Failure register
The purifier graveyard
Purifiers that died, what killed them, what the repair was quoted at, and whether the owner would buy the same thing again — including products we recommend elsewhere, because a register that omits those would be worthless.
Important
Reviews are written when a product is new. Almost nothing in this category is written about what happens at year four, when the pump goes, the model has been discontinued, and a technician quotes ₹3,200 against a ₹9,000 replacement.
That is the moment most purifier owners actually need advice, and it is the moment nobody is writing for — because there is no commission in it and the honest answer is often 'this machine is finished'.
The framework below is what we would tell a friend at that moment. The register underneath it is meant to fill in with real failures over time, each with enough history attached that it teaches something generalisable rather than being an anecdote about one unlucky machine.
Repair or replace: the decision
The single most useful thing on this page, and it applies whether or not the register below ever fills up.
| Situation | Repair | Replace | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumable at end of life (filter, membrane, lamp) | Always | — | This is not a failure. It is scheduled maintenance and the machine is fine. |
| Single component failure, unit under 3 years | Yes | — | The rest of the machine has most of its life ahead of it. |
| Pump failure, unit 3–6 years | Usually | If spares are scarce | A pump is a defined part with a defined cost. Get the part price separately from the labour. |
| Repair quote above a third of a new unit | — | Usually replace | You are paying a large fraction of new for a machine whose other parts are the same age. |
| Second failure within 12 months | — | Replace | Components of the same age tend to fail in sequence. The third failure is coming. |
| Spares no longer available | — | Replace | The machine has reached end of life regardless of its mechanical condition. |
| Unit over 8 years, any significant failure | — | Replace | Efficiency, spares and warranty are all against you at this point. |
Before accepting any repair, ask for the specific part being replaced and its cost separately from the labour. A quote that cannot be broken into a named part plus labour is a quote you cannot evaluate — and our filter price index and error code pages give indicative part ranges to compare it against.
What actually kills purifiers
From the pattern of what turns up in service and troubleshooting, ranked by how often it ends a machine rather than by how dramatic it is:
- Spare part availability. A discontinued model whose cartridges or pump are no longer stocked is finished regardless of its condition. This is the most common cause of a purifier's actual end of life and the least discussed.
- Untreated feed water. Iron destroying RO membranes repeatedly because nobody tested the borewell. The machine is not failing — it is being fed something it was never specified for.
- Deferred consumables. An exhausted carbon cartridge letting chlorine reach the membrane. A ₹600 part taking a ₹2,500 one with it, silently.
- Pump and switching failure. The most common genuine mechanical failure, and usually repairable if the part exists.
- Housing and seal degradation. Slow, cumulative, and the point at which repairing stops making sense on an older machine.
Three of those five are avoidable at the point of purchase or through maintenance discipline, which is the useful conclusion.
The record format
A failure with no history is an anecdote. These are the fields that turn one into evidence, and every published entry will carry all of them.
- Product, brand and model, with the year of purchase
- Purchase price paid, and where it was bought
- Usage — hours per day for air, litres per day for water, and the environment it ran in
- Service history: what was replaced, when, by whom, and whether parts were OEM
- The failure: what stopped working, and whether it failed gradually or suddenly
- The diagnosis, and who made it
- Repair cost quoted, and whether it was accepted
- Replacement cost of a comparable current unit
- Total age at failure, in months
- The owner's answer to: would you buy it again?
Frequently asked questions
How long should a water purifier last in India?
Should I repair or replace my purifier?
Why do budget purifiers fail earlier?
Do you name brands in this section?
This register documents individual machines with their histories. A single failure is not evidence about a brand, and entries will say so — patterns require numbers, and we will not describe two failures as a trend. Last reviewed 2026-08-08.