Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote

For goods like boilers, electronic repairs make a lot more sense.

Like hell it does for the manufacturer. It is MUCH cheaper to
just churn out a new one using the manufacturing process
that is used to make them in the first place than to employ
skilled people to diagnose and repair pcbs that have failed.

Then companies like Geoff's couldn't survive.

Wrong. He doesn’t have the factory that can churn out a new one.

He doesn’t have the overheads that the manufacturer would have if
they employed people to repair failed pcbs instead of making a new one.

Your hypothesis would only hold if the
company sold spare PCBs at or near cost.

Wrong when many are not aware that they can get a repaired one
from Geoff cheaper than the new one from the manufacturer.

That's why there are **** all that repair TVs now, very few are
prepared to pay to have their TV repaired if it fails unless it is a
very simple fault that is very easy to fix, they just buy a new one.

And even with failures under warranty, the manufacturer doesn’t
pay a skilled person to diagnose and repair the pcb anymore, they
just pay a much less skilled person to swap the pcb or power supply
with a new one. And that individual can just look at list of the
symptoms and what needs to be swapped and only need very
basic skills to swap the pcb that has failed or the power supply.

With cars, the computer tells you which sensor has failed when
you plug the car into the diagnostic system and anyone with
even the most basic skills can swap the sensor that has failed
for a new one.