"Steve Kraus" wrote in message
m...
William Sommerwerck wrote:

The Tungsten T3 is still manufacturerd, though not, apparently, sold
by Palm. Palm is legally obliged to provide parts for it, but refuses
to. Even if it weren't manufactured, it has been less than 10 years
since it was discontinued, and Palm is obligated to provide
electrical/electronic parts.

Those laws probably do not say anything about pricing, do they?
What good is forcing compliance if they would say "Fine...How
many batteries do you want? They're $1000 each?"

In the two cases where I forced companies to provide service or service
parts, they complied at a reasonable price.

Manufacturers (or importers) often gouge on the price of service parts. But
if they have the parts, they're not going to charge such a huge price that
the item won't sell at all.

In one case where I complained about the cost of a replacement headphone
cable (about 60% of the retail price of the complete headphone!), the
manufacturer was so upset by the ridiculousness of the price that they
simply sent me the cable for free (without my asking)! It was the beginning
of a beautiful friendship.