Scrap or repair?

[N. Thornton]

A lot of machines are delivered by their owners to the tip, in a lot of cases theyre ok. Those that are...

no. Sorry, Im tired.

Regards, NT

[Dave Liquorice]

Oi, we are perfectly civilised thankyou. We have mains water, mains electricity, central heating, broadband, inside bathroom *and* toilet. B-)

One of those trundles around on the regular collection day getting to the places the big truck cannot reach.

[Michael Chare]

Sometimes the economics of repairing domestic applainces are very poor. For example about 12 years ago I bought a Phillips/Whirlpool electric solid plate hob unit for about £120. This had two fully variable control switches for the front plates and two six position switches for the rear plates. After 8-10 years one of the fully variable control switches failed and would only turn the plate off or on. The cost of a new part was about £70. Given the likely hood of the other fully variable control switch also failing I was relunctant to carry out the repair. (Though as a general policy I believe in 'extended product life'.)

Even with a car the cost of relatively minor repairs can equal the 2nd hand value.

Michael Chare

[Niall]

But in that part of the post I was talking about *working* s/h gear. Now there's an idea for a useful website; a database of spares prices for white goods (no I'm not volenteering!). Because it should be a consideration when buying if you're into extended product life, but generally you don't find out until it's too late who uses the 70 quid manufacturer only part and who uses the generic one from the spares place down the road. If UK property wasn't such a ridiculous price there would be more places breaking these things for spares. I know some did exist at one point.

[Dave Liquorice]

Why bother there are several online suppliers of white goods spares just use them as a reference. B-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

That is a very moot point. We are in an age where most of teh real work is, and can only be, done by a small minority of people.

Example: its provbably true to say that 99% of all industrial production could be and should be done by robots.

That way goods would be cheap, and we could all sit there whilst machines do everything and not work, and have free goods delivered to our doors. Rifght?

Problem is, you need top quality robost, designed by very skillful and well educated peple, ou need top quality deigns for them, and so on. So that model leads to a very few very skilled people doing ALL the work whiost te rest sit around on the dole.

No whilst I persnonally think that is not unreasonable, and in fact a country full of state sponsored couch potatoes on heroin would at least keep the stupid bastards off the roads, some silly socialists have slammed the idea into peoples heads that there is some 'dignity' in work, and that peepul have a 'right to work' and that the Only True Measure of a Mans Worth is the Labour That He Does.

So to perpetuate the myth, its necessary for the system to make pretend work for wurkahs, so complete morons like IMM can bleat about 'low unemployment rates' as if this was something to be applauded, when in fact the natural evolution of post industrial society ought to be to everyone out of work, but getting paid for it as it were..companies ought to offer 15 year guarantees on everything, so that enegy isn't wasted making and distributing the stuff.

In teh industrial revolution, this is precisely what happened - there was no agricltrural work left to do, and thousands were out of work, but instead of paying teh bastards to saty where they were and drink scrumpy, they let them breed like rabbits,m and of course teh factories were ready with the need for labour, and so the stupid sods ended up as productin wurkahs in just a s shitty houses as they had in teh country, but now even more prone to the diseases of overcrowding and poverty, and then of course some bright spark dreamt up unions, and the rest is history, culminating in wet socialism as we see today.

As ususal th esoltin is totally obvious, but completely unacceptable to the brainwashed population, so intead of visoon and action, it will be a fumbling bloody mess for the next 60 years whilst the inevitable happens with far more human misery than needs be...but thats people for you. Dumb as dipshit.

You know, I was in south africa a little befoire Apartheid cracked up. Another stupid system. I asked the Zulku giy I worked with what the ANC and the Revoultion meant to him 'Why baas, come the Revolution they (the cuban trained agitators in the townships) say that instead of the white man having all the swimming pools we will all have swimming pools!"

Mmm. In a population of 25 milion black, and 5 million white, in a fairly arid counry I pointed out to him that there was not, in fact, enough water to give every black man a flush toilet.

Well, they had their revoulution, and now they all have AIDS, because AIDS and HIV is an inventin of the White Mans Propaganda Machine, and I left years ago, because what happened was inevitable, and not my fight on either side. When you see shit happening, and you know that no power on eath can stop it, you just get out of the way.

