What's interesting to me is that for all my appliances in my house (different brands), I've been able to repair each of them (microwave, air conditioner, washer, dryer, dishwasher, and wine fridge) on my own, using some basic instructions on the internet and a part that at most has cost $50.
I believe we're in a golden age for self-repair (particularly with YouTube videos), but I keep hearing about how everything is throwaway. Just the other week I repaired an iPhone 3GS we had been using as a baby monitor until it was dropped, for $4 (including shipping!) to replace the screen. That's amazing!
For those that do a Google search, and buy some parts on eBay (although I got an obscure a/c part via Amazon Prime), it's never been easier to repair your devices.
The problem is that companies (especially Apple) are explicitly trying to make their devices harder to repair -- which is the reason for the whole Right-to-Repair movement[1]. If you want to see how much dodgy stuff repair shops have to go through to figure out how to fix Apple products, check out the channels of Louis Rossman[2] and Jessa Jones[3].
Apple aside, there is anyway an issue with a broken market for spares and repairs.
A single data point:
I recently went shopping for a replacement pump for a (professional) dishwasher, and while I was at it I was looking for a spare "programmer" (which is an electromechanic thingy, a motor with reduction gears and three cams that operate switches at a given timing).
I was given an estimate from the local repair shop for the repair between 500 and 600 Euros (the machine, new, can be bought for around 1300 - 1500 Euros), the actual machine being some 9 years old (though just fine, apart the pump sometimes not starting at first try) it plainly means "get a new dishwasher".
The pump (which is common enough, used in some 8 or 10 brands of dishwashers) is made in Italy, the actual factory is no more than 150 km away from where I live (but of course they don't sell directly).
The parts were quoted (another local spare parts shop) around 400 Euros.
I quickly found the same parts on e-bay and similar in England or in Germany for around 350 Euros (+ shipping) and finally found a dealer in Sardinia (which is a large island, a region off the coast of Italy) from which I got the parts (including shipping) for 290 Euro (this fact alone makes no sense whatsoever, we are talking of the stupid pump traveling for more than 800 km, partially across the sea going forward and back from Sardinia).
BTW I found the same pump in Spain, Polony and Romania at a much lower price but when you added the shipping it was more or less the same total.
We are not talking of an "aftermarket" or "compatible" spare, we are talking of exactly the same pump made by the exact same factory.
Then it took me around 1 hour time to replace the parts, and I am not a specialized dishwasher technician.
> the actual factory is no more than 150 km away from where I live (but of course they don't sell directly).
You probably tried this already, but in case you didn't: see if you track down and speak directly to one of the people on the factory floor. Ask them if there's any chance they have a unit lying around that's been used for demonstration purposes, testing, or maybe there's a cosmetic fault that made it unshippable, whatever. When things are used or manufactured at an industrial scale, individual units tend to end up in storage rooms and gather dust.
However, you have to be aware that the employee would probably have to jump through some hoops to help you (talk to their manager, ensure the right people are compensated, assist with physical delivery and so on), so
1. You may have to badger them a lot to get it done. Not because they don't want to help, but because if you're not showing initiative, they'll do more important things with their time.
2. And this should probably go without saying but they won't be sales people. You'll owe them, not the other way around!
Well, yes and no, we are still talking of the diffence between 400 and 290 Euros, it wouldn't have been worth it, though for buying costly appliances I have done what you suggest in the past, of course.
Do you think though that this is Apple actively trying to reduce your ability to repair, or is it that they pursue other goals and the ability to repair is waaay down on the list?
I would assume, from experience in large corporations, that it is the latter.
Do you think though that this is Apple actively trying to reduce your ability to repair, or is it that they pursue other goals and the ability to repair is waaay down on the list?
Another vote for intentional.
By the time you 1. add sw to detect repairs as mentioned elsewhere 2. don't use standard screws like posi or torx 3. make the screws similar but make sure one is longer and will short circuit the device if you put it in the wrong place (IIRC)
They do not provide schematics to anyone outside of Apple and FOXCONN. They only provide diagnostics tools to "authorised repair shops" (which actually don't repair devices). They provide no information to repair shops on where they might be able to buy replacement chips (aside from searching the chip name on AliExpress). It's not as though they don't know how to repair devices, there is mountains of evidence that Apple gives refurbished devices (the boards they provide clearly are not new) even though they call them "re-manufactured" whatever that means.
