I had a look at this machine today. The machine itself is in fairly good condition. The only thing that jumped out at me was noise from the belt drive. At 500 RPM it sounded like there was a bearing that needed replacing, but I couldn't tell whether it was that or just noise from the belt drive. I didn't detect any direct noise from the motor or the spindle, and the noise quieted down at higher RPMs. It sure was a screamer though, 15k rpm is wicked.
The machine has fairly low backlash, perhaps a tenth in the X and 6 or 8 tenths in the Y. The machine has around 8 tenths to 1 thou of play in the ways, I think the gibs need to be adjusted up, I would expect around 2 tenths play on a tight machine. The PC worked, although the door was sticky due to chip accumulation.
The machine was purchased from HP/Agilent 5 years ago, in 2006 they had the spindle rebuilt by Spitek and (allegedly) serviced by Selway.
Although the machine looked in ready condition, you couldn't guarantee it would work tomorrow. The biggest detractor to this machine was the age of it. I have become to realize that having a good working machine is very important to the task of actually getting work done.
In the end, I decided to pass on this machine, I just worry about whether the machine would work after a move (lots of socketed chips) and if the machine would stay functioning fully for 3 years, time enough to pay for itself and make decent money. To put it another way, if such a machine worked flawlessly for 3 years without major problems, on my workload, it would have been worth it.
After seeing the machine and thinking about how to use pallet changers, I'm excited to look at the newer machines with pallet changers.