Now every time I hear IMM, I think of that Zulu gentleman.....and every time I hear George Bush, I hear the Afrikaaners leaders...hanging on to a lost dream in the face of the inevitable, and every time I hear Tony Bliar, I think of teh cuban trained agitators...

They do. At our council dump you can take what you want if you tip the staff...

Indeed. But we gets lots of edcation. We get educated into believing in a consumer lifetstyle and socialist principles. The fact that its a crock of shit, doesn't mean its not education.

Its just not education as we know it, Jim.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thats right, this burning (in my case) about a gallon of diesel and wasting an hour and a half for the privilege of the paid council workers doing it at a fraction of the cost to the environment.

Take the MOT failure. What to do?

(i) Take it to a scrappy, and pay him 50 quid to take it away. (ii) Take it to the council and pay a similar amount. (iii) drive it up the common, take the plates off it and set fire to it. Free to me. Council then pays a couple of hundred quid of taxpayers money to do what they should have done in teh first place. Take it away and scrap it.

Takle recycliong. How many gallons of fossil fuel are burnt taking bottles to bottle banks, vcardboard to cardboard banks, green waste to composting plants, wood to pulping plants and so on. About three times as much as is saved by recycling mostly.

Its been proved somewhere that actually the most energy efficient thing to do is take all the rubbish, strip out anything markedly toxic, burn the rest, scrubbing the last few bits of nasty out of the flue gasses, and bury whats left over.

And maybe concentrate on NOT having so much rubbish in teh first place. Like all modern problems the answer lies in not tinkering, but going to the heart of the problem.

Peole should saty at home, not buy things, not go to work, and not educate the kids at all. That way they might have time to find out whats really worthwile, amnd meanwhile the trash level comes down, the roads are free of traffic, and life is better all round.

No, you just heave it in the back of your car and chuck it in a layby. Cheaper. Council will send a flatbed out to it anyway.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Precisely. That is because labour rates are far too high, and robots make the things. Thats skews production repair labour costs. And marketing does not want to sell parts, but new machines. The move to make manufacturers responsible for DISPOSAL of their broken kit, may not work either. Loads will go bust.

What is probably teh ay of teh future is leased kit. You sign up for a 'guaranteed washing machine service of quality X' and if it breaks, they take it, fix it and re-lease it. Just like we used to do with tellies.

[geoff]

In message , The Natural Philosopher writes

So are you going to grind the VIN off it then?

Except that we're running out of places to bury it and there are EU directives which have to be followed by the councils

Can't argue with that

[PoP]

;) No offence intended, honest guv. And I dream of an "uncivilised" lifestyle which involves living in the sticks, maybe a village with a pub, post office and not much else, so I can't be that insulting about it.....

PoP

Replying to the email address given by my news reader will result in your own email address being instantly added to my anti-spam database! If you really want to contact me try changing the prefix in the given email address to my newsgroup posting name.....

[Dave Liquorice]

The last time I looked the VIN is just on a plate and few pop rivets, in more than one place though. The engine number will probably need the application of an angle grinder though. B-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Frankly I don't think te council cares. After all you just have to say 'I sold that 6 months ago for 50 quid cash, and the bloke said he lived in Leeds' and there's an end to it. No proof.

How do I know? Because I did sell one once for 50 quid cash, and had the police knocking at my door a few weeks later cos the diddy's who bought it used it to joyride around then stripped it and torched it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have to say, that I would say thatestates are the refuge of the uncivilised. In teh common use of te word.

Of course strictly it means 'citified' so any counry dweller is of course proudly uncivilised....

[Owain]

"geoff" wrote | >(iii) drive it up the common, take the plates off it and set | >fire to it. Free to me. Council then pays a couple of hundred | >quid of taxpayers money to do what they should have done in | >teh first place. Take it away and scrap it. | So are you going to grind the VIN off it then?

I could not possibly advocate anyone doing such a thing one night and then reporting their car "stolen" when they "wake up in the morning", let alone claiming on the insurance for it.

Owain

[Toby]

And as recently tightened up legislation points out, the last registered keeper is the one with the responsibility, and therefore gets any fines etc. It's now also £1k for failure to report a change in ownership. Chances of any of these fines being levied is probably slim, but the bill to clear up 'your' car?