The most glaring thing is that there are instances where third-party repair shops have figured out why a defect was occurring before Apple did (the graphics card fiascos were shown to be caused by a heat-sensitive tantalum capacitor used near the graphics chip that is damaged due to thermal stress). We know Apple didn't know why the boards were failing because they would give customers refurbished boards that would fail a few months later because they didn't fix the issue. Not to mention that Apple doesn't tell its customers about recalls of their products (which happens almost every year) which is actually illegal in Australia.
You might say all of the above is laziness, but once you have a company which specifically writes software to detect whether an "unauthorised repair" has taken place[1] then I consider them to be malicious. They've also threatened to sue repair shops, and are constantly attacking third-party repair shops (the term "unauthorised" comes from them and is not a term used in any other repair industry).
If you compare this to how other companies operate, this is completely at-odds with the entire industry when it comes to repairability. Microsoft is trying to copy Apple (in all of their negatives) but the rest of the industry doesn't work that way. You can get schematics for other consumer laptops or electronics equipment. In the automotive industry there are laws that make sure that schematics, tools, and parts are available for any third-party repair shop.
tl;dr: Apple is intentionally trying to gain a monopoly on the repairs of their devices.
As far as I know, no manufacturer supplies laptop circuit diagrams to outside parties, except Panasonic for the Toughbook series. All the other schematics out there are leaks. Automotive manufacturers only supply wiring diagrams of the body wiring harnesses. The only electronic assemblies in cars you can get a circuit diagram for are radios; ECU internals are jealously guarded. Even in the consumer electronics industry, manufacturers don't tell you how to buy parts through components distribution. They either sell you the parts at humongous markup or direct you to their authorized parts dealers who buy them from the product manufacturer, not the component manufacturer, again at huge markup. Most of the chips in a laptop aren't available through components distribution at all because the distys would never be able to sell enough pieces to justify a minimum order from the chip maker.
Ugh. This makes me so sad. I was very close to buying a Fairphone 2 or something for its repairability, but I ended up getting a recent Samsung model anyway because it beats the crap out of everything else in almost all categories – especially ones I value highly, like nonexistent shutter lag, weather sealing, battery life and such.
But they're also very anti-tinker, from what I understand. The more I read about stuff like this, the more I'm thinking about rooting my phone just because I want to be in control. I hate handing over my security and system maintenance to a large corporation who barely has my interests in mind. However, rooting a recent Samsung phone is a one-way operation and they can detect it and refuse service under warranty in some jurisdictions. I don't know what to do!
Louis Rossman has an axe to grind, and from the recent iFixit teardowns, other manufacturers, particularly Microsoft, have been worse than Apple for repairability.
But there are trade-offs... fixing my iPhone 5S back panel was a huge pain. But - I could do it! And it was cheap! And I get a device that's tiny, resilient, and generally a wonder. I've seen devices and repairs evolve from the 80s through to now, and I still firmly believe we're better off now (in general), than we were, simply due to economies of scale and the reduction in information asymmetry.
Louis's axe grinding is not without justification. But I don't disagree that these days repairing your own devices is much easier than it was 50 years ago. My point was that companies are trying to counteract that by creating devices and instituting (possibly illegal in some countries) policies that are anti-consumer repair.
What's the justification? Yeah, I'd like more easily repairable devices, but I also get the trade-off. Why is he so angry about it all? (from what I can tell - because he knows how to fix stuff, rather than replace parts wholesale, and fundamentally believes this should be the norm, without taking into account the economics)
The longer rant is here[1]. In short, it's because Apple is unique in its hatred of third-party repair and they are trying to gain a monopoly over repair of their devices. This is not normal, it's actually very abnormal if you compare it to how repair industries normally work for electronic or mechanical components.
The problem is not that Louis (and the rest of the right-to-repair movement) want them to go out of their way to be accommodating. They want them to follow how the rest of the repair industry operates, and to stop going out of their way to make repairs more difficult. Louis has a very strong personality, but he does actually have a point.
