After 25 months in service, I just had my first LM GS/3 repairs and wanted to write a little about the experience. I've suggested before that, unless you live in a remote area, one of the advantages of having a commercial machine is that you can call on a repair tech to come to your home and fix it for you. These guys are on the road all day, making the rounds of coffee shops and restaurants. So house calls are no big deal for them. In my case, it worked out very well.

I called La Marzocco for a local recommendation, and Vince Lopez of Anytime Beverage Service came out. Paddle machines are still pretty rare. So, although Vince had seen demonstrations of paddle repairs, I think this was his first hands-on experience. He's the owner of the company, smart and generally experienced in espresso repair. He arrived with the special LM paddle valve extractor and got right to work.

What needed service? The brewhead was starting to slowly leak, which I knew from earlier posts meant replacing the paddle valve rings. Also, the steam valve was sticking and also starting to slowly leak from the wand tip.

There was a lot of work to do to replace all the necessary rings and gaskets and scrape off the residue of the old ones (which were very dry and worn). He also re-lubed the paddle valve. Replacing the steam valve was also a significant job. All in all, his first paddle repair took Vince about 4 hours, which should be a lot more time than his future repairs, but he didn't charge me extra for the "learning experience."

One other comment. There was ZERO scaling and none of the gunky verdigris some other owners have reported. Since our tap water was at 190 TDS, I have to give kudos to the Everpure Claris system for keeping the water safe. We are only now about to replace the single filter cartridge we have used for 2 years.

I could also tout how cost effective this was, because I could work (and bill) while someone else was fixing the machine. But, I was having too much fun talking to Vince about machines and the coffee business to write that with a straight face.

Marshall wrote:One other comment. There was ZERO scaling and none of the gunky verdigris some other owners have reported. Since our tap water was at 190 TDS, I have to give kudos to the Everpure Claris system for keeping the water safe. We are only now about to replace the single filter cartridge we have used for 2 years.

The parts in the MP group are so different from the parts in the volumetric group that I doubt we can draw any conclusions from your not seeing gunky verdigris. Opinions vary, but my sense is that it was caused by a reaction between the copper TL-30 tube and the chrome plating on the underside of the group cap, or maybe just a reaction between the minerals in the water and the plating. Or maybe it was just a bad plating job in some of the "fire sale" machines. In any case, the MP has a very different group cap, and the plating process for the underside could be quite different.

After about nine months of using a cation softener, there was some green buildup on the TL-30 tube in the group of my GS/3, but plating on the underside of the group cap was OK. After a year of using a Claris system, there was not only green verdigris, but also some very gunky and disgusting yellow stuff that had eaten away much of the plating on the underside of the group cap. I was able to wipe off the rest of the plating down to the brass with a paper towel. After another four months on the Claris, and no plating remaining on the underside of the group cap, the group was almost completely clean:



The group cap was clean, too:



Still a few disturbing orange blobs, but nowhere near as bad. I've since discontinued use of my Claris system and have gone back to the cation system, but that's another story that hopefully will be discussed here in due course.

There were two tiny spots (about 1mm square) of green where different metals had contact. The tech wiped them off and said they were the result of electrolysis.

The early production run for the U.S. suffered so much from sitting so long in a warehouse with water in them, I think they should almost be considered a separate class of machine, at least until someone with a later model runs into the same problems.

Marshall wrote:The early production run for the U.S. suffered so much from sitting so long in a warehouse with water in them, I think they should almost be considered a separate class of machine, at least until someone with a later model runs into the same problems.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, though we still don't know for sure if the problems were caused by the warehouse storage conditions, procedural/materials issues at the factory, QA lapses at the factory, or all of the above. But I do feel it's safe to say that most of the problems were isolated to that particular batch of machines.

Some feel the verdigris was caused the machines sitting in the warehouse with water in them, and that in turn caused the clogged gicleur problem. But some machines with verdigris never got clogged gicleurs, and verdigris has re-formed in machines from that infamous warehouse even after the groups were thoroughly cleaned.

I'm more inclined to believe that some of the gicleurs were clogged by manufacturing swarf that wasn't properly cleaned out of the brew boiler -- i.e., a production and/or QA error. I think the verdigris problem might be caused by the plating job on the underside of the group cap. The plating was applied to a very rough brass surface that doesn't look at all like the rest of the polished chrome surfaces of the group cap. It might be a different kind of plating or an attempt at getting away with not grinding the brass smooth before plating to save cost. The MP machines don't have the same kind of group cap. It may be that LM changed the plating on later volumetric units. Then again, it's also possible that the vast majority of volumetric owners have never removed the group cap and don't know what may be going on with the plating (WARNING: turn off the machine, let it cool and drain the brew boiler before removing the group cap!)

In any event, at least two of us had the plating eaten away and both of us were using a Claris system. As I said, more info on the Claris system will be posted in due course.

Peppersass wrote:...I'm more inclined to believe that some of the gicleurs were clogged by manufacturing swarf that wasn't properly cleaned out of the brew boiler -- i.e., a production and/or QA error. I think the verdigris problem might be caused by the plating job on the underside of the group cap. ....

When you only spend $6500 on an espresso machine you have to expect these sorts of little problems to pop up...

there was some green buildup on the TL-30 tube in the group of my GS/3, but plating on the underside of the group cap was OK.

fwiw, the verdigris around the perimeter of the group really looks a lot like the Loctite sealant LM used to use to seal the group mounting gaskets at the boiler. the stuff on the tube looks like ordinary scale (which can form in a variety of colors).

Randy G. wrote:When you only spend $6500 on an espresso machine you have to expect these sorts of little problems to pop up...

Ah, but we didn't pay $6,500 for the "fire-sale" machines...

That said, yeah, point well-taken. Even so, my outstanding dealer, Chris Coffee, made sure I was satisfied by replacing my original GS/3, which had the clogged gicleur problem. They've provided excellent support as I've worked through other issues that have occurred on some of those earlier production machines (noise/vibration, vacuum breaker, seals, etc.) To some extent, I suppose, that's the price I had to pay for getting such a great financial deal on the machine. Despite the issues, my machine has been working beautifully for quite some time now (knock on "custom wood for my espresso machine" ). I have confidence that it will continue to do so, provided that I perform proper inspection and maintenance.

There's no other machine in this price class that comes close to the GS/3. I'm really glad I bought it.