Is This Reasonable?

MtnHam

MtnHam

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Joined
Jun 28, 2013
Messages
290
Location
Northern California Coast & San Francisco
My Esoteric K-03 which I purchased 2nd hand about 3 years ago developed a problem with the loading tray. I sent it to the Esoteric repair facility and received a quote of $646.00. Yes, it's out of warranty. I really don't have a choice but to go ahead with the repair. Is this a reasonable charge? Opinions please.
 
being 12k new and depending on the parts list and labor involved, six bills to repair a mechanical problem isnt out of whack when you consider its a factory repair center.
 
Sound very reasonable all things considered. My friend spent close to 5 years chasing down a laser assembly for his Krell MD10 CD Transport that he loves and has owned since the 90's and paid nearly the same. That was just the laser assembly. I don't blame him, it is a beautiful transport.
 
My brother has that same unit and his tray stopped working as well. He contacted Esoteric and they thought it was worn old belts but only quoted him $90 for the repair. You are the 4th person I have heard having tray issues with this unit. He did not want to risk damage to the unit in shipping so he order belts and fixed it himself. Obviously his unit was out of warranty.

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TheGemState said:
My brother has that same unit and his tray stopped working as well. He contacted Esoteric and they thought it was worn old belts but only quoted him $90 for the repair. You are the 4th person I have heard having tray issues with this unit. He did not want to risk damage to the unit in shipping so he order belts and fixed it himself. Obviously his unit was out of warranty.

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Thanks for the response. That's more like what I expected. Perhaps I should have tried to just get the replacement belt and done it myself. BTW, shipping from SF to the SoCal repair shop was $80, so it will be $160 by the time I get it back, making the total cost $820.
 
$820 is real money. But having the factory get in your unit, look around and perform the repairs is much better than some local tech digging around in a $12K machine. Maybe it is a belt. Maybe you can fix it. I do way to much DIY. I would pop the top and take a 20,000 foot look. Is it accessible without disturbing to many other components. Just be cautious. If you think it looks simple, go for it. Its out of warranty. Just be careful with the gears.
 
if you are sure its the belt, I would just get the belt and save the coin, assuming you have some knowledge about opening the chassis and replacing it yourself.
 
MtnHam said:
My Esoteric K-03 which I purchased 2nd hand about 3 years ago developed a problem with the loading tray. I sent it to the Esoteric repair facility and received a quote of $646.00. Yes, it's out of warranty. I really don't have a choice but to go ahead with the repair. Is this a reasonable charge? Opinions please.
Click to expand...

Have you taken the top or bottom panel off and tried to establish the cause of the problem? I thought my Mark Levinson 390S may need a costly repair when I had problems with the tray, but opening it up and pressing the eject button revealed that the rails that the tray travelled on were dirty. A careful clean of these and other parts plus a drop or two of light oil fixed the problem completely. Good luck. Peter
 
That seems high to me. This is a mechanical problem, not electronic. I suppose the entire mechanism might be sealed requiring special tools or abilities to access? Most are straight forward in design. Did you open the unit and look at it? I am also a DIY person and have made may modifications and repairs over many years.
 
That’s over 4 hours at $150/hr.
Seems excessive to me.
If it’s a component replacement cost issue I’d ask why they designed the trays to fail under normal use.
 
It's Esoteric. They have a high end, expensive image to maintain. If the repair price is too high then I suspect the retail price is too high.
 
I had a cd player a few years ago that stopping reading discs reliably. I called the mfr and they wanted $720 to replace the drive. They also told me the player would have to be reprogrammed through the usb port for the new drive. I took the player apart and found a new matching drive on Ebay for under $100. I popped the new drive in and it worked perfectly. I don't worry about breaking stuff that is already broken, otherwise I wouldn't be taking it apart.
 
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