The closet Brother dealer to me serviced my refurbished PC-6500 with no hesitation, it even has a sticker on the bottom saying 'Refurbished', they stuck the sticker with my contact info right beside it. They may not want to do warranty work on refurbished machines.
If you like Brother machines but have never been to a Brother dealer take the time to stop in and look at the machines. The Dreamweaver series is amazing.