Hi @catfar, I merged your comment into this compendium of other test and report comments.
You may have already found related topics such as
and there are numerous posts about repairablity (and more often lack thereof) in various product specific topics - search the Community for ‘spare parts’.
One problem is that many of us have discovered there is a difference between finding a part on a web site or in a catalogue, and holding that part in one’s hand. It can be hit or miss and parts supplies, especially once a manufacturer’s warranty period for the ‘last one sold’ expires, seem to vanish in milliseconds. As an analogy of sorts some product cycles are faster than Choice testing and publishing, so by the time a test is published we can no longer find the now discontinued or superseded models that were top rated only months ago. Many times parts are available for a cost approaching the price of a replacement product, another aspect that is individual to each product; Choice generally publishes and uses RRPs with advice to shop around, and most of us buy on sales so a part that might be 15% of RRP might be 50% of the regularly obtainable sale price, if that makes a point. All those aspects are problematic and complex to quantify.
If you have a suggestion for a methodology for reporting ‘spares’ that would be generally applicable please post what you would find acceptable and Choice might consider it, noting Choice has been grappling with this ‘ask’ for a while.
