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. "This part will (by design) break
about 1 year after the warranty runs out - let's put in in a monolithic
module containing all the most expensive parts of the machine." The
appliance industry would much rather sell you a new one than have you
fix the old one, and they have taken steps to ensure that only the
maddest of mad hatters will stubbornly stick to repair; and when they
do, the industry will still profit mightily due to inflated pricing. But
not making the parts at all will knock even the mad hatters into line
soon enough, so long as they keep all the parts adequately non-standard
that it's not economic for anyone to second-source them.

The same logic is driving the production of hybrid cars that are less
fuel efficient than some non-hybrid cars. When the battery pack dies in
8-10 years, the car will be junk (non-economic to repair), clearing the
way for more new car sales.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by

Your comments make a lot of sense to me. My dad built our first color
TV (and repaired it...usually running down to Thrifty Drug to use their
bulb tester); he would also rebuild cars (and was self-taught). The
appliances of the past were "simpler" as were our cars. Now that most
are running via circuit boards there's no more of the replace defective
fuse or plug thing (sometimes it is though...should still try that).
I'm also one of those who prefers the non-hybrid high MPG cars (in
order: 1 Fiesta, 2 Festiva's and currently 1 Yaris) for the specific
reasons you mention.

PS...if anyone has the answer about why one of my Sunbeam self-lowering
toasters doesn't want to stop toasting without pulling the plug (aka
which part is the thermostat?)...let me know It's not my primary
Sunbeam...just one I might need to use some day.