Seriously? You don't look into the whole story and are ready to trash a user on a public forum?
The grinder worked fine out of the box... for a week. I know in my thread I said it might have been broken since I got it, but in retrospect I didn't mean to write that. It broke after a week of careful use, and I have read NUMEROUS other accounts of people having similar problems all traced back to el cheapo plastic parts. If I had never personally used that grinder, THEN it would be wrong for me to trash it. I did personally use it, and I did personally observe it's shoddiness. It uses cheap thin plastic for load-bearing parts, so they DESERVE to be trashed. That being said, I did purchase a Baratza Maestro grinder for my wife to use with drip coffee. It is only infrequently used and never used on too fine a setting, which will hopefully help it to last a bit longer than the twice/thrice-daily used preciso.
I'm glad the OP of this thread was able to resolve his issues. I too have personally communicated with Bill C, and I agree with Gig's "lessons learned" regarding him.
My recollection is that in the thread titled something like "Baratza Vario Owners thread" the question of the use of plastic parts is clearly addressed by Baratza. The key is the idea that the use of plastic is carefully selected. The plastic parts are designed to play a role protecting other, more costly and technically complex components in the grinder. For example, there is a plastic part designed to fail in order to protect the motor and circuit card from being fried should the grinder run into a pebble or get jammed due to how it is being operated.
In the Vario owners thread I think Baratza consistently has demonstrated a responsiveness and extremely high focus on customer satisfaction. My purpose here is simply to provide an alternate perspective on Baratza and the Vario in particular.
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