Author Topic: Right to repair, my problem with it  (Read 21003 times)

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Offline Fixed_Until_Broken

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #125 on: July 23, 2021, 07:28:27 pm »
Let's take this outside RTR.
Your thread was about your problem with the right to repair. Taking it out of the right to repair is off-topic.
It has also been covered over and over :horse:

As mentioned. Right to repair will make EMI issues smaller not bigger. 3rd parties already do repairs. With documentation, and parts they can do better repairs not worse.

I am not being dismissive of your concern. I just don't find it to be a rational concern. If you have other concerns I would be interested in hearing them.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 07:44:56 pm by Fixed_Until_Broken »
 

Offline Miti

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #126 on: July 23, 2021, 07:56:52 pm »
Why don’t answer your concerns using the past experience.

1. How many people died from touching an improperly repaired TV, washing machine, MW oven, tractor, computer, car in the past, when parts and schematics were readily available?

2. How many pacemakers stopped working, garage doors opened and closed, planes crashed because of the excessive EMI from some bodged electronic device?

3. How many people were very happy with the way things were done in the past and are unhappy with the way they are going now?
« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 11:29:43 pm by Miti »
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Offline TomS_

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #127 on: July 24, 2021, 07:32:58 am »

Where do you have mandatory safety inspections? There are often exhaust compliance inspections, but I don't even know what that safety inspection would look like.

The state of New South Wales in Australia, and also the UK have mandatory "road worthiness" inspections on a yearly basis.
 

Online langwadt

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #128 on: July 24, 2021, 07:48:51 am »

Where do you have mandatory safety inspections? There are often exhaust compliance inspections, but I don't even know what that safety inspection would look like.

The state of New South Wales in Australia, and also the UK have mandatory "road worthiness" inspections on a yearly basis.

here every other year, first time when four years old
 

Offline Brumby

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #129 on: July 24, 2021, 08:19:19 am »

Where do you have mandatory safety inspections? There are often exhaust compliance inspections, but I don't even know what that safety inspection would look like.

The state of New South Wales in Australia, and also the UK have mandatory "road worthiness" inspections on a yearly basis.
Indeed!

What does it look like...?

I'll tell you some of the things I can remember for a typical car from when I worked at a mechanic who did these.......

- Oil leaks
- Fuel leaks
- Tyre condition (including spare if they're really keen)
- Steering, front end linkages and wheel bearings
- Shock absorbers
- Engine mounts
- Pedal pads (no exposed metal)
- Headlights (high and low beam), tail lights, stop lights, indicators, number plate light(s)
- Seat condition (driver's)
- Seatbelt condition and operation (inertia reel) - All seatbelts
- Windscreen damage - especially within the driver's main field of view
- Checking for exhaust leaks
- Brake test
- Body condition (rust)
- Windscreen washers and wipers operation and wiper blade condition
- Key (not removable when turned on)
- Check VIN and manufacture date - must match paperwork
- Visibility of number plate
- Emissions (visual check) - but if you stank of rotten egg gas, then you're likely to get done for a faulty catalytic converter.
- Noise level (you can be referred for a formal sound check)
... and if you have a vehicle with LPG, there are a few other checks.

That's what I've come up with off the top of my head.  I may have missed some.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2021, 08:25:43 am by Brumby »
 

Offline Shock

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #130 on: July 25, 2021, 04:20:48 am »
In terms of electronic gadgets, I view R2R as the "Louis Rossman Enrichment Act".
So your real issue is with a person and not the right to repair.

You have used every technique to deflect or ignore everyone's comments in here that pokes holes in your logic. You are grasping at straws I almost feel like you are trolling at this point.

Businesses that are promoting this in the US have the most to gain. Look at the difference between the EU and US legislation proposals. The US proposals aren't even aimed at the consumer at all, it's more about securing access for repair businesses under the guise of consumer protection.

Australia consumer law covers most of these problems. Goods should be safe, lasting and have no faults. This allows protection that exceeds manufacturers minimum and extended warranties (which is essentially sold as insurance). e.g. a $1000 laptop that dies after a year is not exactly "lasting".

Australian consumer law also states that goods have clear title, come with undisturbed possession, are free from any hidden securities or charges. Spare parts and repair facilities are required to be reasonably available for a reasonable period of time (otherwise this needs to be made clear up front).

