Re: Court rulings on repairs just after Warranty finished

[Tim Streater]

Your equipment breaks down just after the Warranty runs out, if it's not

> happened to you; it might soon. In conversation with an 'Electronics repair > department' man in a Major Department Store recently he said; " it's amazing > just how often this happens". > > A Japanese technician told me a few years ago that their manufacturers were > already doing research on how to make components fail after a set time. Some > years ago the government here stopped light bulbs having the filament > 'indented' to make them 'fail' early. So this activity already has a long > (and obviously secretive) history, it's called ' Planned Obsolescence '.

I would say this is a slightly grey area. As an example, generally speaking you can expect that any computer produced today will not be in service in (let's say) 15 years time, tops. This will be so simply because people will in 15 years time want something faster, lighter, with more capacity, and lower energy consumption.

Yes, yes I know there'll be some odd bods to whom this does not apply, and it applies much less so for cars and bikes. I'm not talking about them.

For those computers, therefore, there is no benefit to the manufacturer to make them that reliable that the unit's mtbf is 20 years. It costs him and probably uses up more of society's resources. Better then to make the mtfb be ten years, give a five year warranty, and accept some level of claims. (adjust these figures for best commercial sense).

So there's bound to be use of cheaper components in a "planned" way.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes, the ideal is the whole thing disintegrates into its component elements a 15 years one day.

I repaired a 60s vale radio the other year. Just capacitors gone, that's all. dried up.

Shame the only thin it could reasonably receive was the Long wave beeb station.. or did it have VHF?? it may have done.

[NT]

Its possible to retransmit from a computer, though I'm not up to date on what frequencies/powers are currently allowed.

NT

[Bill Wright]

A machine that turned VCR tapes into mincemeat would be fantastic! And how about one that turned C90s into milk chocolate?

Bill

[funkyoldcortina]

Hmm. "John East" who started this thread and "Dave East" who started the neighbour smell thread have very similar posting addresses... could be just coincidence...

[jgharston]

My Mercedes vacuum cleaner I bought in 1993 is still going strong.

JGH

[romic]

Epsom inkjet printers have the same inbuilt obsolescence.

The have an ink drop counter which measure how much ink you use. After a certain amount of ink has been used you get the message "tough, you need to buy a new printer" (Actually it says that the printer needs servicing, but it's much the same thing because the cost of getting it sorted would cost more than a new printer would).

Epson's excuse is that the waste ink pad needs replacing. You have no option to override it. You used to be able to reset the counter using the SSC software, but Epsom have changed the way it's done so that the software can no longer reset the counter in newer models.

Roger

[Bill Wright]

I don't know how old you are, but you are starting to use the new mattress at the age when you stopped using the old one. So it will probably last much longer.

When one of my daughters was teenage we bought a new bed for her room. Since we knew she would soon be getting shacked up and moving out we just got a cheap one, the sort of thing you'd put in a spare room for when granny came to stay. It took her and the boyfriend less than a fortnight to totally wreck the bed. All the wood was smashed. The man in the bedshop, a friend and customer of ours, was highly amused.

Bill

[Tim Watts]

Hotpoint Freezer - circa 1995, still perfect, looks nearly as good as the day it was bought save one plastic clip on an internal door has snapped. Still runs wisper quiet.

Braun rechargeable toothbrush circa 2000, starting to show signs of battery failure (needs a charge every few days).

OTOH:

VW Touran - died again[1] - bastard I'd sell it as I don't drive much these days, but it's size is useful for holidays and shifting building materials.

So far:

ABS controller, under warranty; Cruise control lever, under warranty;

Not under warranty:

Door lock solonoid; Air intake valve servo motor; Smoking pre-heater (solved by unplugging the useless gizmo) Something random that will give me a heart attack when I find out the price next week!

[Lozzo]

I had to buy an ex-girlfriend a new bed for similar reasons when I was a teenager. Her religious parents were less than amused as she'd only had the bed for 3 months before she met me and it only took us 3 or 4 goes to smash it.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

"Slumberland - Built for Shagging"

[Thomas]

eh, no. The calisthenic damage was nothing compared to 19+ years of 8+ hours a day of sleeping on it. It's a good sturdy metal bed and the odd 30 seconds of gymnastics now and then were trivial.

[Bill Wright]

Thirty seconds? Blimey! No wonder she left you!

Bill

[Bill Wright]

Honestly the public are getting all sorts of daft ideas about DSO! You don't need to retune a mattress cover. It's only TV sets and DTT receivers.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

No. The retailer assess the reliability of the product based on past experience and weighs this against the likely increase in sales or the ability to charge a higher price. The warranty to him from the wholesaler is only one factor in this calculation.

Bill

[Bill Wright]

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

But your missus often has to fiddle with the knob under the duvet.

[Bob Eager]

I used a reserve and collect at PC World once (23rd December and I desperately needed a hard drive, and no one else had what I wanted).

I needn't have bothered. I reserved the night before, turned up at 1100 (giving twice the margin they required). One of the 'staff' peered at a piece of paper still on a printer, wandered off down the store and came back to tell me they'd just sold the last one. Nothing on the 'reserved' shelf at all.

[Albert Ross]

I solved that problem when young by having a mattress on the floor.

Now I need the springs, and probably an electric motor too.

More seriously this sounds like "occasional furniture" which description means you aren;t actually supposed to use it.

In America they also have "dummy kitchens" where nothing actually works.