What's the difference between OBSOLETE and DISCONTINUED floor cleaning equipment?

With the influx of second hand cleaning equipment like floor scrubbers and floor sweepers, it can be difficult to know what's out there on the market.  More importantly, it's difficult to know what you're actually paying for.  Buyer beware:  there's a lot of junk out there sold by cousin Eddie.  Let me tell you cousin Eddie's sales pitch.  Are you ready?

"Runs great.  Has some scratches.  Comes with new brushes!"

Wanna know what you're really getting?  Probably a machine that's not only discontinued, but in fact it's obsolete.  What's the difference?  Obsolete means not only is it no longer in production, the manufacturer isn't even making parts for it.  So when you get that old piece of junk with your "new brush," you'll be dead in the water the first time you need a single part (other than the brush of course).  And what's with people wagging a "new brush" at you like it's a new engine?  It's a brush folks, a brush.  Brushes fall out of the sky in this industry.  You can get them almost anywhere in any shape, any color, high quality, low quality and at any time and price.  Cousin Eddie probably bought the brush from SweepScrub.com since we have such great prices on industrial sweeper and scrubber floor brushes.  The obsolete floor equipment you're buying, however, has about 2500 parts on it that no one makes.  And no one stocks used parts for these dinosaurs (see post on Scrubber Graveyards).

SweepScrub doesn't sell obsolete machines.  How can you ever stand behind a product if you can't support future maintenance of that machine with spare parts?  You can't, so we don't sell obsolete machines.  We offer used Tennant floor scrubbers and sweepers that are still in production.  We also offer machines that have been recently discontinued because Tennant (by law) must support those machines with a supply of parts for 10 years (on industrial and 7 years on commercial machines).  Recently discontinued floor scrubbers and sweepers are great value purchases.  The prices tend to drop on discontinued models when the newer models come out.  This provides a great opportunity to purchase proven machines at discounted prices.  

So, if you're still considering that "runs great" machine from cousin Eddie and comparing his really good price with a fully refurbished Tennant floor machine from SweepScrub, be sure to ask what else you get with his machine besides a "new brush."  Check out his policies page and compare it to our Terms and Conditions page.  Ask him for some references.  Ask him how he ships his used floor machines and guarantees his warranties.  Ask him if he's a Tennant dealer with access to genuine Tennant OEM parts.  Ask to speak to his Service Manager to get the real story on the particular machine of interest along with what all was done during the refurbishing process.  Here's one:  ask him for the serial number so you can verify the year the machine was actually made.  You don't really want to buy a first year model of a machine that was in production for 14 years, and it's now been discontinued for 5 years (that would make your machine 19 years old if you're counting).  

In closing, we all have a cousin Eddie that we love dearly.  Just don't buy an old Tennant floor scrubber from him without doing your homework and contacting SweepScrub.com first.