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printer to repair or not repair

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techidave:
I am having a difficult time wrapping my head around printers - laser printers.  Do I repair them or replace them.  By repair, I mean someone else does the work.

I am not talking about cheap printers but ones like the HP Laserjets P3005dn, 4100dn, 1300, 1200.  Also Xerox N2125.

i realize these are some heavy duty printers that are made to last a long time and print thousands of pages before needing some attention.  But one can wrap up hundreds of dollars in repairs, especially if a maintenance kit or fuser is needed.

While these printers won't have the speed of a newer one, they probably are more durable, in my opinion.

so where is the trade off ... replace or repair at?  is it in dollars to repair or how many pages have been run through the printer over the lifetime.  some of my printers are 7-10 years old.  Does that mean I should replace?

I didn't know what other doco users thoughts were on this.  I am using these in a school enviroment if that makes a difference.

thanks,
Dave

mouser:
my general view of electronics is when they pass the warranty period, repairing is rarely worth it.

mouser:
some of my printers are 7-10 years old.  Does that mean I should replace?
--- End quote ---
yes.

mouser:
When calculating repair vs buy new, you also have to factor in the fact that these kinds of repairs frequently are unsuccessful, or only fix it briefly, and the costs are very difficult to predict.

Frequently with electronics, buying a new item would be cheaper than even the bare minimum repair costs assuming the repair is guaranteed to be 100% perfect success.  That's the easy call.

More often than not though, you have to make a judgement call about the likely repair cost, hassle and downtime of the repair, and how long it's likely to last after repair.

But when I factor those things in, and consider my experience with repairs not lasting, i almost never come out on the side of repairing.

The only exceptions to this rule is when I can do the repair myself -- in that case i'll gladly spend way too many hours and way too much on parts, just on the principle of the matter.

techidave:
Mouser, I can partially agree with if we are talking about a hundred dollar printer, then yeah, repairs probably wont be worth it.  But brand new the P3005 and 4100 HP are many hundreds of dollars.  The 4100s are known to be real workhorses and some probably have a million or more pages.  Te older ones tend to have heavier and possibly more metal parts in them than the newer plastic printers.

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