I am about to let you in on the biggest secret that the edger companies don’t what you to know about their service contacts and how bad they really are! Most edger companies offer a 1 year parts and labor warranty on all of their equipment, except Coburn/Huvitz who offers a 3 year parts and labor warranty, that you’ll see detailed in my break down later, which takes your total cost of ownership way down! When buying anything from a car to an edger you have to look at what it is going to cost for you to make the initial purchase and what is it going to cost me to maintain it over let’s say 5 years. For instance, if you pay full retail for a fully loaded Santinelli ME1200 II you’ll pay $73,500 for the edging system and a whopping $11,980 to cover only 90% of your system for 4 years; that’s a total cost of ownership of $85,480 and that’s if nothing ever goes wrong with it! Now the similar style Coburn/Huvitz Exxpert system will cost you $57,000, however, you will only have to pay for 2 years warranty to cover it for 5 years because the factory covers it for the first 3 years. So let’s say you get a plan through Coburn and it costs you what the Santinelli plan costs, $3,000 per year for 2 years to cover the system for 5 total year, it means your total cost of ownership is approx. $63,000 for 5 years of coverage; that’s a staggering saving of $22,480! With the additional savings, you can go buy a brand new car or cover the Huvitz machine for 7.5 more years!
Here is a break down on Santinelli called “hybrid” service plans. The plans come in 3 levels, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each level of contract has a different cost and covers a different amount, depending on what plan and what system you have. Below is a breakdown of ownership for all of the different plans. Here are a couple examples of the break down in cost and the pros and cons. Let’s say you own the cheapest system, a LE1000S with a CE-9 blocker and you want it covered under the gold package, it will cost you $2,195 per year; that’s $8,780 to cover 90% of your machine for 4 years. Now let’s say you have to replace all of the parts on their example list over the course of 4 years, Tracer, LMU, SFB Assembly and 2 LMU arms that total cost for just parts would be $4,820, but with your plan you’d only pay $454.50. However, add that to the $8,780 cost of the plan for a total of $9,234.50, and you would be saving $4,414.50 if you didn’t have the contract and had to pay for the parts out of your own pocket! Now for a reminder that’s the cheapest system to cover, now let’s look at an ME1200 and an ICE-1000 blocker. Let’s also do the Gold plan and cover 90% of the system over 4 years, your total cost for the plan would be a staggering $11,980, remember you paid $73,000 for that system! Now let’s play devil’s advocate and let’s replace the tracer twice at $212=$424, let’s also replace the SFB assembly which I have never seen one ever replaced on an ME1000 or ME1200 $95. Additionally, let’s replace the drill motor which will go out 2 times cause it’s so poorly designed at $120=$240 and let’s replace the screen cause that’s also an issue at $120, that’s a total cost for parts of $879 a savings of $7,911. Seems like a deal right? WRONG you forgot it cost you $11,980 for the plan so really Santinelli made an extra $4948 off you. You will NEVER have to replace enough on your systems to ever justify purchasing any plan offered by Santinelli, you’re better off sticking $100 per month in a jar next to the edger and spending exactly what you need and what’s left over at the end of the year you can put back into your pockets.
Here is a breakdown of the different cost and plans available through Santinelli