As not everyone has the skill to perform repairs themselves they will of course seek out third parties or agents if required. Again, it's important that consumers get these rights not just authorized or non authorized agents of the manufacturers.
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Offline bdunham7

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #131 on: July 25, 2021, 04:50:24 am »
The US proposals aren't even aimed at the consumer at all, it's more about securing access for repair businesses under the guise of consumer protection.... Again, it's important that consumers get these rights not just authorized or non authorized agents of the manufacturers.

You wouldn't know this unless you were involved in or at least followed the issue from its early beginnings, but it is almost the opposite.  Yes, the laws appear to grant the access to independent repairers instead of consumers, but here in the US that is a very loose border.  Early on, one of the scare tactics that OEMs would use was that there were safety and security reasons that would be problematic if 'consumers' could scan their own diagnostic systems or replace their own fuel pumps.  Independent repair shops were the only group that could credibly counter that claim and also the only ones that could plausibly bear the expense of some of the equipment and service information that was required.  I paid many tens of thousands of dollars for online service information and diagnostic equipment at the time as they became available.  That has now trickled down to the consumer, who can generally purchase a wide variety effective, low-cost devices and the service information is also widely available for very low prices.  Most R2R legislation assumes you can't rebuild your own transmission, so your 'right' is to have it rebuilt by a professional of your choosing.  But, if you are so inclined, there would be very little standing in the way of you doing it yourself.

Automotive parts have been available for most common brands without too much difficulty since the beginning of time, AFAIK.  Anyone can walk into most dealerships and purchase almost any part they want.  There can be exceptions, but those are usually for reasons not related to the manufacturer preventing you from doing a repair. 
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Online rsjsouza

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #132 on: July 25, 2021, 11:16:24 am »
Businesses that are promoting this in the US have the most to gain. Look at the difference between the EU and US legislation proposals. The US proposals aren't even aimed at the consumer at all, it's more about securing access for repair businesses everyone under the guise of consumer protection.
FTFY. This legislation is for everyone.

Australia consumer law covers most of these problems. Goods should be safe, lasting and have no faults. This allows protection that exceeds manufacturers minimum and extended warranties (which is essentially sold as insurance). e.g. a $1000 laptop that dies after a year is not exactly "lasting".
I don' t know the situation in Australia, but in the countries I know these are not very enforceable and add a tremendous cost to the final product.
For "safe" there are several things already in place, ranging from the screws on toys' battery compartments up to the ridiculous messages in coffee cups saying the beverage is hot (even California's Prop 65 that states that everything causes cancer). Regardless, an immense amount of products come in boats wrapped in Aliexpress/Banggood wrapping paper - little to no enforcement at all.
For "lasting", this is very vague. A laptop should last three, five or ten years? What about a cellphone that is typically replaced every 2 years? Is there a table per product constantly amended by the legislative branch or an agency?
"No faults" is the less controversial of these issues, but depending on the language used to describe a feature (and translation errors) it can become terribly vague.

Spare parts and repair facilities are required to be reasonably available for a reasonable period of time (otherwise this needs to be made clear up front).
To me these are the harder wrinkles to solve about the legislation in discussion in this thread. With the advent of internet, parts are "reasonably accessible", but what if there is a shortage like the one we are seeing right now? Will this be considered a fault from the manufacturer? Also, beloved Fluke, Keysight carry replacement parts on their inventories but how long this can be considered reasonable? One, three, ten years after discontinuation of a product?

As not everyone has the skill to perform repairs themselves they will of course seek out third parties or agents if required. Again, it's important that consumers get these rights not just authorized or non authorized agents of the manufacturers.
And this legislation is not restricted to businesses.

Overall I think that consumer protection laws in the US are almost non-existent, in contrast to Brasil and some EU countries where there are several provisions that cover these scenarios. In practice the answer is always somewhere in between a full coverage legislation, which increases prices and restricts transactions, and "laissez faire", which opens up for abuse and cartelization. The advent of internet and, more recently, the direct exports from China, the "laissez faire" is winning by a very large margin.
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Online Psi

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #133 on: July 26, 2021, 07:45:12 am »
when people mention "planned obsolescence" it is mostly nonsense.
It is real and well known - but that is not the point of Right To Repair.

kinda true. The point of R2R is legislation to stop manufactures making repairs difficult, but the reason repairs are currently difficult is because of planned obsolescence.

but it kind of depends how exactly you define planned obsolescence.

Is it PO if a fridge manufacture decides to make a new fridge and uses 5 years in their product lifetime calculations? Most people would expect a fridge to last 15 years. So 5 years is shorter than public expectation.

