[HN Gopher] Right to Repair: The Price Is Not Right
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Right to Repair: The Price Is Not Right
Author : acqbu
Score : 66 points
Date : 2024-01-22 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (repair.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (repair.eu)
| kazinator wrote:
| > _But these requirements still ignore one of the biggest
| problems: the price of spare parts._
|
| No, that is short-sighted.
|
| The price of spare parts is the symptom. The root cause is that
| the part are highly specific to whatever they are going into, and
| there is a single supplier for them.
|
| For repairs to be easy, things have to be made with generic parts
| that are available from multiple suppliers.
|
| Not all parts have to be that way, just the ones likely to break,
| or ones that are expected to require replacement by design.
|
| You're not going to get decent prices for spare parts, if you're
| vendor-locked, and there is no competition.
| ikesau wrote:
| yeah, this logic makes sense to me
|
| i just have no idea how you begin to create a global system of
| "generic parts" beyond screws and bolts in a world of
| globalized supply chains, with specialized production in every
| country.
|
| but i also have no experience in manufacturing or repair. i'd
| love to hear if there are any successful case studies on the
| subject
| jfim wrote:
| There are definitely some products for which it would be
| doable, for example Midea makes a lot of the microwave oven
| models sold in the US.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > i just have no idea how you begin to create a global system
| of "generic parts" beyond screws and bolts in a world of
| globalized supply chains, with specialized production in
| every country.
|
| Older cars were.
|
| Manufacturers never designed their own brake pads, they
| picked a caliper design that closely fit an existing wheel.
|
| Carburetors? Just fit one from a carburetor manufacturer
| (weber, etc).
|
| Steering racks, balljoints ... many fit multiple brands.
|
| Alternators, radiators, various water tanks ... all from a
| common parts manufacturer, then used in several brands.
| Thermostats used to be a common design too.
|
| Hell, they don't even do their own transmissions - just get a
| ZF-whatever.
|
| When Hyundai launched their gen-1 Elantra ~1990, it came with
| a Mitsubishi engine.
|
| Wheel bearings, CV joints - one design fit many different
| brands.
|
| The repairability of older cars was _amazing_ in retrospect.
|
| Today it's different - you are unlikely to find brake pads
| from a Ford that fits a Toyota.
|
| The companies spent _extra_ money on design, to make that
| internal part significantly different, then _extra_ money on
| tooling to actually build it, just so that you cannot buy a
| replacement unless its from them.
| ErikRogneby wrote:
| Exactly right! there are a whole lot of after-market part
| suppliers for major appliances like dishwashers, laundry
| washing machines etc. Some of them have a parts list and
| assembly schematic hidden in the machine.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are often third-party spare parts.
|
| Some of the plastic parts on my decades old Cuisinart food
| processor have started to go but the motor is still great. But
| Cuisinart doesn't make the parts for what is almost a 50 year
| old appliance at this point. I was able to buy 3rd party parts
| for too much money but they don't fit quite right. I make do as
| it's not something I use that often and can make it work.
| cmiller1 wrote:
| > things have to be made with generic parts
|
| This seems tricky to legislate though. How do regulators decide
| which parts are like this? How do you deal with "generic parts"
| holding back innovation in cases where someone has invented an
| improved version of that part but it's not available as a
| generic part yet?
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Literally a whole section of TFA is devoted to this:
|
| > Astute readers may have noticed one typical element missing
| from the price setting factors listed above: competitiveness.
| Rygian wrote:
| The rule should be that the total cumulative cost of all the
| spare parts for an appliance must be lower than 80% of the
| price of the appliance brand new.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| If Right to Repair was about the Right to Save Money rather than
| guaranteeing basic consumer rights, the advocates should have
| specified as such.
|
| I have no sympathy for misrepresented idealogies, let alone ones
| driven by greed (in this case consumer greed). Y'all got your
| Right to Repair guaranteed, nowhere did it stipulate that had to
| be below <X> cost.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Yeah but I don't think it's reasonable for replacement parts to
| cost nearly as much as a new device unless those parts do make
| up a substantial of the manufacture cost.
|
| Making repair more expensive than buying new defeats the
| purpose of repair.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| The purpose of repair is to reduce waste and guarantee a
| consumer's right to do with his things as he pleases.
|
| Saving some money by repairing is certainly nice, but that is
| a side effect and not the primary objective.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I think my point was having the repair being more expensive
| than new would defeat the goal of reducing waste.
| trealira wrote:
| It can also just be for preservation purposes. A lot of old
| game consoles are dying, and so are CRT televisions (which
| just aren't manufactured anymore). Enthusiasts would want
| both of these to be repairable so that old games can be
| played forever (but AFAIK, only CRTs are actually
| repairable). The supply of both of them are shrinking, so
| only repairability would help their longevity.
