There were a surprising number of early models suffering from disc reading problems.

When I bought the PS2 (from Currys), the salesman was attempting to pimp his extended warranty by telling me that PS2's were renowned for the laser dying and being unable to read discs. Bearing in mind that the extended warranty would have cost something like twice as much as the PS2 itself.

So I asked him if he was knowingly selling me something that wasn't "fit for the purpose". He shut up.