Economics is an excuse, especially since we know the Apple explicitly has spent money on trying to thwart third-party repair shops. The automotive industry went through this song and dance in 2012 (before the 90s it was the norm). All they want is the ability to purchase legitimate chips from wherever Apple sources them and have access to the same schematics their technicians have access to. They're not asking Apple to become a wholesale supplier of repair parts.
A lot of it isn't even about changing their design (which is terrible in terms of repairability), but basic ethics. Apple actively prohibits third party repair, as-if they own the device I paid full price on. I couldn't imagine being forced to only service my car with a particular dealership. I prefer being able to change the oil myself or having the option of going to the local mechanic.
The justification is its a huge waste to replace a $350 (or more now if SSDs and stuff are soldered in) logic board or throw away a computer over a 10 cent busted resistor or surface mount fuse that can be diagnosed and replaced in an hour.
Food mixer - resin washer instead of metal, without tools to machine a purpose fit washer is irrepairable.
TV - 4 years old, needed new main board, nothing at less than 50% cost of a brand new (better) TV. No parts from named manufacturer (re-badged).
Kettle - plastic in switch, clearly a weak point, suspect it was designed in, double thickness and the kettle would probably go forever. 3D print would fix, epoxy glue kept detaching.
Multimeter - battery flat, no compartment. One triangle security screw, one stripped head. Had to mangle the case to change the battery.
Mobile phone - Acer, case impossible to open without damaging: screws + one-way plastic security tabs. Just screws or a redesigned tab would make it repairable. No 1st party battery for sale of course.
Lawnmower - push mower can't detach drive for blades as they've used circlips on rods where bolts would have served. Need to buy circlips pliers, if clips break replacements not available.
Rechargeable shaver/trimmer - battery soldered in, shell glued shut. Battery is non-standard cells. Plenty of room for a battery compartment FWIW.
With more popular items where company hasn't actively hobbled the repairability then I agree, information to make repairs is often widely available.
Aside: I'm building a mental list of home items designed to fail too - like all plastic dustpans having a narrowing of the handle at the stress point; they all are thinnest at that point and all break at that point. We could probably cut the demand to 10% with a cm^3 of extra plastic.
I have had sever successful hack repairs.
A weak kettle switch strengthened by construction glue and hanger wire drilled through the plastic.
A washable force air filter frame reinforced by a glued on plastic sheet.
The $80 car antenna that broke off in an unfortunately time garage door close also fixed with glue and museum putty(just for stability till the glue dried).
I am a maker, breaker and a fixer. Keep it out of the trash.
The whole board was trashed? The PSU on my previous TV failed (due to capacitor plague); I ordered a complete part replacement kit from eBay for like 10 bucks and swapped the bad caps using a wood burner as a soldering iron.
Did you check for broken/for parts listings for the same TV? At 4 years old, I'd expect a lot of 2nd-hand supply.
Lightning damage! Couldn't track the fault, only that it appeared to be on the main board: part fried chip I think. I don't keep things any more as I tend towards hoarding and live in a small house with an unexpectedly enlarged family. I found similar main boards from differently labelled TVs but all with subtly different layouts (and codes) and prices just too large (for me) to warrant giving it a go.
Bad caps, I feel like Dr House trying to find Lupus, it's always suggested but never appears ... waiting for that one time to show up.
FWIW, Harbor Fright sells pliers for retaining clips. They're not the best, but like everything from Harbor Fright, will either suffice for the occasional job or demonstrate that you use the tool enough to buy a better version.
Yeah, there are many appliance repair videos on Youtube.
They're often service guys with a penchant for showmanship. They love what they do and genuinely want to be helpful, they'll even play techno music over the boring parts.
I troubleshot and replaced my dryer's drum by following a youtube video. I had been expecting it to be a nightmare job, but it was remarkably low-stress after seeing someone do it on youtube and finding the parts online.
After doing this more than a few times, it quickly becomes easier as one gets familiar with how things are put together and where to find parts. Espresso machines, coffee grinders, monitors, washer/dryers, radios, automotive stuff, PC's and even laptops... none of this stuff is rocket science to repair with a bit of patience and study. More folks should try it.
