Haas life expectansy

I have the potential to pickup 3 Haas machines vf1 vf2 i think they are 90 something machines , what is some of the pros and cons of a maching from this era ? i relize it has alot to do with how the up keep has been , these look fairly nice . I know the crt sreens have been done on all of them and one machine has had a new tool change door motor or something like that . just looking for some feedback on how long these m,achines are expected to run i guess . Thanks



Dave M

I can't speak for others but my 94 VF3 is still going strong.

When there is a problem the parts are cheap and easy to get.

If you don't care about ultimate speed these can provide good service.

If your looking for balls to the wall production they are probably not the right choice. But for modest production or jobber work they can make money that is just a green as the next machine.

My dad bought one of the first VF-0's (number 55 or something?) when Haas first went into business. We replaced it last year with a new VF-2. On the flip side, we bought a used Vf-3, I think in 2000 or so, that we only kept for a year because it had so many problems. So, I guess it can go either way. We won't buy another used Haas; that much I can tell you. We have 4 of them now, oldest being 2004, and they run great.

You both pretty much nailed this imo. We bought a repo VF-8 and had nothing but problems with it for the first few years. After about a dozen or more visits over 2 years from the service guy it finally was a solid, reliable machine. It was a repo, though, and we were cleaning out cigarette butts from the inside of the machine when we first got it. We all had our doubts at that point, I mean, what kind of a-hole tosses his butts into a machine???!

Haas' are great if you "know where they've been" so to speak. A couple of years of abuse and they are useless (or just going to cost a fortune to get up to snuff).

We had other machines (a bunch of VF-2's) that we bought new and they pretty much ran with the typical maintenance type issues. Nothing big. 10 years of mostly single shift type environment.

I won't throw my current machine in the mix here, as I have only had it for a little over 2 years. So far, so good, though.

Haas

Thanks guys , i am not awre of any issues with these machines they have about 8000 hrs on them but are in decent shape for the year , let me ask this , how often is a service guy needed to fix one can someone with technical and mechanical background fix them ? I am glad that parts are redilly available for them and they are fairly cheap , the last thing i want is to oreder parts from Bangladesh or something stupid like that to fix a use machine , alot of lost machine time that way . the machine is not making $ if it sits there idle . Thanks again



Dave M

Like anything used alot has to do with the prior owner. If it was taken good care of, maintained properly and run within it's limits I would think you can get some good years out of them.

I have machines going back to 91 and the older ones are okay. Less HP, speed, memory is limited and they do not support local sub calls. Older ones have incremental work coordinates which makes for interesting explanations to the new operators. Older ones have plastic enclosures which are a pain to clean and if bumped the windows fall out and a pain to reinistall. The older ones may still have parts available, but may require some expensive convertions to get the new upgraded items to work. e.g. I had a board go for the tool carousel. Board was 1000 or so, no big deal but the new board did not support the old motor, so they needed to change the motor as well. Another several hundred plus the labor.