If you had asked me 2 months ago I would have given you rave reviews on the Epson C86. I had purchased one for myself and one for my parents. I figured it would make trouble shooting easier. I bought both printers in December of 2004. The print quality was good, both on color and text. Speed was acceptable. Cost of use was high but I didn't pay much attention to it because up until recently the units were reliable.

Now both printers have stopped working within a month of each other. I only used Epson Inks. I've been through tech support. Since more than a year has passed, both printers are out of warranty. I'm on my own with time and materials at one of the recommended repair shops at $69 per hour plus parts. Obviously not a good business decision.

The problem I had was the same in both printers. Print quality declines all of a sudden and when I did the recommended head cleaning and changed the cartridge, I started getting blank pages of output from the printer. I was astounded to see that hundreds of people had experienced the same problem. Look at this site
http://www.fixyourownprinter.com/forums/inkjet/31764
or just Google terms like failure of epson c86. Most of the people complaining had failures just after the warranty expired.

I'm not feeling warm and fuzzy about Epson. In addition to allowing significant numbers of their customers to experience premature product failure, they have recently settled a class action lawsuit where plantiffs alleged "Epson inkjet printers and inkjet cartridges indicate that cartridges are 'empty' and suspend printer function, even though substantial ink remains" (see
http://www.epsonsettlement.com/Notice.htm)

If you've already purchased the C86, good luck.

If you are thinking about a C86 and my comments haven't changed your mind yet, buy the extended warranty so that the store will pay to replace it.

As for me, I'll be looking for 2 more printers soon and I can tell you what brand they won't be!

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 100
Operating System: Windows