Another update on the Illy (francis francis x8)

I think I underestimated how many people were interested in the Francis Francis X8. The post I wrote called “Update on the Illy (Francis Francis X8)“  is one of my top-read posts and easily is tops in google search referrer terms according to my getclicky.com tracking stats.

I still get a lot of emails and questions about that post and comparing the Illy coffee  to the Nespresso coffee and questions about comparing the two companies’ machines.

But I got an email from my dad that may help some of you googlers out there who were still on the fence about which machine they want to buy.

Yes, his Francis Francis X8 machine died broke again:

If you were thinking of buying an Illy (and I don’t think you were) – don’t. Mine broke again.  Same problem, water leaking out of base instead through brew head. They are going to fix it again – however, I think that they have a design flaw and I will probably try to get rid of mine before the warranty period is up. The customer service person said that my type of machine was not built to the same standards as their more costly machines – not her words – but my inference. That one of the hoses was just fasted to another area with a clip and that pressure could force it loose

When he was speaking to Customer Service above he was speaking to Francis Francis’ Customer Service- and again, to their credit, they’re really nice and have handled his issues promptly. (I work in Customer Service btw).

He did talk to Illy’s Customer Support too:

Today I called Illy customer service (different from Francis Francis customer service that I called earlier this week, but I don’t know their financial ties) and told them that they should look into this design flaw because if my machine broke again they would be losing a customer for their coffee. Nice person, but who knows if she will pass it on or not

Again, I hope this helps any of you comparing pod machines.  I had said before that I’m still a Rancilio Silvia guy, but I do like some things about pod machines at times. (see also comment #4 ). So *if* I were buying one, I’d get a Nespresso like my dad’s, and even though the Nespresso had the slight edge before, it now has a huge gap…