Can you recommend any decent brands? I've had a bit hit and miss results with compatible ink in my HP6940. And some of the expensive ones have been the worst! Tend to use HP more recently and send anything not needing colour to an old laserjet4000 that just won't die :-)
Had good results from Jet Tec carts with my old epson printer, although the colour was never quote as good.
Darren
How is one supposed to know which are "good" compatibles and which are not? All I know about mine is that the box each comes in has *no* information on it about the manufacturer or where they are made.
I have forgotten the brand of cartridges we used to buy. I only recall that they were an American company. I used to sell a lot more ink refill kits for HP and other printers with heads in the cartridges than remanufactured cartridges.
I imported InkTec refill kits - they are a Korean company that started out in inks for the electronics industry and later moved into printer inks. Unlike many universal refill kits, they have specific jigs for refilling each type of cartridge, making the job a lot easier. They also take a lot of trouble to ensure that the inks are a complete match to the OEM ink.
I use G&G cartridges for my Epson photo printers and get excellent results.
Colin Bignell
I am a low-volume user, and my last two cartridges have been black Jet Tecs, and they have done extraordinarily well. This is in an HP Deskjet 5150. I don't use colour enough to even try one of them, it would surely clog before I made enough use of it.
According to the BMW dealer, something to do with bushes on the steering
- they were not the official parts, partially seized up and the resultant wobble cost me two new front brake disks before I could get to Dick Lovett's in Swindon - where I always went before and definitely always went after.
That was a typo, I meant brake pads, not disks - I was thinking of the BMW. None Vauxhall pads were fitted to the front of my Mark I Cavalier. Heavens knows what they were made of -- compressed grass? - but they were half gone before I got to a Vauxhall main dealer the next day. I first discovered the problem when approaching a local accident black spot crossing the A46, braked for the traffic lights, and went straight over the junction in a cloud of smelly black smoke.
I'd ask why a company car was being serviced at other than a reputable garage?
I'd also want to know what happened with the discs? One broke off or what? Poor pads would be a more likely scenario.
Who said it wasn't? It was a Vauxhall dealer, using cheap parts, presumably.
Brian Gaff put finger to keyboard:
One of my relatives had a quite expensive Epson inkjet for printing quality photos. It had eight cartridges including a 'gloss' lacquer. The retail price for a full set of Epson cartridges was around £160.
What was really annoying, and totally unnecessary, was the waste of ink when cleaning.
Say the Light Magenta cartridge had one blocked nozzle. Want to clean it? You gotta run the cleaning cycle which blasts ink through _all_ the cartridges, whether they need it or not.
Oh, and if you've got less than 20% ink left in _any_ cartridge then you can't start the cleaning cycle. You have to replace the (perfectly good) cart with a new one.
According to Epson, this requirement was because cleaning could use up to
20% of the capacity of the cartridge - so in my relative's case, it could cost £32 to run a single cleaning cycle.I bought a Dell colour laser for £54 recently. OK, it isn't duplex and the starter toner cartridges only do 1,000 pages each, but at least I know I can leave it for a few weeks and it will just work when I need it.
Wheel wobble on some BMWs due to worn control arm bushes is common. It feels like warped discs as it usually starts when you brake. That a garage
- especially a BMW dealer - spins you some story comes as no surprise. Badly fitted discs - not cleaning the mating surfaces properly - can also cause problems.
I think you presume too much.
Garages are notorious for telling any story they feel like. I do most of my own servicing - and have done for many many years. If pattern parts were always inferior to maker's ones, there would be no point in using them. But decent quality ones are the equal - and sometimes better. Of course there is some rubbish out there - but in which case your complaint should be aimed at who bought them and fitted them.
FWIW, my local BMW main dealer was perhaps the worst garage I've ever had dealings with. Approaching fraud at times. Charging for work not done. They closed down. Luckily I have a very good independent specialist near who I use for the things I don't want to do myself.
I used to until I got too old and the cars got to complicated and required too much specialist equipment. My Grandfather was a Ford Main Dealer for nearly forty years, so we are well aware of the things that some of the el cheapo garages said and did - and, very rarely, the main dealers. The fact remains that you stand the best chance of things going correctly using official agencies and official parts. Seventy years of experience in cars, more latterly computers, pharmacy (compulsory to follow the "official" route every time or people die), and life in general has backed that up almost every single time. Go the cut price way, and it will cost you shed-loads of money in the end - unless you have some inside knowledge that Joe Average hasn't.
