PLX 500 Dead Platter

Like so many of the other posts on the forum, I am experiencing a dead platter on my PLX 500 as well after only a couple months of light use and no real scratching at all, only basic cuing. I purchased two PLX 500s and a DJM 250 from a friend who bought them for an event but never ended up using them. I am new to turntables so I figured this would be a great set to get me going. I was extremely disappointed to be practicing this past weekend when I pressed pause on one and then the platter never started again. Full lights and power on the rest of the unit just like others report. It's the same story everyone else on here seems to have. The units are out of the warranty period and customer service's only response was to contact the authorized service center. It is $80 just for the evaluation and she said it could be between $20-$400. A used unit can be found for a little over $200 so that seems like a lost cause. I would honestly accept this if I had spent a year of considerable time on the decks and then something happened even though I still think a year is no excuse for the unit quitting. Again I have only spent two light months on them so that speaks to the build quality. With this many reported issues Pioneer should be working with customers to fix these poor performing units as such little use time is unacceptable. I was considering implementing an RX-2 into my setup later this year but with this experience I unfortunately will be looking else where.