I purchased a Kent Grand Water Purifier (RO) in March 2010. It was under warranty for the 1st year and during the warranty period the machine kept having issues with the SMPs and electrical circuit. Technicians from the local distributors attended to the product number of times. Towards the end of warranty period the local distributor called multipla times to convince me to go for an AMC.
The callers insisted that I should go for the AMC since the machine would definately stop working once the warranty get over in which case the cost of replacement of parts and service would be huge. However under the impression that it was a marketing ploy to sell the AMC I did not opt for an AMC before the expiry of warranty period.
Now within 2-3 weeks of my warranty period coming to an end, the machine has stopped working. I called the local distributor from whom I had purchased the machine and asked for service, he insists that I should go for an AMC and the cost would be appox. Rs. 4000/- inclusive of all filters including RO membrane. He informs that there is another scheme without the RO membrane for Rs. 2600/-, however if the RO membrane needs replacement same would cost me Rs. 1900/- extra.
He further assures me that since my machine is a year old the RO membrane definitely needs to be changed. I have used this machine for domestic purpose and have a small family. Our daily usage of water from the machine would be appox 5-7 Liters max. Under the aforesaid conditions filter replacements within such short periods at such expensive prices is questionalable. The machine has been manufacutred in such a way that users are forced to avail the expensive services from Kent shelling out huge sums of monies every year.
This is a questionable business model and is not customer friendly. The product is designed is a manner entailing frequent service enabling the company to extort huge sums of money from its customers at regular intervals. I have used water purifiers of other companies and maintenance is not required so frequent and service cost not as high as Kent.
My suggestion do not go for this product due to high maintenance and service cost.