Self-Repair Manifesto

Not all of them. That 8500 retails for $400.

That is a $400 printer.

The reasons you state are the reasons I stopped doing repairs for money. The consumer equipment service/repair industry wasn't a thriving opportunity when I got away from it years ago.

Retail costs come down, and production quality, resulting in cheap (to buy new) equipment/toys/trash with more problems than before. Fuck that noise.

Way back when, decades ago.. consumer home entertainment equipment manufacturers had levels of dealers, who performed service and repairs, stocked parts and sent their techs to training courses. Manufacturers supported their products with spare parts, service and training literature and in-home repairs were just normal business to keep customers satisfied with those brands.

Today, the Chinese are designing and producing modern home entertainment equipment (and much more), which essentially has no brand name. Companies with brand names can contract to buy 100k units with their name on them, and I seriously doubt that they want to buy Chinglish service literature, so that is an optional decision. They may outsource/hire a company to provide them with a limited number of service manuals for a couple of warranty work centers, or they may hire a repair depot to just "wing it" for warranty repairs without any literature (but high tech universal, programmable, automated GenRad? test rigs and some sharp personnel using hot air or infrared rework equipment).

Warranty repairs don't have to be actual repairs, just a replacement with a refurbished unit from the repair depot. At this point in the life of the product (almost obsolete already) a little shipping cost is just to try to keep the customer happy with that brand, but probably more importantly - meeting the legal requirements of the warranty. So, the shipping company becomes a major player in the brand name's support chain. The consumer returns a failed product to a store or sends it to a repair depot, and the shipper delivers a refurbished unit to the consumer.. done.

If a brand name "manufacturer" chooses to contract the units from a Chinese source with a very good track record for quality control/reliability, they may just scrap or bulk sell/broker the failures within the warranty period, and renegotiate the terms of the contract to reflect their losses. They're sure as hell not going to return them to China.

So the brand name "manufacturer" saves huge bucks by not supporting the rest of the support chain that was normal decades ago.. and those are likely some massive profits compared to back then, but those same product support levels would be extremely expensive to support nowadays. They may offer some 800-HEY-RTFM phone support for dummies, also outsourced.

I firmly believe that it's unlikely that consumers will effect changes in the new economic business models.. the gubbmint in the U.S. aggressively supports corporate profits and global "trading", and generally insures that the consumers are "managed".

There are companies that produce schematics from equipment circuit boards, but if the process was highly profitable, there would be an abundant supply of literature. If there were more independent service shops, the process might be profitable, but it's a little too late. Until someone develops an economical bed-of-nails test jig and software to translate signals into schematics, many future repairs are going to be poke-n-hope. BTW, the test jig will also need to decipher the firmware that the "manufacturer" likely owns as intellectual property.

The independent service/repair shop isn't needed for these new economic business models. The consumers aren't interested in supporting independent shops anymore, they'd rather have a new shiney toy than a repaired obsolete item. The brand name saves huge bucks, and the independent repair shops stop accepting consumer goods.

Repair shops can adjust by specializing in better quality equipment that has real value (not just a sparkley attraction).. commercial, industrial, high-end audio/video, or vintage gear, for example. Many other businesses are also affected.. HW Sams(?) Photofact and other publishers, test equipment manufacturers, and other third party suppliers.

I don't mind repairing equipment that's worth repairing, but only for myself or a few close friends (and not their relatives or neighbors). They all know better than to suggest me "just looking" at a $9 portable CD player or $40 VCR.. I just won't.

Have you ever seen one of those posters/signs on a wall, with a big dot and the message "Hit Head Here"? You might want to look at repairing consumer goods from a different perspective.

-- Cheers, WB .............

It's claimed that a high percentage of "defective" products are actually okay -- the user couldn't figure out how to work them.