I bought a Sony MZ-R37 Minidisc player 18 months ago. All in all, I have used it maybe 10 times, because I used it for recording live sounds rather than as a walkman. Three weeks ago, for no apparent reason, it stopped working, displaying “LO BATT” on the screen even if it was plugged in the AC adapter.
I brought it back to the store, which sent it to Sony for a repair estimate. Now. The Minidisc cost 250$, it cost me a non-refundable 70$ for the estimate and Sony asked 900$ to repair it! The cost included 100$ to pay the technician and 800$ for parts. I realize that they’re trying to make us buy new stuff, but isn’t it odd that they sell the whole device for 250$ while its parts are 800$ ?
Has this happened to anybody else?
Is there a conspiracy between electronics manufacturers to design products that break right after their guarantee has ended? Aren’t they supposed to brag about quality?
Does anybody know how much they make from making repair estimates that are priced too high for any reasonable person to accept? Or from keeping the parts of the broken merchandise sent to them by the clients?
Has anybody ever tried to fight this, or should we just accept it, give them the money and move on with our lives and our broken electronics?
There has been a drastic decline in the quality of consumer electronics in last 10+ years. Check into an electronic repair forum for some choice words on this. The main cause of this is that (US) consumers would rather pay $10 less for a piece of garbage device than one that would last a while longer. So manufacturers have gotten into cheapening their products to an astonishing degree.
Look at VCRs. Used to have a lot of metal in the frame. Now, no metal in the frame at all. Plastic breaks a lot easier.
The second factor is that the components that go into devices has changed quite a big. You don’t replace a resistor or capacitor much anymore. You replace boards and chips. These are quite a bit more expensive. And also much harder to get hold of. Manufacturers just don’t produce a lot of spare parts for repairs anymore.
All told, repairing most consumer electronics doesn’t pay anymore. Shops are going out of business. Welcome to disposable electronics.
Keep in mind, that poor choices by consumers play a large role in this. Stop buying the cheapest box on the shelf.
That is a very interesting fact I had not thought of. It’s true, I fixed my turntable by putting a new rubber band in it, while with my MD I need a laser component replacement.
I wonder, though, if manufacturers adequately provide repair stores with the training and parts they need?
This is maybe what angers me the most… you cannot rely on brandnames anymore, because they sabotaged their own name by cheapening products. Plus you can’t say manufacturers and sellers educate consumers a lot about criteria for buying quality…
And it seems to me that we have a vicious circle: consumers who know that even their high-end electronics won’t be repaired might not see the point in buying expensive ones…
What we need is a new brand that will guarantee that their products can be repaired.
Whenever you buy any consumer electronics you should remember that the rate is near to the highest it will be, if it is going to fail then it will do so probably in the first six months of regular use.
Moral, don’t buy something nice and shiny unless you know you will use it during this early period when it will be covered by warranty.
18 months may not seem a long time but this device will almost certainly have been replaced by a newer model, perhaps twice such is the high turnover of designs.
The high design turnover is less to do with improvement and more to do with keeping fashionable and keeping Joe Public interested in the latest shiny thing.
I have noticed that some consumer electronics have dropped in price a long way, but this is because the life cycle has been reduced, take it make it use it and throw it away, seems to be the motto.
Mobile phones are perhaps the very worst offender in the turnover stakes, they are out of date within 6 months and the technology gets seriously updated less than every 2 years, if you are willing to pay for the ‘useful’ features like video phones and snapshot e-mails and silly ring tones.
And all with a huge environmental impact, not only in terms of the toll it takes on natural resources, but also bc electronics often contain harmful metals… But hey, what do we care, we can send to them to India and Vietnam for “recycling”. :smack:
