Suggestion: NEVER Buy a BROTHER Printer. (Friendly Warning)

[The Cleaner]

I am very pissed off right now. A couple of years ago, I spent $120 on a Brother MFC 3220C printer/fax. The damn thing has NEVER worked. The first one I had wasn't printing right due to a defective roller.

That's right - Brother sold me a DEFECTIVE unit, KNOWINGLY. How do I know? I called their customer service several times, and finally a manager called me back and told me he knew the roller was defective. After I went ballistic on them, they allowed me to send back the printer on some kind of "warranty exchange program" that they NEVER let the public know about.

So I get the new printer (which actually was a remanufactured printer), and not much has changed. Paper jams galore. Terrible print quality. And every damn time I went to print something, guess what? The damn machine would clean the heads - wasting ink! You can't control the cleaning of the heads - it is automatic. Even when the damn machine is OFF, it will occasionally turn on to clean the heads. So I have to pay for new cartridges every 2 months at $50/pop.

It's now inoperable. The paper keeps feeding not straight but off to the side; creating paper jams. The constant cleaning takes up all my time and wastes more ink than actual printing. And the print quality is so low it's not worth it. Basically I have to haul the dam thing to the dumpster and chuck it.

I called Brother customer service this morning and of course, there's nothing they can do. They sell me 2 defective products knowingly, then give me the scroogie.

My advice: NEVER buy a BROTHER printer. They don't stand by their products. It's a total waste of money.

I would like to know though, what is your experience with printers? And what's a good brand?

[pk_du]

1. I had similar probems (Inc the infamous machine error #33)

which menas the circuit board is f-ed and is now totally useless. Same thing happened with the replacement unit - so i was left with a dud unit and a bunch of unusable cartridges....

have bought an HP MultiFunction instead and not had a problem since.

[Blue Diadem]

6. Yep..my kid had that come up on his..a few months after we bought one

so I sit in wait for that 33 error on ours now. There was a hidden warranty to cover his..but all the times he went to the shop the company selected..the guy was never there and the shop was closed even after confirming by phone that the guy would be there. My son finally said to heck with it and bought a laser printer.

edited to add:

I had the wrong error code his was a code 41. I had this bookmarked:

Link here for problems people experienced and the hidden warranty.
www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/23050

[pk_du]

16. You're right - it was 41 not 33

If it was in warranty - they used to send you a return label/address for the machine to be "traded-out" for a refurb machine...once this refurb got the same error thats when I decided "never again for Brother"

[Blue Diadem]

23. Really? He was told to take it to that shop..

probably because his was out of warranty. I suspect that Brother used that shop because the guy was never there. He had to drive about 20 miles to get to the place..so after a couple times, you can imagine how ticked off he became.

I know once mine goes I'll never buy another brother.

[The Cleaner]

26. Thx -

Love this quote from your source (a Brother customer service rep no less!):

And I love their little money spinner on the color ink cartridges. If any of them are empty, you can't print out in black... even if you never use color. This of course is for your own protection because "it can damage your printhead trying to print without all the cartridges in there"! Whatever!! To be fair they need to make their money somewhere and the machines come pretty cheap to buy but still. Who really actually has a need for a color fax machine?!

[shraby]

2. I've always had an Epson and never had any

problems.

[AlinPA]

4. Agree. I have used Epsons for about 10 years.

[Bitwit1234]

3. LexMark

We had the same problem with a LexMark all in one. Best Buy did not tell us it was obsolete. That they did not manufacture that model anymore. But they did exchange it. The new one would not scan at times. And sending email was cumbersome. And it would lock and not print. It had a switch that locked the carriage for transport. I gave it to my compute and electronic savvy son and he got it working. When it screws he pushes the right buttons. I did not know how.

[clydefrand]

5. I have 2 printer, and EPSON and an HP,

I've had the EPSON for a couple of years with no problems, until recently is has started to 'squeek' as it is printing. Print quality is good (can get photo's when using correct paper, though I've never used it.). The HP iv'e had for about two years. It does a great job and no problems yet. 1 thing I really like is the softward prints from last page to first page so multiple page print outs are in correct order.
The EPSON is on our desk top in VA, the HP on our laptop in Fl. The EPSON has been used a lot more than the HP. (I also have an HP scanner that does a good job).
Also of these were purchased because, with rebates, were the cheapest, so they are'nt real fast, but being retired I'm in no hurry.

[Rosco T.]

7. I have three Epson's for inkjet and a Konica-Minolta color laser...

I'll NEVER buy anything but Epson's for inkjet, they keep running and running... buy my carts at www.megatoners.com and they have worked great for the last three years.

The Konica-Minolta is the 2430DL, network ready. Works like a dream.

[Rick Myers]

8. HP and Epson are the ONLY printers we buy!

Have experience with all brands, and HP and Epson are the only ones I'd recommend!

[WePurrsevere]

9. We have a Brother multi-function printer that drives me nuts. My biggest

bug-a-boo with it is that when I run out of any of the inks the darn thing becomes totally useless until we can afford to get that ink refilled... this means I can't fax or scan either even though those functions do NOT require ink.

[The Cleaner]

22. EXACTLY!!

It drives me NUTS!! They programmed it so that you can't do a DAMN THING unless you rush out and buy new inks, which, incidentally, tend to run out all at once causing you to spend more $$$.

Never Brother, never again.

[petgoat]

10. I had a Canon BJ-200

I loved that machine. I'd probably printed 20,000 pages before it started
getting flaky. I took the gearbox apart and cleaned the paper dust out of
the works and it was good as new.

