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by tda 548 days ago
That may aso be a factor, but in general machines under 500 euro cannot be repaired economically as it easily costs 100-200 before the manufacturer even has a look. And this usually results in replacing a subassembly like the entire PCB at a very inflated price of say 200. I wouldn't be surprised if the economical-to-repair threshold is well over 1000 for a lot of product categories. Third party professional repairers are all but extinct. Only for certain specific product categories (e.g. washing machines) you still have them. But as most washing machines cost around 500 euro, and are expected to last only 5 years, I would think the number of repairers are declining (why repair a 3 year old 400 euro machine for 250, for at most another 2 years of utility if a new one can be had for 400?).

I would love to know if there are professional shops where one can get e.g. a capacitor on a PCB replaced, but as far as I am aware all these kinds of repairs are done by amateurs in garages like myself.

The other day someone even gave me a broken 750 euro Jura coffee machine. The owner was not interested in getting it back, they had happily switched to nespresso. Still haven't figured out why the pcb will not power on the heater though