"Michael" wrote in message
...
On May 21, 10:36 pm, "hr(bob) "
wrote:
On May 21, 2:49 pm, Michael wrote:


Mr. Cook: Thank you kindly for supplying the links to information. Mr.
Hoffman unfortunately I am not even slightly mechanically inclined.

I guess part of this post was to express surprise (1) that an
important component (the Play button) of a Sony product not abused
didn't last more than 2 1/2 years; and (2) that Sony gives consumers
extremely limited options for repairing these things, a repair that
Mr. Hoffman indicated would be simple for even a moderately skilled
repair person (let alone a Sony factory trained facility that I could
drive to).

Again thanks for the feedback.




The main criterion now for producing these sort of goods is a low retail
price. These things are actually really cheap now. I can go into Tesco on
my way home and pick up a DVD player or Sattelite box with a years warranty
for £20.
But with the cheap price comes the drawback of little or no service. If you
want your goods to last longer or to come with good service backup, you will
have to pay a lot more for them. Service is a very expensive thing for a
company to provide and generally makes no income, so generally you won't
find much of it. Instead, they will have the stuff made in China for a very
low price, and then you can go and buy your stuff for a very low price, and
it will last for a while. If you took it to China to have it repaired you
may be able to get it done for a reasonable percentage of its value, but not
in the Western world where wages and the cost of running a business is a
magnitude higher.

Unfortunately you cannot have your cake and eat it. You do have a choice of
buying much better quality goods at much higher prices though, with the
possibility of having it repaired should it go wrong outside of warranty, if
you are prepared to pay what it actually costs to repair it.

Having said that, Sony does or did have a network of Sony Service Centres,
but the prices were very high, probably in line with what they actually cost
to provide. I don't remember seeing any other maufacturer doing anything
similar.




Gareth.