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On the one hand it was easy for me to do as I have the tools and am happy working around appliances. It also cost me nothing - other than time / hassle - because they give the assemblies out free because they know they fucked up with them.
On the other, it's a bit shit because ours wasn't even used daily until the pandemic (but I guess that's now most of its service life).
Maybe for the money we can't expect an all-metal drive assembly that lasts for a decade, but I don't think an all plastic assembly that fails so predictably is a good price / quality compromise.
Howard-
I actually had to pay for the assembly for mine because it was long out of warranty - how did you manage to get it free? Also I just think of it as a machine that has a 45 quid consumable every 4 years; if you save 240 over a niche zero for similar quality (and arguably better workflow since you grind right into the portafilter) you buy the assembly twice, it lasts a decade, and you've still saved 150... Also given how they've upgraded the burrs, who's to say if they manage to find a different composition of plastic tough enough for the job.
youClown
But in their defence, 45quid maintenance every 3-4 years is not exactly a large amount of expenditure for the quality you get in the cup. Was pretty painless all in all for me and it was almost like an upgrade from the previous burrset.