|
| I guess that also ties into how long the guarantee of
| repairability should last. Nothing lasts forever; at some
| point, the parts to make the technology may stop being
| manufactured and sold.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I guess I made the assumption that preservation wouldn't be
| a viable use case given the parts may longer be available
| shortly after a device stopped being manufactured.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Okay, so why not stipulate that parts need to be available at a
| reasonable price?
| Dalewyn wrote:
| Do you mean reasonable as in _" Here is cost of manufacture,
| our margin for selling this to you, plus any other costs
| incurred."_ or _" We want cheap and we want it now!"_?
|
| Personally, as someone who appreciates having the possibility
| to repair something, I'm happy so long as I can buy first-
| party parts at all. If I want or need to repair something,
| the cost is ultimately irrelevant.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| The first. I can't see how the part would cost more than
| the whole with the first regulations.
| andrewla wrote:
| Holy unintended side effects, Batman!
|
| I have to say that I did not see this coming when I heard about
| right-to-repair legislation.
|
| It seems like there is one workaround for a reseller; I can just
| buy Bosch washing machines new, and disassemble them for parts.
| In the worst case, the most commonly failing part will cost as
| much as one washing machine. Plus the cost of carrying inventory.
| Or I guess you could try to do it on-demand, but you've still got
| a bunch of motor-less washing machines in the shed out back.
| jjbickerstaffe wrote:
| For many products there seems to be a thriving ecosystem on
| ebay of people taking genuine manufacturer parts, subdividing
| them, and reselling the smaller individual parts for consumers
| to use.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Part of the problem here is we don't know the margins of this
| stuff. Just how badly are we being screwed? Probably pretty bad
| but...
|
| Manufacturing cost for a non-OEM part is not representative of
| total cost to an OEM to provide quality-assured and warrantied
| spares of said part to customers.
|
| Some parts are stored as complete assemblies. A unique screw may
| not be stocked as a separate item. It's possible replacing a
| damaged or missing subassembly puts the whole thing out of
| tolerances.
|
| The majority of these arguments are probably complete bullshit.
| Repairability is the cost of doing business.
|
| This is going to be a pain to enforce. Hopefully enough companies
| get painful penalties to deter the rest from playing this game.
| roywashere wrote:
| And as the article stated: it can differ from vendor to vendor.
| I used to own an 8 year old Honda Civic and spare parts were
| difficult to obtain and expensive. Later I owned a 30+ year old
| Mercedes and parts were relatively cheap and easy to obtain and
| shipped locally next business day. With electronics it sucks a
| little that it seems for almost all brands everything is
| expensive and difficult. It does not really help that many
| electronics (such as the mentioned grass trimmers) are so
| extremely cheap to begin with.
| Dnguyen wrote:
| I try to repair as much as I can because I don't want stuff end
| up in the trash. If the parts are expensive, we need a way to
| source the parts from the non-fully functional units out there.
| From my experience, most people find the repair a daunting task
| and won't even think about it.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I know that relative to the size of the whole market, the number
| of consumers interested enough in repairing their stuff to
| consider it when purchasing is small, but does anyone know of any
| places that actually include both ease of repair and availability
| of parts in their review system?
|
| iFixit it does it for a small subset of electronics, but I'd love
| to be able to find the equivalent for things like power tools,
| kitchen tools, appliances, etc.
|
| Does Consumer Reports check this? I know they do reliability, but
| do they include repair? I think I'd be willing to pay if there
| was a reputable place I could check. Especially if it was
| possible to see if there are particular brands that are generally
| good about this (which might help decide in the case that a
| specific product isn't yet assessed).
| Affric wrote:
| I found Dyson vacuum cleaners to be harder to get into than an
| iPhone. Awful plastic that you need to be very careful with.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Dyson is just the worst and probably what the author of this
| article had in mind. A replacement AC adapter for the battery
| charger is already 1/4 of the price of the entire vacuum
| cleaner set (which includes vacuum, battery, charger, and AC
| adapter).
| trealira wrote:
| The article mentions the the French _indice de reparabilite_ ,
| but it's not perfect (and you need to speak French).
|
| > For some products, the French _indice de reparabilite_ can
| help you take this into account, in order to choose a washing
| machine that scores 10 /10 for spare parts price instead of one
| that scores 2,5/10, or a TV that scores 7,5/10 instead of one
| that scores 0/10.(7) However, you cannot search for or filter
| products by spare parts score on any website. You have to check
| them one by one by reviewing the scoring grid, which may not
| even be available online--although the seller is legally
| required to provide it upon request.
|
| This is the website: https://www.indicereparabilite.fr/
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| Ah yes, the repair score. Where something practically
| disposable like a Samsung foldable device (where you just
| can't do anything without destroying the main screen) scores
| a whopping 8/10 ( https://cdn.woopic.com/c10f167280f2414abb34
| 6a5347e1ecd9/prod... ) , while something like the Fairphone
| scores just one extra point at 9/10.