Or, to be PO does the company have to decide to intentionally make their product less robust. Conducting tests to confirm reduced lifespan etc.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2021, 07:49:25 am by Psi »
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Offline wraper

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #134 on: July 26, 2021, 08:28:14 am »
kinda true. The point of R2R is legislation to stop manufactures making repairs difficult, but the reason repairs are currently difficult is because of planned obsolescence.
R2R is not about making repairs easier from mechanical standpoint, or to fight planned obsolescence. It's to make parts, tools and service information available. You can be the best repairman in the world, but you won't fix the thing if required part is not available.
 

Online Psi

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #135 on: July 27, 2021, 12:56:11 pm »
kinda true. The point of R2R is legislation to stop manufactures making repairs difficult, but the reason repairs are currently difficult is because of planned obsolescence.
R2R is not about making repairs easier from mechanical standpoint, or to fight planned obsolescence. It's to make parts, tools and service information available. You can be the best repairman in the world, but you won't fix the thing if required part is not available.

The R2R issue is inextricably linked to planned obsolescence.
Any R2R law that helps to make repair easier by access to parts, tools and service information will also reduce planned obsolescence.
The main driving factor for business's to withhold access to parts, tools, service info is profit.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2021, 01:02:12 pm by Psi »
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Offline wraper

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #136 on: July 27, 2021, 04:17:12 pm »
Any R2R law that helps to make repair easier by access to parts, tools and service information will also reduce planned obsolescence.
Yes, it interferes with planned obsolescence but not directly.
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #137 on: July 27, 2021, 11:18:51 pm »
It may interfere with planned obsolescence, but it doesn't interfere with profits.  Repair parts always (even in good situations) sell for far more than their original installed cost.  Think of having to build a care or an oscilloscope using parts.  Planned obsolescence merely means more of these part sales, which could easily exceed the profit from selling a new widget.
 

Offline TimFox

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #138 on: July 27, 2021, 11:30:15 pm »
I have seen estimates that building a car from repair parts would cost 5 to 20 times the retail price of a new car.
Johnny Cash’s song “One Piece at a Time” is a comedy about stealing parts from the factory over 25 years (limited by lunchbox size) and the resulting problems with getting them to fit each other.
 

Offline G7PSK

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #139 on: July 28, 2021, 07:09:23 am »
I have seen estimates that building a car from repair parts would cost 5 to 20 times the retail price of a new car.
Johnny Cash’s song “One Piece at a Time” is a comedy about stealing parts from the factory over 25 years (limited by lunchbox size) and the resulting problems with getting them to fit each other.

Back in the late 1070's there was a case of someone who worked in the land rover factory stealing parts for range rovers, he worked in partnership with the man who delivered milk to the factory canteen.
They smuggled whole engines out hidden by the milk crates and got caught when the loft ceiling of the factory workers house fell in from the weight of car parts. They had ammased nearly enough parts to build three range rovers including chassis axles and body panels. Made the national news at the time.
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #140 on: October 05, 2021, 04:52:34 pm »
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Online Psi

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #141 on: October 06, 2021, 09:58:37 am »
It may interfere with planned obsolescence, but it doesn't interfere with profits.  Repair parts always (even in good situations) sell for far more than their original installed cost.  Think of having to build a care or an oscilloscope using parts.  Planned obsolescence merely means more of these part sales, which could easily exceed the profit from selling a new widget.

I disagree, if you buy a washing machine and it breaks every 5 years forcing you buy a new one then you are spending maybe $1000 every 5 years.
But if you can repair this washing machine you should easily be able to keep it running for 15-20 years and only spend at most $1000 on parts. (My current washing machine is over 20 years old and I can still buy parts for it. It's had a new motor, new main driveshaft, 2 new solenoid water valves and a new front panel. It's a bit worse for wear but still works totally fine)

So
- With planned obsolescence in 20 years you have spent ((20y/5y) * $1000) = $4000
- With R2R in 20 years you have spent $1000 purchase + $1000 parts = $2000 max, probably less (assuming you want to fix it, you're still free to buy a new one if you want)

However I do agree that when R2R laws pass and companies are forced to sell spare parts they're going to raise their part prices to try and claw back the profit they lost from less sales. So it is important that any R2R law states that the parts must be "reasonably priced". No charging 50% of the retail price of the whole machine for a part that is only 5% of the BOM cost.
I would be totally fine if the replacement part price was its BOM cost scaled up to retail price and multiplied by 2.
« Last Edit: October 06, 2021, 11:29:25 am by Psi »
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Online rsjsouza

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #142 on: October 06, 2021, 11:16:26 am »
I see this as the pendulum of history in action again. Back in the day when TVs started to become "single-chip", the technicians started to see the price of large parts (flyback transformer, voltage doublers, Yoke) become pretty high in an attempt to push to replace the entire set instead. Sure, back then there was still a great deal of second source parts but the pressure was on. This not only signaled how the times would become but also pushed less scrupulous technicians to blame everything on these parts, so they could apply a nice markup.

