Gaggia board fails and machine is "toast"

Author's Rating:

Pros: Makes good coffee when it works.

Cons: If it breaks and is out of warranty, look out.

The Bottom Line: 
Although the Gaggia makes good coffee, if it breaks out of warranty, you will have very high repair costs. Look for something more durable or with better customer service.

Author's Review
Brief description of machine:
The Syncrony digital is a super automatic. If you have filled the water tank and added coffee beans, it will grind, tamp, brew and dispense coffee with the touch of a single button. Used grounds are dumped into a "dreg drawer." It also has a cup warmer and a very good frothing wand. It takes up approximately 1.25 square feet of counter space and is just under 16" tall. You can set the temperature of water for coffee, the degree of grind to the coffee beans and size of coffees dispensed. Settings also include a "total coffees made" count - helpful in gaging the durability of the machine. The Syncrony digital should last for thousands of cups. You can use ground coffee by using the bypass door, but you have to add grounds for each 1 or 2 cups of coffee you make. This does not substitute for a drip maker where you can get 12 cups of coffee at a time, but it makes very good 1 or 2 cups at a time.

My Experience:
I have this machine. After less than 3 years use, or 863 cups of coffee, it is not working at all. After you press the button to make a cup, it grinds the beans and then dumps the grounds, reverting to a test mode (that usually comes on when you power up the machine) without actually producing any coffee. After wasting lots of coffee beans, I've unplugged the machine. It had been acting flaky for a while but gradually getting worse, reverting to test mode and doing unexpected things anytime during the coffee-making process.

This machine only had a 1 year warranty. After talking with repair technicians, I believe this machine needs a new digital board. That costs $250. Since it is not under warranty, I have to pay to ship it and have it returned to me. That could cost $100-$120 because it is heavy. And then there is the $65 per hour labor cost. So, it will cost me over $400 to fix it, assuming it can be fixed with only an hour's labor. Costs go up if it takes more time or if more parts are involved.

This is ridiculous for a machine that cost $1,100 3 years ago. The technician also told me that (his department) has fixed these before. So, my machine is not the only one that has failed like this. Although I don't like the repair costs, I'm quite upset that this machine failed so quickly and so thoroughly. For $1100 I only get 863 cups? That's less than a cup a day.

If you buy this machine, know that if anything goes wrong after the warranty, you will likely have a high repair bill. That bill can easily cost 1/3 to 1/2 the purchase price, depending on what you paid. Although I like this machine, I can't recommend it simply because you could be left with an expensive doorstop.