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0. The government makes a law saying companies have to sell spare parts at reasonable prices.
by dingo_bat 9y ago
0. The government makes a law saying companies have to sell spare parts at reasonable prices.
- chii 9y agohow does one work out what 'reasonable' mean? The farming tractor repairs are 'reasonably' priced at the moment (according to the company selling it).
- rangibaby 9y agoFind out how much the company pays for that repair when they do an in-warranty replacement
- stctgion 9y agoA price such that if you bought the entire product from their spares catalogue that the total would equal the list price of the full product.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI'd be ok with 20% variation too.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoIt's going to be much cheaper to administer the sale of a single vehicle over the individual sale of each part. I'd expect it to cost maybe twice as much? Currently I'm looking for a toothed belt for a bread-maker - best price I can find is a quarter of the cost of a new bread-maker (15€ delivered), that seems a bit ridiculous to me. The belt was in crumbs, locked behind security screws. How many functional devices have been dumped for want of a simple belt replacement I wonder.
- ghaff 9y agoThat's never been remotely true even with third-party aftermarket parts. I imagine if that were the law, granular parts simply wouldn't be sold by anyone.
- opportune 9y agoWoah there, that's way too pro-consumer. Won't someone please think of the copyright holders??
- simonh 9y agoWho gets to decide what constitutes a spare part on, say, a car? Should a cam shaft be a part or is it ok just to sell whole engines? That’s a really nice big can of worms you’re opening.
- mtgx 9y agoAnything that breaks from the final product. So it's up to the companies to decide how modular they make their products. If it's not to modular, then if anything small breaks, then they'll have to replace entire big pieces. If their devices are super-modular, then they will have to replace only that small part. But of course they also have to make all sorts of different small parts, or have contracts with companies that do.
- simonh 9y agoIsn’t that already true now for warranty repairs, or are you talking about extending warranties indefinitely? The other aspect is, who decides what price components must be sold for?
- lmm 9y agoJust mandate minimum warranty periods like the EU does. If the company wants to only replace whole cars then they can, but they'll bear the cost of doing so.
- simonh 9y agoI don’t see what that’s got to do with after market sale of parts. Of course manufacturers have access to individual components and can stock them during warranty periods as they already have to, but making every single possible component of every product ever sold available indefinitely after the warranty period seems like it would drive costs up through the roof. I usually find myself arguing against people with what O think is a bit of a blinkered faith in market forces solving all and regulation being the work of the devil. But in this case, unless there really is a demonstrable monopoly position that’s being abused, it should be up to customers to decide if after market parts availability is something they care about in their purchasing decision.