If the manufacturers sell decent quality products and charge for it due to the need to keep inventory of old parts, then so be it. At least it could put some deceleration to the waste culture that has permeated certain societies for the past 30+ years.
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Online Psi

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #143 on: October 06, 2021, 11:34:39 am »
Another approach to getting R2R is having laws like in Germany where an appliance/device must be returned to the manufacturer when it is time to dispose of it. So that they have to deal with it's disposal.

If you make the cost of disposal expensive for the manufacturer they will naturally make the device last longer to save money.
Or at the very least, make the device easy to dissemble and recycle.

The only way forward with R2R is to make it less profitable to design things to fail instead of more profitable.
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Offline MT

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #144 on: October 06, 2021, 11:53:01 am »
That this happens is just NORMAL way of doing business.

Even bigger is the current state of the car manufacturers planned obsolesce of their cars. One tiny example BMW have made the 3 series to be utter crap,
they figured that if  they replace a metal part inside the engine with a plastic they can charge you for a complete engine rebuild every 5000km (cant remember exact figure).

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« Last Edit: October 06, 2021, 02:36:01 pm by MT »
 

Online Zero999

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #145 on: October 06, 2021, 12:26:51 pm »
Another approach to getting R2R is having laws like in Germany where an appliance/device must be returned to the manufacturer when it is time to dispose of it. So that they have to deal with it's disposal.

If you make the cost of disposal expensive for the manufacturer they will naturally make the device last longer to save money.
Or at the very least, make the device easy to dissemble and recycle.

The only way forward with R2R is to make it less profitable to design things to fail instead of more profitable.
Those approaches might have unintended consequences. Be prepared for more recycled parts on the market, sold as new.
 

Offline Zucca

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #146 on: October 06, 2021, 12:45:19 pm »
Generally I would like a discount on product I can use but not repair.
In alternative paying some extra for the service manual it would also be somehow fair.

What I do not like is the dishonest, crooked, foul, bent and knavish attitude to sell a product at full price which in reality it is just renting it...
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Offline MT

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #147 on: October 06, 2021, 12:48:14 pm »
Something very basic:

A manufacturer should keep a specific percentage of each component that's not easily available commercially as spare part inventory, for the expected duration of the device plus a reasonable amount of years.

For example, if a user expects a laptop to last 3 years until it's obsoleted by newer more powerful models, then the manufacturer should have a certain percentage of parts for 3 + 2 years = 5 years.
Also, keep making stock for each year until the laptop model is discontinued.  ex. the laptop starts being made in 2009, they give it a 3 year life, but they keep making it until 2015, they would need to stock parts every year from 2009 to 2015, and keep some amount of spare parts until 2020 (2015 +3 years expected life +2 years).

Recall Japan had 10 years back in the 80es on chips, it might have been on other components as well, cant remember , most likely that law got ditched some time.
 

Online Ranayna

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #148 on: October 08, 2021, 12:00:02 pm »
*sigh* People are not smart :( Or maybe it's just the gamers? I don't know, i'm a gamer and think i am resonably smart :p

Some time ago, Valve, the company behind the gaming platform Steam, announced a new portable gaming system. Essentially a full fledged PC, running Linux, in a form-factor similar to the Nintendo Switch.

A couple of days ago, Valve posted this video:


Showing a teardown of the device, and that several main components are reasonably easy to replace, and, more importantly, that they will sell official spare parts.

And what are the comments on many sites discussing this?

The manufacturer is expecting it to break.
It's dangerous!
Think about the childen! Yes, really: what if a child opens the device after seeing this video...

Apparently many users do not even want repairability. :(
 

Offline Ed.Kloonk

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Re: Right to repair, my problem with it
« Reply #149 on: October 08, 2021, 12:18:42 pm »
I remember when the entertainment system in the house was as big as a piece of furniture. In fact, it WAS a piece of furniture.
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