Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

aehaas · Aug 29, 2006, 07:16 PM

Has anybody had this happen?

I bought an HP 4 color injet printer. When the original (large) ink cartridges ran out I bought a bunch more from HP. The cartridges have manufacturing dates but no expiration dates. I called HP tech and they want $40 to talk about it and reiterated that the printer warrantee expired so there was nothing that could be done.

Should I buy an Epson printer. Do they have better customer service?

aehaas

mduell · Aug 29, 2006, 07:20 PM

Buy a Canon... cheap first party ink without all that nonsense.

ghporter · Aug 29, 2006, 07:50 PM

Please explain what expired-you say the "ink expired" in the title, but you say in the post that the cartridges don't have an expiration date. Are they dried up? Have you tried them?

If it's just a matter of dates, I'd only worry about it if they didn't work.

Epson has a habit of not being terribly long-lived. Either the ink will cake up the print head (which is non-servicable) or their stupid "smart" cartridges will goof up the computer or some other nonsense will happen. I don't like them at all anymore.

mduell's got the best idea-Canon inks don't cake in the tanks, they build printers with replacable print heads, and the reports I've seen say that they even get more prints for the "same" ink capacity than other brands.

aehaas · Aug 29, 2006, 08:07 PM

The printer gave a message that the magenta cartridge expired. When this happens the whole printer stops. You cannot continue. The actual cartridge was 3/4 full still and printing fine up to this moment. I happened to have a spare cartridge and it has a later manufacturing date. When I put it in, the printer worked again. The trouble is that all the cartridges have almost the same manufacturing date and will therefore expire soon even though they are still in unopened packages.

HP basically stated that was tough and I will have to purchase new cartridges. What will their life span be? Will they be just about ready to expire as well and no recourse.

I will look into Canon.

aehaas

mduell · Aug 29, 2006, 08:15 PM

HP puts an internal (chipped) expiry date on their ink cartridges. It's not marked on the outside as far as I know.

Cadaver · Aug 29, 2006, 08:57 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

HP puts an internal (chipped) expiry date on their ink cartridges. It's not marked on the outside as far as I know.

...and any attempt to circumvent will get you slapped with a DMCA lawsuit. I seem to recall this happening to a re-manufactured ink cartridge company.

aehaas · Aug 30, 2006, 05:11 PM

HP emailed me today and said I should check the manufacturing date to make sure it was current and not to buy in bulk. The second can be avoided but how does one check for dates when buying mail order, even from HP direct?

And certainly they just expect me to throw away several hundred dollars of ink that I have now. HP service is not good.

What is the service with Canon and Epson?

ali

OreoCookie · Aug 30, 2006, 06:15 PM

Canon makes very simple ink tanks, unlike HP and Epson (looks like rocket scientists make theirs). In Germany, Canon's service was flawless, I had to send in my old Canon printer once and I couldn't complain.

drg · Aug 30, 2006, 06:26 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

Buy a Canon... cheap first party ink without all that nonsense.

I have an HP attached to my mini and a Canon attached to my wife's iMac. All my printing from my mini ends up going to the Canon because it works. The HP has been nothing but one problem after another. My guess is the reason they have make the ink cartridges expire is the printers won't work well enough to use the ink.
Jim Gundlach