And therein lies the reason to never, ever use them - you can't tell the good from the bad until you try them, by which time you may be too dead to learn. Using unofficial copies is a total lottery. Using official parts ain't perfect, but it tips the odds heavily in the right direction.
There are a few bad ones, like the one who fitted my brake pads. I send my X-trail (well, they fetch and deliver it from 20 miles away) to the Nissan Main dealer, and whilst the service is as good as it has been for the last 10 years, I will continue to do so.
back in the 60's the local Ford Main Dealer was behaving similarly. I was just about to contact Ford when I discovered the dealer had lost the franchise. Some years later the new dealer wasn't up to par, so I threatened to tell Ford. Instanmt service.
cartridges. Finished with Epson. I had good experiences with Canon compatib le cartridges in the past, but both my printers' print heads eventually sto pped working.
if it always worked.
Thats the catch, inkjet and low volume don`t go together well, especially o n Epsons that have piezo nozzles seperate from cart.
Just had to scrap my 6 colour Epson R200 after 12 odd years, mechanical wea r out on paper feed rather than jet problems, guess it must have printed 50 ,000 sheets anyway, only original carts it saw were ones it came with new c ompatibles since, and counters reset couple of times with SSC service utili ty.
It printed few sheets of full colour most days and rarely went into head cl ean cycle.
Laser is much more tolerant of infrequent use.
Trying to replace Epson at moment is problematic, no direct replacement for R200, current 5 colour Epson photo printer has alot reviews commenting on nozzle blocking , 6 colour A4 printer is cut down version of pro A3 prin ter and priced accordingly.
Dosent appear to be any consumer priced Epson Photo printers at moment. Dif ference between 4 and 6 colour print is quite noticeable.
es trouble free so low cost upkeep.
You were talking about brakes. If anything, they're easier to replace now than once was the case.
Are you saying a generic drug is always inferior to a branded one?
I'm not quite clear about this. Did you fit these 'copies' or was it a garage? And did you instruct them to use 'copies'? Seems strange with a company car. Sadly, some of the motor trade is so dishonest some garages will fit 'copies' but charge for genuine.
There are good and bad - but as I said using a main dealer doesn't guarantee the best, despite the sky high prices. A long established independant may be a better bet since they more have to rely on reputation. Of course with a brand new car you may well have no option.
My complaint to BMW UK just resulted in them passing on the letter to the head office of the dealer chain. ;-)
Basically, the dealer had replaced (and charged for) cabin pollen filters which were neither needed or specified for replacement at that service. Cost approx £100. The best offer I got out of them was a discount on the next service. Which I never used as the car was by now out of warranty, and I either did it myself or used an independant.
This thread is very useful to me - I've been looking up various models of mono lasers. This is for use on a Mac so must be Mac compatible. Any thoughts on these:
Brother HL 2270DW Brother 2030 or 2035 Dell 1160 or 1260 HP 1102 Kyocera 1350 (may need to buy used) Lexmark E260D Samsung 2525 Samsung 2165 Xerox - various Phaser models
Grateful for any personal experiences.
I thought he was talking about servicing, see above.
Brakes aren't part of a routine service as most would wait for a pad warning before replacing. And with BMW at least - which needs discs every other pad change - a very good way of saving hundreds by DIY.
But anyway, routine servicing is usually a lot easier these days. No plugs and points to clean and set (plugs usually last up to 100,000 miles) and no grease nipples. Brakes usually self adjusting. Etc.
Put it the other way round - the branded one is more consistent in manufacture and hence better. All generics conform to minimum standards, but there is quite a bit of variation. In many cases the variation is of little consequence (antibiotics, for example - the precise dose is rarely critical) in others it is important (particularly, say, sustained release products and drugs used in epilepsy, for example) and pharmacists will use their expertise to decide when it is important to stick to the same "brand" or generic "brand" for the same patient each time. Often they (nearly always private pharmacies) will have to do this at their own expense if they choose not to use the cheapest as the NHS forces prices down as much as it can, so "cheapo besto" often applies.
No, I just took it in for a service, I think your latter explanation applied.
As far as remember Phaser uses solid inks and likes to be left on all the time.
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