>Yeah, there are many appliance repair videos on Youtube. They're often service guys with a penchant for showmanship. They love what they do and genuinely want to be helpful,
They're not just being helpful; the ones I've seen also include links so that you can buy the replacement part from their online business. It's great salesmanship: "look, you can do it yourself and save a bundle! We'll sell you the parts for a great price!" (even though their price probably isn't really the best, but it's probably fair.)
Repairability varies: it depends on what broke, and how much the parts cost to fix it. I had a first-gen Maytag Neptune washer for about 17 years; it had some problems (including the infamous mold problem they mitigated under warranty), including a failed pump and a belt that slipped off. But finally, the main bearing gave out. The replacement part for this is $400; that just isn't worth it for a machine that old. I can get a newer machine secondhand for less than that, which is exactly what I did.
Also, as we're seeing now with mobile devices, sometimes they're glued together so it's quite impossible to disassemble them without damaging them. iFitIt complained bitterly about this with the new Surface notebook. Luckily, appliances aren't (yet?) built like this.
Amazing is the price you paid for the screen. Maybe iPhone screens are in such high supply - but with modern Android smartphones, we're usually talking about ~$100 for the screen package. Whether or not you'll be able to replace that without specialized equipment depends on the manufacturer (I did one such repair myself on Samsung Galaxy S3 without problems, but with my S7 I'd have to first cut it apart - and Samsung phones are on the "more repairable" end of the spectrum...).
The reason we're talking about throwaway economy is because quite often, the parts that fail are not available in any reasonable quantity (phone screens, appliance motherboards), and paying for repair (or acquiring them yourself and doing the repair on your own) costs about as much as a new device. At which point most people rightfully ask, why bother?
Also, when comparing to 1960s - 1980s, one has to remember that it's not just that the devices were simpler then. They also often came with technical manuals, and they were intended to be home-repairable. OTOH manufacturers today seriously screw up repairability even when not necessary. I get that screens are best made as fully-integrated parts, but compare e.g. Kindle 3 Keyboard, which is as close as you get to swappable screen (pry it open, screw out some screws, pull the screen out...) vs. devices which are internally glued together, so that trying to take it apart risks destroying some components.
Most modern smartphones have the LCD, digitizer and glass all fused together. It improves image quality and reduces the distance between the glass and the image. This, however, greatly increases the replacement cost since you would then have to replace the entire unit when you break it. Also, higher resolution screens are more expensive.
I think the 3GS is old enough to have these layers as discrete components that you can replace one by one, hence the lower cost.
yes, the 3gs didn't have loca, although the 4 and beyond did. Android phones tend to have much more expensive LCD's which since about 2013 are all loca'd to the glass and digi, so when the screen breaks on your s7 it's a very pricey fix.
At the shop I worked in, in the case of broken glass but fully working LCD, on a galaxy s3-s5, we would spend about an hour holding the screen assembly under a heat gun and slowly peel the glass off the LCD with a playing card. The we could put on new loca and glue a new piece of glass on, which cost ~$10. We charged like $120 for the because it took forever and there was like a 1/4 chance you broke the LCD and then replacing the assembly was like $110.
In my experience only Screen with a resolution above 720p are expensive, for my Moto G2 I paid around 15$ for Screen and it got send with a fitting screwdriver for the phone.
(I never went making a comparison of prices of different phone screens, I only know from 3 other phones with 1080p+ screens that they are way more expensive)
Sure, there are some items which are not repairable in a reasonable way. Classic example - my wife's Apple Watch, after she broke the screen on that. However, my point was I own a wide variety of appliances from different manufacturers and my default experience has been thrifty and simple repair.
I dropped my s7, getting quotes of $170 for the screen + digitizer :( The phone is worth like $250 new on eBay, but it's $170 to have someone fix it.. so frustrating.
My experience has been mostly different. I recently broke something on my gas stove (by being an idiot) that made the two front burners unusable. I looked for replacement parts online and turned up nothing, so I called a repair shop and was told that the broken part isn't and never has been made available by the manufacturer. So I'm totally out of luck on that. On the plus side, the stove was made in 1994 so it worked pretty well for over twenty years.
