Handpiece Repair: Remember the “good old days” when you would send a Handpiece off for repair and have to wait a month or longer to get it back? Do you also remember how expensive those repairs were? Did you know there is a major effort underway to return you to that era?

Your Handpiece repair prices are going to go through the roof - unless you do something about it: Now!

There is an attempt being made to force the Independent Repair Facilities out of business. This attempt is coming from the major supply houses & the manufacturers.

How Big is Big enough? How much Money is enough Money? When is Enough, Enough?

The squeeze has been on for several years now. Schein seems to be the driving force, starting with their purchase of Score International & Handpiece Headquarters. Both of these companies have been major suppliers of highspeed & lowspeed parts to Dental Handpiece Repair Facilities for many years.

Their first move was to cut off dealers from Score International. They encouraged their Independent Dealers to use Handpiece Headquarters instead (whom they also owned).

In the beginning, Handpiece Headquarters appeared to embrace repair facilities enthusiastically and offered quality products @ affordable prices. But on May 1, 2007, that will end. Handpiece Headquarters is moving towards performing only “Pro Repairs” for Henry Schein.

They will no longer sell parts to the Independents. I am told they will no longer even stock the parts and are in the process of liquidating them (even after raising their prices 10% across the board a little more than a month ago).

What does this mean to you? If the Independent Repair Shops disappear, you will once again be at the mercy of the larger supply houses & the manufacturers. It was, and is, the activities of the Independents that put pressure on the pricing & service in the first place, bringing them to an acceptable level.

Major manufacturers today do not rebuild, they replace. Instead of paying around $100.00 for a turbine repair, it costs you about $400.00 to replace the turbine. And most of the $100 repairs last as long as the $400 replacements do! Plus, turnaround time is measured in weeks with the factories, not days or hours as it is with the Independents.

Additionally, the expertise of the independents has made your handpieces last as long as you want them to, without the need for costly replacement. This has kept the price of new handpieces, & thus profits, low. Even so, new handpiece sales suffer, giving the manufacturers even more reason to try & squeeze the independents out of the picture

If they succeed, your repair prices are going to skyrocket. And new Handpiece prices are going to Skyrocket right along with it. Look at gasoline prices. You have 3 major players in the world who can, and do, charge you whatever they like. Do you honestly think this will be any different?

What can you do to fight back? Start & continue using the Independent Repair Facilities. Seek them out. There are more than 1100 of them ready to go to work for you. Their workmanship & parts are as good as it gets.

Most of the repair facilities could see the handwriting on the wall when this all started to take place. So they spent time and money finding & developing sources of quality repair parts from manufacturers and are ready to serve you, no matter what the conglomerates do.

Independent Repair Shops are not salespeople carrying around thousand page catalogs, with one page or less dedicated to handpiece repair. Handpiece Repair is everything to them. They eat it, breathe it and live it -everyday. It is not their job - it is their Passion!

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