[N. Thornton]

Youre missing something, which is that we do already have most of the work done by machines, and the change from hand manufacture to todays mechanised methods is an exact parallel to the change youre discussing. And the results are not as you say, the real results are:

1. much better standard of living for everyone
2. many more hands available to do important speculative work, ie research.
3. a rise in the level of skill required of all workers
4. this being met by improved education
5. Shorter working week
6. More resources for other important matters such as health care etc etc etc
7. Enough surplus to be able to set up a welfare system so no-one need starve or do desperate things to survive.

Quite simply, everyone wins in the end. Just see the parallel, and see where your predictions are amiss.

there is loads that needs doing but we cant to afford to right now. Today our society is too busy spending its time money and materials on stupid stuff. Couch potatoes will not be the way forward.

there is :) I know that from experience.

dunno about that.

no, this is right off. The system needs more resources, including human work resources. Many die today due to lack of said resources, by the million.

it is, wasting our valuable resources is not sensible. But employment can also be a waste, so its not employment rate as such that matters most, but useful employment rate.

If we ever reach the point where all our needs are met, then maybe. But we are a very long way from that. There is a huge reservoir of suffering and death, even in wealthy countries, due to our present limitations of resources in all areas.

not computers, or other obsolescent items. Someone else proposed mandatory product marking with average life expectancy, which sounds interesting. How one could practically do it is another question.

The Japanese made great strides forward in this area by passing a law for all faulty goods to be repaired on site, thus driving up repair costs greatly, and thus encouraging higher reliability goods. Given the great advances this has made, laws in this general vein may well be a way forward. This reduction in breakdowns of course is a major asset all round.

no no no, thousands were out of one job and into another. Or millions.

so that cycle of change resulted in us all being better off. Not perfect, but better off.

Do tell what your vision is.

been that way a fair while now. And its partly due to shortage of one of our resources, intelligence. Few seem to understand that that is a key issue for society today, and few are working on it. At some point enough of society will become intelligent and informed enough to realise that this is a core issue, and one of the most important research areas to concentrate on. Then we will start to see much faster progress. I'm assuming you know of the Flynn effect.

no, only a minority do

I thought that idea had been debunked now. If not, what is it that those diagnosed with aids die from? And why?

And I thought it was because of sharing medical needles, lack of resources, poorer nutrition, and lack of information. AFAIK propaganda doesnt give people aids.

This needs to happen across the board and openly, and be publicised, so anyone can go wander round and buy. Result: far more re-use. It is very much in society's interests that most sound equipment is reused.

Its misinformation through advertising. We need genuine education so they dont believe anything they see, which currently too many do.

Regards, NT

[Niall]

This is not true.

[N. Thornton]

Yes at present. In principle it should be possible to come up with robots smart enough to tackle repair job analysis, one day. They'll stick their tentacles on a board, figure out what it does, where its going wrong, analyse the schematic, do the tests, and tell you what bit to replace.

If you think thats far ferthched, it'll happen. Look how far computers have come already.

Once we see repair robots, they can work at the landfill tips where there is no need for parts suppliers. They will use whatever parts are to hand, (chosen by the robot that logs what comes in, by itself) and any item with no suitable part will just be buried. Same way car scrapyards work.

Presumably some will intentionally operate, close down, restart under another name, close down...

But even when the mfr is responsible for disposal, it would still rather sell 2 than 1, in many cases.

I hope not, thats a real ripoff strategy. Only folks unable to do basic maths go that route. I think all we really need do is stop being stupid. Landfilling working equipment is stupid.

Regards, NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

So you send in a change of ownership to 'Mtr Diddicoy, Burnt Fen, Cambs...wait a month nad THEN torch it.

Not your fault the bloke doesn't seem to exist, honest gov!

[The Natural Philosopher]

Sadly, I think it far more likley they wil be employed in 1984 type scenartios to record who does what and where, so that any citoizen who does 30.001 mph gets flung into room 101 for re-education.

No money in it. Money makes the world go round. We should just buy the stuff until the 22nd century robots are around to dig it up and recycle it. Meanwhile we can create artificial ski slopes out of it complete with avalanche hazards ;-)

yup.

Actually leasing is good if there is enough competition. What it doesn't do is gove you the incentive to look after things tho.