Experiences with refurbs?

[Mactel]

I've been looking at buying a new receiver to replace my old one that conked out after 4 years and can save a good $70 on the model I'm thinking of getting. The refurb has a 1 year warranty vs. 3 years on the new one.

How have you guys faired with refurbs over the years? Not just Apple stuff but across the board with electronics?

[Racer X]

My Canon Rebel XTi is a factory Canon reufurb. It looked new when I took it out of the box. I also got a factory refurb JVC S-VHS deck a few years back. Works fine.

[LyleH]

My Refurbished Canon Pixma MP960 was purchased 5 months ago from Canon for $99. It basically looked brand new and came with 7 new cartridges and all the accessories, CD, manuals. All features I've tested, including scanning, work fine. I'd do it again, and have been watching their digital camera refurbished web page for the camera I want.

LyleH

[Lew Zealand]

I have an Onkyo factory refurb receiver from the waning days of Dolby Surround. Still works great and handles the old skool surround so well that I haven't felt the need to upgrade to a DD/DTS/7.1/newfangled one until recently*.

The Audssey features in the new ones are finally a technology which can improve the sound of your listening room to a degree that it'll be worth buying a new receiver. And yes, I'll be getting an Onkyo again and if there's a good deal on a refurb, I won't hesitate to get it.





* Mostly because many other people's DD setups have sounded quite bad, especially localization of the center channel, though I made the effort to set up mine well and I have 5 identical speakers, incl. the center.

[Will Collier]

I can't even count how many refurbs I've bought over the years. Never had one problem.

[Black]

Great experience with Apple refurbs.
Horrible experience with other kinds-- there are a lot of liquidators passing defective merchandise along as "refurbs" but in reality they haven't been touched. You get something like a 90 day warranty and you spend the whole 3 months dealing with the repair yourself.
Particularly with receivers I had a horrible experience-- Harmon Kardons off of Ubid.
My advice-- only do it through a well-liked merchant, and don't touch anything that doesn't have a full manufacturer warranty. Emphasis on manufacturer.

[Silencio]

The only refurbished piece of equipment I ever bought that gave me significant problems was an Epson scanner. Had to ship it to a third party repair shop, they claimed to fix it, but it never did work right.

[testcase]

Great experience with Apple & IBM.

[Sam3]

I've never had problems with the following: Apple, Harman-Kardon, Epson, Canon. Every item I've purchased from these manufacturers has looked and acted brand new.