I could refill the cartridges four times (for maybe five dollars a fill) before
the print quality went bad. (The first time I tried to refill I made a mess,
the second time was a smaller mess, and by the third time I was an expert.)

I haven't had much luck refilling cartridges from other printers.

Print cartridges are the old "free razor, expensive blades" scam. If you
can refill them yourself you're beating the system.

I had an Epson C-60 which worked until it quit after maybe four years. Didn't
like it particularly, but had no complaints except that maybe it was bigger
than it needed to be.

Laser printers are a lot cheaper to run than inkjets. I haven't had any luck
refilling toner cartridges yet, but I get them on ebay for about 1/3 of the
storebought price.

I've had a Citizen, two Epsons, the Canon, and an HP. They were all pretty
good. The Canon and the HP were the most solidly built.

[pnorman]

11. I've had the Brother 4420c for a few years now,

apparently the same sort of functionality, except it's a later model. I'm quite pleased and satisfied with it. It cleans ink only when it's switched on (mine is very rarely off), on a user-defined daily schedule, on command, and after changing cartridges. I can live with that.

But here are a collection of reviews of your model, many of which seem to echo your complaints: http://www0.epinions.com/pr-Brother_MFC_3220C_Printer

pnorman
On edit: There's no point in hanging on to these machine for more than a few years (at those prices), so I'll probably get a somewhat better one in a few months. And I've learned enough from this thread to make an informed choice. (probably Epson, if they make an affordable multi-function model).
On further edit: This is what I found so far: http://www.amazon.com/Epson-CX7800-Printer-Copier-Scanner/dp/B000ALCJV2/sr=1-2/qid=1159464077/ref=sr_1_2/104-6108213-4299929?ie=UTF8&s=pc It looks good, and seems to have a good rating at Amazon. I may be ordering it earlier than I had anticipated. I can hardly wait!!

[Bandit]

12. I have two Brother MFC 9800s

and I am very happy with them and in fact just purchased an MFC 8660 DN but haven't yet hooked it up on our network. I am very happy with Brother products.. :shrug:

[HamdenRice]

13. I think my first printer 20 years ago was a Brother and was pretty good

Never had a problem with that dot matrix printer and basically it just became obsolete. Since then, I've never owned a Brother and it looks like they went down hill.

I've owned mostly HPs since then and they are rugged and reliable, but their cartridges are very expensive -- usually about $70-80.

Funny thing is the decline in prices for laser jets. My first HP laser jet was around $1,000. Now they are in the $100 range. Amazing.

[Nabia2004]

14. Brother HL-1440, five years without a problem

It's a laser model. i HAVE ALSO HAD GOOD LUCK WITH lEXMARK.

[BrotherBuzz]

15. Send the damn thing to our brothers in Iraq...

They know what to do with defective printers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhjY9gM--E0

[orwell]

17. Agreed...

...had terrible problems with a Brother Multifunction Laser. It too had a used drum but the printer was supposedly brand new when we bought it from Office Max. After about 4 or 500 sheets it started to streak and nothing we could do would fix it. After endless hours with Brother on the phone (useless) and replacing the cartridge and drum twice with brand new Brother parts it still didn't work.

It sits out in our garage laughing at me.

We bought a Samsung and have had no problems.

I will never again buy a Brother product...

[politicat]

18. I've got an HL 1440 and I've never had a problem.

I abuse a laser printer, to be honest. It's been forced to print manuscripts and white papers, and has printed well over 90,000 pages in its getting to be long live. Never had a problem with their customer service, even when they had a driver that was buggy -- they got me a clean one in less than 48 hours.

Yes, it is starting to ask for a new drum unit, and I will have to make the decision whether to spend $100 on the drum or pop out $160 for a new, color laser printer, but after 90,000 pages, I'm pretty happy.

[SheilaT]

19. We recently replaced

a Brother MFC 9700 with a Brother DCP 7020. The 9700 was at least three years old and needed a drum replaced and something else, which would have cost about twice what we paid for the new one. I'm quite happy with both.

I'm a paralegal, work for an attorney in solo practice, so we do quite a bit of printing and copying. We went to trial earlier this month and brought the new Brother with us to court, plugged it in, and printed and photocopied documents on the spot as we needed them.

Truly sorry you've had problems with your machine. Maybe the fact that my machines are laser printers is the difference.

[sandnsea]

20. Yeah, Brothers suck

But printer combos notoriously have problems anyway. We bought a photo printer and a separate $25 fax and decreased the headache factor by 1000%.

[Whoa_Nelly]

21. Have a Brother MFC-420CN here

No problems :shrug:

[Atman]

24. Epsons rock

The only time I've strayed from the Epson brand was when I purchased a Canon printer. It came with only Windows software, although it said it was Mac Compatible on the box. It would print one or two pages, then crap out and had to be reset. I returned it to the store and they replaced it, but the second one did the exact same thing. So I got my money back and bought another Epson. I still have it. I had another Epson I had to return to Epson for repairs...they FedExed me the packaging materials and shipping labels on a Thursday, and I had the printer back the next Monday. My son had an Epson all-in-one scanner/printer/copier combo, and the rollers glazed before it was a year old. He called Epson, and they didn't even ask for the old one back, they just sent him the more current model, brand new. Not a word of hassle. Epson's may not be perfect either, but their customer service is top-notch.

[cynatnite]

25. I have an HP Officejet all-in-one...

Has never failed me and works great! I love the thing. I also have an HP desktop PC that's worked great, too. Oh, and also have an HP digital camera, too.

All the HP products have worked great. I don't have any complaints.