A friend asked me the same, so here's my info. It is dated, and you're best calling a repair shop before buying, but likely still some nuggets of truth here.
Big trend is consolidation in the industry. Whirlpool, Maytag, and Kitchenaid are all the same company now. For dishwashers (and I got this info recently), repairman said they all have the same motor and core components, which is the most important. They differ on the control panel, aesthetics, and price. He also said that LG dishwashers have a problem with hard water, which is problematic in SoCal.
BTW, this was a call for a dishwasher problem on a Kitchenaid my brother bought used. The door kept popping open during washing (just enough to stop the cycle), and he said the problem was that the frame was slightly bent, probably during transport. My brother got a great deal buying a matched set of appliances used (you nearly always do), but sadly there was nothing he could do for a bent frame and it had to be ditched.
For washing machines, the guy said "Buttons and knobs, the simpler the better. No electronics. When these things have problems, it's always the electronic control panel, which is expensive to replace." He also suggested Whirlpool and Maytag, so I went with Whirlpool since again, same company, cheaper price.
Some years ago, a vacuum cleaner shop explained that everyone is racing to put out a lighter vacuum, and hence they switched from metal gearing and components to plastic. This greatly diminishes their lifespan. He had a number of used models he personally serviced and felt good about selling used. Afraid I forget the model he was really excited about, but again, your local vacuum shop will likely have something.
And thanks to all the nice comments, this really made my day!
I've been told the same thing about dishwashers; all the pumps are the same and you're just paying for more buttons. They did add that sometimes the top-of-the-line model will still actually clean better due to some added sensors that will extend the cycle if the water through the pump is still getting dirty, but it sounded like the improvement was negligible.
Unfortunately everything is getting more complex. Even my dirt cheap "buttons and knobs" washer no longer has a batch size knob, instead incorporating some sort of sensor that determines the "optimal" water level.
I've had a suspicion that was the reasoning behind it. Ironically it actually ends up using maybe 20% more water than on my old washer where I'd set the water level manually. I suppose it is possible that a large segment of users would always use a large batch no matter what, so overall having the sensors results in a net conservation. But I'm skeptical that this is really the case.
...which essentially says the same thing, but in more detail.
> For washing machines, the guy said
Another thing: Stay away from front loaders (unless health or other reasons prevent it) - the door seal always goes, and makes a huge mess when it does.
> Some years ago, a vacuum cleaner shop explained that everyone is racing to put out a lighter vacuum, and hence they switched from metal gearing and components to plastic.
When I was in high school, my friend's mom had an old Kirby upright bag vacuum - probably dated from the 1950s. All steel, everywhere. Sounded like a jet engine when it was running. But the thing could pick up the moon if you positioned it properly.
One day, being the dumbasses we were, we decided "hey, let's put it to the test!". So we started vacuuming things up. Bits of plastic, legos, pennies, washers, nails - all of it, no problem. There had to be something that would stop it dead (we had no clue what we'd do if it did die - like I said, we were dumbasses)...hey, how about a roll of quarters!
It made the most horrendous noise imaginable. The lights flickered in the home as the motor struggled. But it kept going. Eventually, the whole thing was sucked up into the vacuum. No damage to anything in it, and it continued to run and work like always...
I'm pretty sure that old Kirby is still running somewhere.
His mom never knew (we weren't so dumb as to do this when she was home, though)!
Honestly the answer to the appliance problem is to just buy Miele. I'm not really a huge fan, because you do pay a lot for the brand and they're not always as technologically advanced as, for example, Siemens, but you do get a long warranty and high quality.
My father has sensitive skin, so my parents wanted a washing machine with excellent rinse performance. They consulted independent reviews, and brought an £800 ($1000) Miele washing machine which was reviewed as having good rinse performance.
Except it didn't. The rinse performance was mediocre, even with all the 'extra rinse' settings enabled. After several engineer call outs, they returned it and brought a £450 ($580) Bosch instead. The rinse performance was still mediocre, but at least they hadn't wasted so much money.
Later, I learned that the reviewers had dropped their rinse performance standards, because modern water- and energy-efficient washing machines couldn't perform and they didn't want to publish a review that panned every single machine.
