Do I really Have to Replace the Photoconductor...

Question

I have a Ricoh CL1000n color laser printer. I have an error message saying replace PCU soon. The manual says that this message comes up after a certain amount of time, but necessity of replacement depends on usage. Printer is working fine. Do I really need to replace it? It's over $300 and the printer is only 1 1/2 years old.

What happens when the PCU stops working?

Monica