I am no expert but my view is that the simplest way to describe the problem is that the desire of manufacturers to control the ability to repair to maximise profit is costing the consumer twice.
Once in being stuck with the choice to buy new or repair at inordinate expense and twice in the cost to the environment in being forced to buy new and junk what they have far too often. Like so many issues that involve questions of sustainability the first factor is important in the short term but the second may overtake it in the long term. It is another example of industries maintaining profits by not admitting to environmental costs which, at the moment, have no dollar value.
A less simple answer might also consider reliability, durability, obsolescence and whole of lifetime costs?
There is an argument some products are manufactured and assembled in a certain way to reduce unplanned failure or damage and failure through misadventure. My mobile phone did a not uncommon fall this morning onto a hard floor. Itâs alive and well, no doubt aided by an external case. The unknown is whether the same durability can be provided in a more repairable form factor at the same price point.
For the average kitchen appliance etc the argument may reduce to one simply around the price point. The more expensive the item, the more durable and reliable it should be. Repair should be easy and cost effective.
Assuming a product is durable and reliable, is there a solution to changing technology or style. For the average home consumer both are challenges. As tech dates software upgrades may cease and be sufficient to end the usefulness.
I can be a little eclectic or colour blind in the kitchen where no two appliances have the same style or colour scheme. Itâs much more difficult with anything technology based, that is soon last years functionality and features. Iâm assuming the average consumer again, who simply desires a no fuss one time solution.
For the present consumers carry all the costs of poor design, poor quality and built in product churn strategies. Perhaps the right to repair needs to come with a right to cash in and recycle. The local importer or OEM could be legally bound to buy back the used items at a fixed percentage of the original value proportioned to the age of the item. The penalty of doing so offset by the value to the supplier of recycling or ensuring the goods remain serviceable and useful for as long as possible.
I purchased a pair of prescription glasses. About $150.00 which is considered cheap for glasses. Within 12 months one of the legs had come off. I took the glasses back to the optometrist and was told that they canât get any spare parts for these cheaper glasses. My reply was âWhy do you purchase them if you canât get any spare parts for themâ. They very kindly offered me another appointment, so that I could buy another pair. My reply was, donât worry I will buy a $3.00 pair of magnifying glasses. I now have about 6 pairs of glasses spread around the house and they work just as well.
Thanks Erin. A lengthy article but covers many things.
I recently wrote about my Sunbeam food slicer. Iâm on my third, all for the want of a small, failed part. It seems Sunbeamâs focus is to get the product through the warranty period and then wash their hands of it. They claim they have repair centres all over the country. Yes they have, and they may be great if you have a coffee machine. So why my third? I bake my own bread and Sunbeam has the only passable slicer. Others exist, but with limitations.
I found an interstate repairer who said Sunbeamâs parts listing for their food slicer was extremely limited. If anything fails within the warranty period, then the machine is replaced. This apparently negates the need for spares.
I have just replaced a roller blind shutter motor. The repair person showed me the inside of the motor unit. It had two small 12V motors which drove a plethora of gear. The gears were mostly metal and very sound. Only one motor had failed which probably had a replacement cost of $10. Because the roller shutter company had decided not to offer the motors only for repair, repairers had to buy a complete, new unit with all the gears for a cost of c. $245. This is blatant waste. A recent CHOICE survey reports -
⢠85% of Australians say that buying products that will last a long time is very or quite important to them.
⢠73% said repairability was important.
⢠Only 39% of people said they regularly choose products that will last longer, despite a strong interest in product durability.
⢠46% of people said they choose products that can easily be repaired all or most of the time.
There is another category we can include â
⢠Percentage of people who wanted to repair but were either denied parts or the parts were not available.
Back in the âgood old daysâ prior to the Trade Practices Act, an appliance repair business in Cairns had the exclusive agency fot Hotpoint and Sunbeam, both of whom were said to refuse to supply parts to any other repairers or appliance owners.
I recall people expressing their absolute disgust at these arrangements some 50 years ago.
I believe that the prices were inversely proportional to the service supplied.
Of course the Trade Practices Act put an end to these disgusting arrangements and behaviours.
Wow, Fred123! Thatâs a memory. And yes, one does want a quality repair. Here in Adelaide we had a repairer who was prepared to fix my food-slicer-1 until Sunbeam declared there were no parts. Now this repairer has gone. We only have a repairer for coffee machines. Given the vast array of Sunbeam gear you can buy, this falls vastly short of anything remotely called âa serviceâ. Thanks for your response.
In this particular case there are a lot of small hobby type motors that could potentially replace the failed motor, it depends how much time you can do without the failed item. In the absence of identifying numbers it might pay to take all the dimensions and hunt around the internet. Purely as an example:
But still only a workaround and doesnât fix the parts unavailability issue.
