Right to repair legislation

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Sounds like a great idea but there is no mention about how much the price of these appliances will go up by. I bet it's quite a bit.
 
This is not going to help the public with saving money.
Any part changed will have to be done by a professional as it will need to be tested afterwards, or if it goes faulty they will just say that it wasn't installed correctly.
 
They've found a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, but will possbily be creating a problem as a result.

You can buy plenty of common spares for older machines now.
If manufacturers have to have all spares available for all machines produced from 2021, even if those spares will never be needed, then someone's got to pay and of course it's the consumer.

Anything with a new price of £150 isn't worth repairing, couple of hours labour plus a couple of parts and you'll have an old machine with a couple of new parts when you could have had an all new one.

They should rationalise the ranges of everthing.
I don't want the choice of 50 similar looking Bosch washing machines where only the programs are slightly different or 50,000 different coffee machines.

Speaking of which, I don't want any coffee machines.
And I don't want 1000 different Olive oils either, hopefullt Brexit will stop that.
 
My parents are the only people that I know who actually still use the old local white goods repair company.
But at £165 for a basic call out it’s very expensive

In many cases would be cheaper just buy a new cheap washing machine or cooker
 
Dustydazzler said:
My parents are the only people that I know who actually still use the old local white goods repair company.
But at £165 for a basic call out it’s very expensive

In many cases would be cheaper just buy a new cheap washing machine or cooker
Click to expand...

Jeez I need to get into appliance repair!
 
We need to end the 'consumer society' by stopping the importation of cheap goods from abroad. Imagine if (say) you could only buy a good quality washing machine for £1,500, rather than the £200 cheap 'throw-away' one... you'd stop creating mountains of white-goods waste overnight !!
 
Zerax said:
We need to end the 'consumer society' by stopping the importation of cheap goods from abroad. Imagine if (say) you could only buy a good quality washing machine for £1,500, rather than the £200 cheap 'throw-away' one... you'd stop creating mountains of white-goods waste overnight !!
Click to expand...

I agree, but most people want cheap now unfortunately.
 
most peoples logic is they can buy and use till it blows up a £200 WM then just scrap it after 18 months , then rinse and repeat...
The thought of having the same WM for 20 years and keep repairing it would be totally alien now to anyone under 40
 
this goes back a long time. i wound upmy TV repair business in 1980 due to customers being able to replace a faulty set ( maybe a £30 repair bill) with a brand new ine from Comet/Currys/ etc. £5 deposit and a change of address.
 
I always thought front loading washing machines were a flawed design anyway. All that weight of the full drum only supported by one bearing ( well two but only inches apart) maximum over stress and only a matter of time until it fails.
 
telectrix said:
this goes back a long time. i wound upmy TV repair business in 1980 due to customers being able to replace a faulty set ( maybe a £30 repair bill) with a brand new ine from Comet/Currys/ etc. £5 deposit and a change of address.
Click to expand...

It would only be the picture valve anyhow Tel. Les Laury-Jones told me.
 
Dustydazzler said:
most peoples logic is they can buy and use till it blows up a £200 WM then just scrap it after 18 months , then rinse and repeat...
The thought of having the same WM for 20 years and keep repairing it would be totally alien now to anyone under 40
Click to expand...
I agree... I find it amusing/sad/despairing/ironic that it tends to be the youth that 'bang-on' the most about the need to save the planet... yet it is them that have absolutely no idea it's how they live that is causing it !! For a good visual example... just look at the waste left behind at Glastonbury !
 
sparkdog said:
Hey Tel, I was a telly repair man back then as well.
Click to expand...
yep, the thorn 3000 and 3500 were a great revenue source. along with the Philips G8, i think, and them awful dog sh*t by Bush.
 
"picture valve" the good old over stressed PL81 usually.
[automerge]1569950764[/automerge]
Yes, I remember them well, the Thorns with their innovative "chopper transistor."
 
sparkdog said:
Hey Tel, I was a telly repair man back then as well.
Click to expand...
philips_tx400-hd.jpg

Like this Philips TX400 ??
 
