Quite right too. Bought an angle grinder which ran well for about 5 years. Eventually, the carbon brushes needed replacing but, obviously, the model was no longer in production and spares no longer available.
So, I had to buy an oversize pair of brushes and borrow an angle grinder to grind them down to size.
Most appliances have one or two years’ guarantee. After that, you’re on your own. Whether spare parts are available from the manufacturer after that time is anybody’s guess.
Presumably, the new rules will make the manufacturers obliged to make spare parts for their appliances - at reasonable cost - for a specified period, say ten years going by the above.
I have done similar. One was a washing machine. The drum got a split in it. I repaired it with tiny brass screws. And several times I replaced the carbon brushes. Of course, I had to sand them to fit. The alternative was a replacement motor at the repair shop.
Often that happens just outside the warranty period, S*d’s Law springs to mind. Now though it’s also being said that the new regulations should also make items easier to repair as manufacturers will stop the practise of making things so difficult to take apart. I wonder though?
That 10 years is for cars I believe, not sure about other manufactured items like washing machines, 'fridges etc. I used to repair my own washing machines, there was a stockist of those spares in a business park locally. The only thing I couldn’t do was to replace the main bearings when they went. I couldn’t figure out how to get the drum out to get to the bearings. Easy when I saw the engineer do it, but that’s like everything, easy when you know how! However, that was the only time I had anyone in to repair the washing machine as always I did it myself!
But what is reasonable? My applications would be a quite reasonable life span at the end of a repair life. A television, for example, would probably not.
It seems that the policy put forward suggests that for some products, 10 years is a basic “reasonable” amount of time.
During my very brief sojourn into the world of selling kirby vacuum cleaners, we were advised that 30 years was what the company called a reasonable lifespan. If parts were no longer available, they would replace with an upgraded machine.
Not entirely sure that modern dysons, sharks etc have the same life expectancies. Most people I know tend to replace theirs within 8 years. My kirby is still going strong after 25+ years, having only had the bushes and mains lead needing replacing.
This is good news obviously but I wish manufacturers would stop making the crap in the first place. Everything we buy these days ends up with a problem and it’s not as though these things are cheap.
As for washing machines, certain manufacturers (Bosch is one of them) rivet everything making it impossible to carry out what would be simple repairs if you could get to it.
A lot of components within various devices are now glued in place, others are either a press fit or require ‘special’ tools to access. All by design and done to prevent easy replacement I reckon, or am I just being cynical?
Some/most people still won’t get electronic items repaired. When something goes wrong, they will most likely look at the technical advances that have been made since the item was bought and decide to buy the latest models.
Cheaper to produce so more profit or cheaper to buy so of benefit to the consumer? I don’t replace anything regularly enough to have seen which way prices have gone. To me there seems no reason to buy ‘the latest’ just to have that or to ‘keep up with the Joneses’.
