On Sun, 14 Jan 2007 18:19:24 GMT, "Rick Brandt"
wrote:

Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
"Rick Brandt" wrote:

This raises an apparent contradiction.

Perhaps you've not been adequately involved with your appliances to
see that there is not a contradiction, even "apparently".

The old ones were, for the most part, designed to be repairable. "This
part always breaks eventually, we'll isolate it and make it easy to
replace".

The new ones are, for the most part, designed NOT to be repairable,
and/or parts prices/availability are manipulated to render them
effectively non-economic to repair. [snip]

What you say speaks to the issue of why did we repair in the past and why don't
we repair now, but it says nothing about the comparable reliability. If
appliances in the past were "built to be repaired" that can be interpretted to
mean that failures were expected. If failures were expected and people could
make a living performing those repairs then that suggests that the appliances
were not that reliable.



The main reason we don't repair modern electronic appliances is that
the cost of parts and labour to carry out the repairs is often nearly
as much (or more) than the appliance cost new. Why would anyone pay
for a repair on an item, which may be as good as new when repaired,
when a brand new item may only cost a little more. The new item also
comes with a new warranty.

This will only change when the standard of living in countries
producing the majority of appliances goes up considerably thus making
the cost of producing items more expensive.

However, along with that, in order to make them economical to repair,
they must also be designed for accessibility to components such that
they can physically be repaired. Designing in repairability also adds
a bit to the cost of production.

Personally, I am all in favour of repairability if for no other reason
than it saves energy and resources across the board.