"Jeff Liebermann" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:04:18 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
wrote:

I asked him why not, and he said that it
wouldn't be worth his while, because if he fitted a repaired board to a
customer's boiler, and it went wrong again a couple of weeks later, he
would
be left out of pocket on the return call, and with a disgruntled customer
who probably wouldn't use him or recommend him again.

It's worse than that. I know several manufacturers that go through
considerable effort to make sure their boards are destroyed and NOT
recycled. The problem is that they lose control of the boards during
the recycling process and that recyclers are the major source of
"repairable" boards. These boards are fished out of the recyling
bins, repaired (or not repaired) and placed back on the market through
various means. When one of these boards fail, the customer goes after
the manufacturer and not the repair person. The manufacturer usually
has to honor the warranty in order to salvage their reputation. The
quantities involved are minor, but the irritations and support load is
sufficiently irritating to inspire manufacturers to destroy or crush
their boards before recycling. Add to that the counterfeit
electronics problem, and little wonder the manufacturers want to
retain a strangle-hold on the product from cradle to grave.

Oddly, some vendors require a "core deposit" which is common in the
automobile parts busines, before they will sell a replacement board.
In the US, repair shops are required to "offer" the old parts to the
customer, which usually means loss of any core deposit. It's fairly
obvious that the core charge is solely to make sure the customer does
not retain the bad board, and later decide to have it repaired.


--
Jeff Liebermann


The situation over here is not quite the same, but there are similarities.
But all of that just underlines the point that no matter what would be truly
beneficial to the green movement - and simple repair with a twopenny
resistor has got to qualify - it really isn't about that, at all. Which is
actually just as most of us in the repair game already know ...

Arfa