Saeco Royal Pro: Advice on whether to fix it, or dump it.

[agoodnough48]

Hi all,

I'm in charge of maintaining the Saeco Royal Pro at the small office where I work. The grinder recently went and my employer is weighing his options as to how much life this machine has left.

The machine is 6 years old, it has brewed (get this) 44,000 cups of coffee, the grinder has been replaced once, the machine is decalcified regularly.

During standard cleaning, the grinder broke (ball bearings everywhere). It will cost about $350 to have the grinder replaced, and the machine examined.

The question is, with such heavy use, how much time do you think the machine has left? what other parts of this machine are likely to fail? Are they repairable, or are there preventative measures that can be taken to keep the machine functioning longer?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!!
agoodnough48

 

[PinkRose]

How "small" is your office? If you've made 44,000 cups of coffee in six years, you must have some heavy-duty coffee drinkers.

Have you looked into trading in the old machine for a discount on a new one?

I know someone who had a Saeco Royal machine in his office, and it was replaced twice because it leaked both times. They were lucky to get two years of use out of each one, which is a shame because they're expensive machines for an office.

Rose

 

[CoffeeJunky]

Thats roughly around 25 cups a day. I don't think that is very much in 6 years. I have seen many machines used over 30-40 times a day. That is calculating 300 days per year. So if the office is closed saturday and Sunday, your average cup a day goes up by around 3-4.

I think fix the machine and get more mileage out of the machine. If it is only 350 dollars to fix and get around 10,000 cups more, you will be saving much more and also the it will be cheaper then buying other machine.

 

[PinkRose]

When someone says they work in a small office, I picture 5 or 6 people working 5 days a week (minus time off for holidays, vacation, and sick days - which are things I haven't seen in years).

Rose

 

[agoodnough48]

Thanks for the advice all! Our staff numbers fluctuate a lot so we've been between 30 people and 10 over the past 20 years. I think we're going to get the grinder replaced.