|
| For comparison, iFixit gave the Fold a 2/10, and the
| Fairphone a 10/10.
| boatsie wrote:
| I think the best way to find repairable and long lived products
| is to buy commercial grade when possible or look at what gets
| used by contractors. The types of things that get used in
| commercial settings or pro use tend to be a lot more repairable
| and durable than the consumer equivalents. Definitely more
| expensive though.
| ghaff wrote:
| There are tools I use a lot like my cordless drill and the
| main thing that goes is the battery which can be easily
| replaced.
|
| But there are a ton of tools I use once in a blue moon and
| probably aren't worth spending a premium on.
| psynister wrote:
| I ran into this same thing recently. My dryer needed new
| electronics, basically the same price as buying a new dryer. My
| wife had strong opinions about JUST buying a new dryer so guess
| who has a new washer AND dryer?
| MostlyStable wrote:
| My personal experience with this was with a blender. The mount
| that held the motor went bad (turns out it was due to
| _incredibly_ spindly supports that had broken. It probably saved
| a few cents in material costs but resulted in the whole thing
| failing years earlier than it probably should have), but luckily,
| the mounting bracket was available, _and_ at an eminently
| reasonable price. Unfortunately, during this process, the
| mounting bracket holding the control board in place also broke
| (they did _not_ use very high quality plastic), and unfortunately
| that piece was only sold as an assembly with the entire control
| board which was priced basically identically to the whole
| blender. It 's currently sitting in a cupboard waiting for me to
| get the energy to get a 3d printed replacement, since I am having
| trouble throwing away what is otherwise a perfectly serviceable
| blender except for 1 small broken piece of plastic.
|
| Unfortunately, this particular problem is not one that I think
| can be legislated away (or at least not without the legistlation
| causing more problems than it fixes). The only way it gets fixed
| is if consumers start to care and start basing their purchases at
| least partially on repairability (including price). And that kind
| of culture shift is hard.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > The only way it gets fixed is if consumers start to care and
| start basing their purchases at least partially on
| repairability (including price). And that kind of culture shift
| is hard.
|
| It is not technically hard. Just hit new goods with a
| sufficient tax such that buyers have no choice but to start
| caring about longevity and repairability.
|
| Of course, it is practically impossible since people like being
| able to buy more stuff.
| pixl97 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax
|
| The political problems section is what to read, in general,
| no one is going to vote this on themselves.
| n2d4 wrote:
| Right to repair wouldn't be a pigouvian tax. There are no
| negative externalities to selling a product that is
| unrepairable -- no one but the buyer gets (seriously)
| harmed by it -- it's just that people buy products before
| sufficiently informing themselves about what to do when
| they break.
| piskov wrote:
| > Just hit new goods with a sufficient tax
|
| Inflation has your back :-)
| oliwarner wrote:
| Would STLs for parts fix this? We could legislate that buying a
| product gets you personal access to design files for the
| purpose of repair or enhancement.
|
| Having full service sheets for electronics, and physical design
| files would make all but the most compact electronics user-
| serviceable, at no direct cost to manufacturers.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Also, IP laws should only apply when they are of benefit to
| society as a whole. So if you have a patent on a part you no
| longer produce, well, that doesn't benefit society so your
| patent is done.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| This was expected and foreseen.
|
| Devices and appliances are manufactured with huge economies of
| scale and are, all in all, cheap.
|
| Spare parts are going to cost and, especially, professional
| labour is going to cost. It's never going to make much financial
| sense to repair cheap-ish devices.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yep, typically all the parts are made in bulk as in...
|
| Company: Build me 1 million washing machines. Of course this is
| 1 million barrels, controller boards, frames, etc.
|
| The people building the parts are going to build in a little
| bit of overrun to deal with warranty and factory damage, but
| there simply isn't enough extra stock laying around to keep
| them running for decades.
| boatsie wrote:
| Another issue with this is that the part that fails often is
| poorly designed or not durable in the first place. So you spend
| money and time to replace it and then it will just fail again.
| Zero incentive to improve the part by the manufacturer. I think
| the solution is requiring manufacturers to sell warranties that
| cover full labor and materials or replacement. Then at least you
| could see if a manufacturer selling something cheaply has a very
| high "full warranty" price, it's likely because it has a high
| failure rate. This would be the only way to incentivize fewer
| failures and repairs.
| Rygian wrote:
| 2-year seller warranty is already a legal obligation in the EU.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| Just about every proposed regulation in this article would
| dramatically increase the selling price of nearly all goods, and
| dramatically hinder new entrants from selling new products by
| increasing the burden to get started.
|
| If that's the set of tradeoffs you want to make, ok, fine. But be
| up-front about it.
|
| Consumer goods, by and large, are not markets with massive profit
| margins. They're markets of incredible scale with slim margins
| that generate large revenue as a result. You're not going to get
| better, more repairable products out of this. You're going to get
| fewer, more expensive products.
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