My folks had an American style frigidaire fridge for 30 years...left it in their house when they sold it. 15 years later I was passing by the old house and saw a guy in the garden, so stopped and chatted to him...yup, he still had that fridge, in his garage full of beer!
[automerge]1569960605[/automerge]
I love the old valve radios...a mate has about 50 of them scattered around his huge house, and I am so jealous! He has boxes of valves too...things of beauty.
My oldest item is a Hacker Sovereign...still awaiting restoration.
 
I've got a Hacker Autocrat. Repaired it by changing a resistor in the amplifier section, and also fitted a Bluetooth module to play the phone through it. Sounds lovely.
 
A thing of beauty, for sure...

My Dad had one of these:

Zenith.jpg


But the earlier Transoceanic valve ones are much revered.
[automerge]1569961193[/automerge]
zenith 2.jpg

[automerge]1569961232[/automerge]
Ah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be...
 
He had a Grundig Sattelit too...can't recall which model...plus a brilliant Sony one which was designed for rack mounting of sorts, with all the marine bands
[automerge]1569961660[/automerge]
Pleased to report I have a Marine Band too...
my absolute favourite!

Marine Band.jpg

As used by Neil Young and many others!
 
buzzlightyear said:
I rememberwhen i was a kid things worked then amd never hardly brake
And now thing dont last long now .
We tend to throw things out if a wheel falls of a hoover.
Click to expand...
Too right. Good old Raleigh bicycles had great brakes that hardly ever used to break! ;)
[automerge]1570048681[/automerge]
1960s and 70’s cars used to fall apart after a few years. Current cars seen to go on for about 3 or 4 times longer before things start breaking. 40 years ago we could fix things more easily, now days you need much more specialist kit. Swings and round shouts me thinks. What proportion of average income is a car / washing machine now compared to 40 years ago?
 
Last edited:
My grandparents didn’t even own a car or a washing machine

They walked or buses everywhere and used the local launderette

How times have changed
 
At the end of the day in response to the OP. It’s a great idea. Fed up with unrepairable disposable rubbish. May have cost implications though if it means they won’t sell as many... but me thinks environmental issues are now very high on the priority list to put it mildly!
 
Dustydazzler said:
My grandparents didn’t even own a car or a washing machine

They walked or buses everywhere and used the local launderette

How times have changed
Click to expand...
Wow... they were posh ! My grandparents used to use a 'copper' outside... then put the washing through a mangle !
 
JK, thanks for that link...I watched and enjoyed...albeit, it told me what I already knew.
I have given up buying expensive printers, as the cheap ones use the same engines anyway, and the ink costs get you in the end! Why spend a day tearing your hair out, when £20 will get you back on the road?
Still, it's much more a question of employment. If we went back to the days of no Sunday shopping, how many people would be unable to pay the rent/mortgage?
I will not subscribe to the idea of always buying the latest gadget, but I am old...try telling the average consumer that a new iPhone is a waste of money!
It's a losing battle, sadly...and won't be solved in my lifetime...
Our parents bought the best they could afford, and I still use some of the tools my father bought...but I am, of course, seduced by new tools that weren't available to him. That's progress. To throw away beautiful hand-tools though...that's just madness!
However, as the video shows, people want the latest gadgets, thus we have folks buying a TV for £3k five years ago, and the latest version is £399. What do they do?
They bin the old one, get the latest, cheaper one, and as as soon as the HP is paid, out it goes.
The advent of credit played into the hands of the manufacturers of almost every commodity, thus the prices rose. We now buy stuff we can't "afford". Oh, we can "support" the payments, as long as we have the income, but when the income dies, we can no longer afford such stuff.
I am in danger of going on a rant, folks...sorry!
Truth is, in the main, society loves built-in obsolescence! Why? Because it serves their ego to have new stuff all the time.
Thatcher's government abolished the crime of "usury"...just look at the APR figures in some money-lending adverts, and ask yourself, is this right?
We have allowed the monster to grow, and we are afraid to kill it.
 
pirate said:
...
Thatcher's government abolished the crime of "usury"...just look at the APR figures in some money-lending adverts, and ask yourself, is this right?
...
Click to expand...
My research tells me that the "Usury Laws Repeal Act" was enacted in 1854... I don't think Thatcher was born then ?? This reminds me of the oft quoted claim that she also closed all the coal mines... when in fact more mines were closed under Harold Wilson !