Thanks gtillett. The blind needed fixing ASAP. However, your point is well made and I have a friend searching as youâve described. If successful, Iâll have a standby - I have other blinds.
Apologies up front, this turned into a bit of a ramble.
I think that we have reached a point in production where whittling down costs is more important than quality and craftsmanship.
What this means is that manufacturers will concentrate on reducing component and construction costs to minimise their expenses as much as possible. While this has seen some reduction in purchasing costs, products have much shorter life spans because they are only as good as their weakest component.
Unfortunately in my opinion, consumers are being dazzled by short term savings, but losing money in the long run because of the need to buy replacement products more frequently. So in the long term, itâs the manufacturers and supply chain who profit.
I find it sad that we as a nation have lost focus on quality in favour of savings. This has been led by successive governments being more focused on cutting back spending rather than on quality and craftsmanship.
Maybe we need to buy less but better? If we ditch products that donât last as long as they should and replace them with product that do last (this should include their repairability) we and the environment would be better off. Imagine if we stopped throwing out all the broken and made obsolete electronics how much precious metals etc would not be sent to landfill. Imagine how much other harmful material would be dumped.
Repairability is a start to requiring manufacturers to produce better quality products. Manufacturers are resisting this because it means that they will need to reverse decades old approaches and return to making smaller amounts of quality products. Many manufacturers such as Harley Davidson have realised this, and powered forward to greater success and sustainability of their products and their company. Some marques have focused on quality; 65% of Rolls Royces ever produces are still on the road. Obviously, few can afford them, but there is a sweet point between the opulence of a RR and the short term obsolescence we have in the majority of our products.
Manufacturers need to be forced to accept responsibility for their total cost of their products including disposal. If this were the case, they would be willing to repair and maintain their products better and longer to keep the disposal cost at a minimum. We would all be winners.
Itâs useful to note one European product offers hope for those interested in a more repairable product.
Iâve not posted this to the mobile phone topics. There is some research needed to assess itâs suitability for each network provider. Warranty would appear to be great other than currently being provided ex Europe. Repair at home. Added costs for parts delivery may be the only need?
Not offered currently is a hardware upgrade option, although it may not be that significant a step at some future time. Not for the fashion conscious? I remember having various âskinsâ for my old Nokia. It may come to pass.
It actually goes further than this. Companies like Apple actually design their products to discourage anyone but their repair centres from working on heir products. The product is designed so that features will STOP WORKING if the repairs are not done by Apple. As an example, the home button in the newer iPhones doubles as a fingerprint scanner. If the home button is disconnected from the motherboard, it must be paired with the motherboard again to make it work. You canât just disconnect it and reconnect it. This, of course, means that only Apple approved repairers are able to put the device back to its original condition. I believe this behaviour constitutes a restraint of trade.
Could this be part of the security design, to prevent unauthorised hacking? How is the finger print scanning implemented and what level of intelligence does the button provide for the pattern matching? IE none, part of or significant.
âmeltamâ - this statement cannot be said enough. And it needs to move beyond the realms of placation. Sunbeam, under âsupportâ state - âIf you need to contact us for any reason, please contact our Customer Contact Centre. You can also find out more about our warranty, service agent locations, product manuals and more.â And then under âproduct manualsâ Sunbeam truncates that initial statement with - 'Sunbeam are only carrying manuals of current products. Discontinued product manuals are no longer available for download." And what about repair service? In South Australia the only listed repairer for Sunbeam products is a coffee machine repairer. It is difficult to assess exactly what Sunbeam is saying by this move. Do they sell more coffee machines than any other product in SA, or do they expect more coffee machines to fail in SA than other products? CHOICE rates Sunbeam with a 78% brand reliability. How is this arrived at in the light of the above, and that parts for Sunbeam machines either do not exist or are diffcult to access?
That is derived from Choice member-survey responses accumulated over years.
FWIW many manufacturers have replacement warranties rather than repair warranties, product dependent. For those products they repair there may be a single facility in Australia or a list of local authorised agents or anything in between, product dependent. Iâll not comment on that after the warranty and rights under the ACL âexpireâ but it is common. Then there are the obvious issue of parts, repairability and costs.
Commercial products cost more than consumer grade equivalents sometimes because of higher specification but more often because they are designed and built for reliability over time including being repaired. Over decades consumers have generally responded to price so in a way we got what we wanted, products built to a price not always to a quality.
The right to repair allows individuals the ability to purchase software diagnostic tools that would allow them to take their equipment to a dealer of their choice to fix the problem or try to repair the machine themselves.
More locally:
In February 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a discussion paper focusing on concerns about manufacturer warranties and the servicing and repair of agricultural machinery. It also conducted an online survey seeking farmersâ feedback about their experiences.
The question is will John Deere now agree to give locals the same right?
