Sawgrass aftersales support

[hsmbydesign]

Hi, If any one has read about the great after sales support you get from Sawgrass even if the printer is out of warranty then you should read this.
I purchased a Ricoh SG3110dn in July 2012 from Serigraf in Ireland after reading the reviews on here about how good sawgrass support is and that they offer discounts on new printers if your printer fails when out of warranty.

Well, my printer failed just before Christmas and I first called Ricoh about the problem.They confirmed that the printer was still in the 2 year warranty and sent an engineer out to fix it.
When he saw it was been used for sublimation he told me that Ricoh couldn't support me and that I would have to go through Sawgrass.
I spoke to Danny at Sawgrass to be told that as the machine is out of warranty (they only give one year) they could do nothing for me...no discounts on a replacement printer and no chance of a repair as spare parts don't exist for these printers.
So if you think its worth paying the extra for a printer from Sawgrass due to their after sales service then think again..after 1 year if it goes wrong it is basically a brick with 4 expensive cartridges in it.

[Scotty@BMS]

Sorry to hear that Shaun Is there any chance of you picking up a new SG3110 and installing your carts in it? Or have you not got that much ink left to justify that?

[pisquee]

I thought European law was for a warranty to be for two years, but also under UK law isn't your point of contact for aftersales service with the supplier (Serigraf) you bought the system from as your contract of sale is with them and not the manufacturer?

[JMugs]

I am with Pisquee on this about who is responsible...but there is no obligation on Sawgrass or the retailer to warranty the printer once you put sublimation inks in it. The printer was not designed to take sublimation ink. It's a bit like putting diesel in a petrol car, no warranty would cover it.
But with a Ricoh, there is nobody else's ink to put in it for sublimation.

Frustrating... yes.

So I feel for you, but at the end of the day 12 months warranty is more than anybody else would give you with sublimation ink.

Janners.

[NikGrey]

When I bought mine I'm sure I read somewhere it was only covered for 12 months by SG - this is acceptable if your in full production but for me I have had equipment sitting around for months as I am still unable to open my business properly (almost there though).

The printers themselves are just over £100 new, just find another - keep this one for parts and use your carts in the new one. I dont know if it will be covered but its not such a disaster this way.

BTW, what was the problem with the Ricoh ?

[hsmbydesign]

Hi, thanks for the replies. I have ordered a new Ricoh printer from the UK as in Ireland they are €200 (rip off Ireland)
I fully understand the warranty is only 12 months and that Sawgrass are under no obligation after that but my point was that I thought from reading on this forum that they would go some way in offering a discount on a new printer/inks even though it was out of warranty. Even a 10% discount would have shown own some sort of customer goodwill but basically I was told tough it's out of warranty.
As you are aware the Ricoh holds about half of the ink in the feed lines to the printer head so I will have lost that about £100 worth of ink there!
By the way the problem was sc(23113) apparently that is a fault with the sensor for the magenta cartridge and sawgrass said that they cannot get spare parts for these printers as they are only available in Japan so it cannot be fixed.
On your point Janners on putting diesel in a petrol car... A sawgrass agent sold me this printer and their patented ink as a package so I disagree with your analogy. If these printers aren't suitable for sublimation ink then surely they shouldn't be selling them as so. I though that is why they held the patents and why they are so careful to protect them! If this isn't the case then why can't I use joe blogs sublimation ink?

[pisquee]

IF you ignore the patent side of things (which expires in September this year) then technically there is nothing stopping you from using "Joe Bloggs" sublimation ink in any peizo-headed printer - it will work. The only caveat is that the Ricoh printers need a different formulation of ink than an Epson/Brother to work properly. i tried normal sublimation ink formulated for an Epson in a Ricoh and it didn't work well at all (streaky/blotchy)
AFAIK, Sawgrass don't hold a patent for a sublimation ink formulation specific to the Ricoh printers(but they may) Their main patent, is for a formulation of sublimation ink where the particles are coated to stop them clogging as easily, and to protect them from heat used in some print heads (like Canon) Although, interestingly enough, this latter part didn't seem to be pursued much once Epson brought out their Stylus printers which didn't use heat in the printing head.

[NikGrey]

IF you ignore the patent side of things (which expires in September this year)

Interesting - this will surely open up the market

[purpledragon]

Interesting - this will surely open up the market

pretty sure sawgrass will have this covered in some way !!!

as for the comment
"If these printers aren't suitable for sublimation ink then surely they shouldn't be selling them as so"
dedicated sublimation printers generally start at 42 icnes wide in other words industrial wide format printers . its well documented that table top printers are not designed for sublimation inks and as far as im aware there isnt a desktop printer that is designed for sublimation ink. so if sawgrass did not use bastardised prinbetrs for sublimation printing then quite simply there wouldnt be any desk top printers which would be used for sublimation work . this in effect would probably wipe out 90% of small businesses who produce mugs etc just ask yourself how many on this forum are using large format compared to desktop printers and i dare say you will find the vast majority use desktop printers and if they do use wide format chances are they got there by first using desktop printers . As much as i hate to defend sawgrass and their ridiculas prices sawgrass are not dealers of printers and ink to general public so why should they offer a discount on new printers ? BMS for example are sawgrass approved this means they are allowed to sell their inks it has nothing to do with the printers , sawgrass are good enough to say "ok putting our ink in your printer will void its warrantey so buy the printer from a sawgrass approved dealer and we will take over the warranty" so ask yourself this do you use compatable inks in a normal printer for normal printing ? if the answer is yes then that printers warranty is void so the next question you should ask yourself is will the company that sold me the compatable inks uphold the warranty should something go wrong with the printer and i dare say the answer wou;d be no .
everyone should know epson printrers are designed to use epson inks and if you use other inks and it goes wrong epson will say tough luck .Luckily sawgrass will step in and say we''ll fix replace the printer if less than 12months old . my printer (b1100) broke down after 11 months and a week. sawgrass couldnt fix it so arranged a brand new printer from one of their approved dealers (bms ) now that service can not be faulted .
Still think sawgrass are a rip off though !!

[RogerC]

Got to agree with PD on this one...........Sawgrass are a 'business' not a charity and their 'small operator' offerings with 12 months support should be applauded because if they didn't do it where would the great majority of us be?.
OK so the inks are pricy but your pricing should be such that it covers all your costs, including equipment over a given amount of production, so I don't see the problem (assuming there is one).

Roland has a policy that in a way parallels that of Sawgrass and it's something like this:
"If you have used 'third party' inks in our machines and it goes 'pop'...you're on your own".

So in a nutshell if you don't like the prices and/or conditions as determined by the manufacturer/supplier you are free to go elsewhere. I, for one, consider my equipment to be far to valuable to me to use other than the 'specified/branded' inks.