't afford it. They smiled, collected it, sold it at auction for £750 and gave us a bill for the remaining £26,000. Legally we couldn't do a thing about it, we tried, but nothing. 7 years later were still buying the machine we don't have! Guys lease or rent they are not worth anything after 5 years anyway.