...just sayin
 
'Right To Repair' goes a lot deeper than stopping manufacturers building obscelence into products. It came about because of companies like Apple who unnecessarily embed software into their hardware like iphone screens which causes the device to fail if the replacement screen isn't supplied by Apple themselves. This ties customers into using only the manufacturers approved service agents which is obviously a large revenue stream for them.

Also companies like John Deere who use a tractors built-in software to stop farmers doing even the most basic repairs themselves.

For a closer to home example most main car dealerships won't honour a new car warranty unless they perform all work and servicing during the warranty period.

Nowadays there's more and more electrical products with built-in software. It used to be only industrial hardware such as drives, PLC's etc but with items like arc detection devices which are becoming the norm for domestic installations and obviously NEST devices and other app-controlled systems you could see it creeping into the domestic market where manufacturers build in protections to stop electricians repairing systems unless they pay to become 'authorised' and purchase non-generic spares.

There's also a possibility an entire NEST system is simple shutdown by the manufacturer because they consider it obscelete or maybe go bankrupt.

www.theneweconomy.com

Consumers fight for the right to repair their devices

To fix or to replace was once the choice of the consumer. Over time, manufacturers have chipped away at the ability to repair. Now, independent repair firms and frustrated consumers are fighting to reclaim that right
www.theneweconomy.com
 
Zerax, you are quite correct, and my terminology was loose. In practical terms, the hands-off approach with banks, which started in the Thatcher era, allowed for higher and higher interest rates to be applied, without the caps favoured by other countries. A major change was when it no longer became mandatory to put down1/3 of the price, when buying, say, a car on HP. Many dealers got round this by falsely increasing the actual price, stating the 1/3 had been paid, and securing finance on the whole of the "balance".
It is not really correct to say that an APR of 1400% is usury, but in my mind it is just that...the charging of exorbitant interest rates...but not illegal, as you rightly said, and not "abolished" by Thatcher, as I wrongly stated. It's also fair to point out that pay-day loan rates have to be stated as APR, which has the effect of "inflating" the rate, as most of these loans are designed to be repaid within a month or so. Nevertheless, in my humble opinion, it is morally wrong to allow the charging of such high rates as we often see nowadays. I regret having pulled this thread off-topic, sorry!
 
Absolutely correct - the APR on a short term loan will always look bad.
 
Dustydazzler said:
www.bbc.co.uk

EU brings in 'right to repair' rules for appliances

The rules will make household appliances longer-lasting and easier to fix.
www.bbc.co.uk

What do you think of this 'right to repair' legislation coming in/being considered?
Click to expand...
I haven't read all the thread. But I think it's a brilliant move in the right direction. The product being sold these days are terrible. Many are built to break soon after their warranties run out.

I heard of a local 'bring your own' club where people could take broken items, people would teach you how to fix them, encourage you to bring other family members items (radios, phones, TV's etc) and they'd do the testing for you and make sure they conform to regs, where possible etc.

If it helps get products made better, and last longer, it has to be better for the environment and better for the consumer / end-user.

From a 'how much profit will I make out of doing repairs the homeowner could really do themselves' point of view, I can see it as been a step in the direction of damaging that. As it stands, still apparently has to be an actual professional (if those exist for washing machine repairs etc - usually never actual electricians I've found).

IMO I like it. Need less waste from the manufacturers. They're the ones costing us a fortune in 'green' taxes everywhere. Yet they dodge them if they plant a tree in scandinavia one year. lol
 
Dustydazzler said:
most peoples logic is they can buy and use till it blows up a £200 WM then just scrap it after 18 months , then rinse and repeat...
The thought of having the same WM for 20 years and keep repairing it would be totally alien now to anyone under 40
Click to expand...

I bought our first washing machine, a Miele, in 1996 and replaced it earlier this year.
It cost circa £1,200 and during its life, was used 3-4 times per week and had just two or three service visits/repairs by Miele and survived being relocated when we moved in 2001. 23 years service equates to £1 per week. Whether its (actually less expensive) Miele replacement will still be working in 2042 of course is another matter, indeed if I'm even around to know or care!
 
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