My point is: Buying a Miele isn't a silver bullet.
The apartment we rent has Miele appliances. Recently, a plastic screw widget broke in the range hood. I tried to repair it myself, as it looked simple to change, however was just out of reach and I couldn't figure out how to take the side off. It was CHF350 ($350) for the hour we had the technician over.
Maybe they don't break often, but when they do...
That's my experience with them as well. We got three 10-year-old machines (clothes washer, drier and dishwasher), and they all lasted 10-15 years more with minimal problems, but when a problem did arise, just getting an official Miele rep to look at it was damn expensive, and the estimate to fix it was the cost of a new mid-range machine.
Luckily we found an non-affiliated technician who was much cheaper and got the part from an old machine for a small fraction of the cost.
We have a fancy Miele dishswasher in our current house, which was installed by the previous owners. This is the most unreliable dishwasher I've ever seen. It fails at least once per year, with a new thing every time. There is only one repair shop in our area that will service Miele, and they are backed up weeks sometimes.
Our old house had a cheap, builder-grade GE dishwasher. We lived there for 10 years, and it never failed.
> Our old house had a cheap, builder-grade GE dishwasher. We lived there for 10 years, and it never failed.
The fewer bells-and-whistles, the longer it will last.
We bought our house - pre-owned, built in 1973. We wanted block construction (not stick frame, chicken wire, styrofoam and stucco), copper plumbing and wiring, and no HOA (because I want to be able to wrench on my cars out front while having a beer, and leave them up on jackstands temporarily as needed, without some busybody measuring the height of my lawn). We decided to (mostly) buy pre-owned appliances while we were at it.
So we got this "package" of a washer, dryer and refrigerator from a local used appliance store. Nothing fancy about any of it. Of all of them, the washer died first after about 12 years (started to leak, probably could've been repaired, but it had already been repaired once before). The dryer is still running strong (15 years), the fridge works fine, but the water and ice-maker no longer work (not really worth repairing either, since we didn't use them much). Our washer at the time we bought a "builder special" - same with the range. The washer died about a year back (14 years) - can't recall why. But we were re-doing our kitchen, so we decided "why not" and got a new one (also got a new sink - hand-hammered copper, and I have no clue how much it cost because my wife paid for it).
The range is still going strong, although we've had to replace the heating element in the oven. That's about 15 years old too. We'll probably keep repairing it, because it is dead simple to do, plus it has actual electric burners (not that flat-top junk), which is something you can't seem to find any more, even at the budget end (when we bought it, it was the budget end itself, and the only one that had that feature).
If I really had my way, I'd get my wife a restored O'Keefe-Merritt Grillevator, but our neighborhood doesn't have gas, and to get it run is so expensive (nearest line is about a quarter-mile away at the end of our block), it'd be cheaper to move.
Recently we had to stay in a series of short-term lets: every flat-top electric range was hot garbage. Turning on the elements for more than 10 minutes caused the electronic controls to flake out & not recognise fingerpresses, so we couldn't turn off a burner without disconnecting the whole unit from mains.
An even better tactic, if applicable in your area is to buy used Miele appliances. All my appliances at home are Miele, all used from the local Craigslist equivalent. I usually pay 70%-90% off the sticker price because people are stupid when the remodel kitchens and bathrooms - "everything else is new, we should have a new dishwasher as well!".
Do I get the warranty transferred? No. Do I care? Not in the slightest. Even if something breaks after a year I just buy a new used one and still come out ahead. The cost of transportation and looking it up is the same as for a new appliance.
Interesting to see the parallel drawn with the mattress industry and its practice of confusing models and brands. Over the last few years there have been a few companies (Luxi, Tuft & Needle, Casper, etc.) that have been somewhat disruptive by offering very straightforward options.
I believe we're in a golden age for self-repair (particularly with YouTube videos), but I keep hearing about how everything is throwaway. Just the other week I repaired an iPhone 3GS we had been using as a baby monitor until it was dropped, for $4 (including shipping!) to replace the screen. That's amazing!
For those that do a Google search, and buy some parts on eBay (although I got an obscure a/c part via Amazon Prime), it's never been easier to repair your devices.