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this already happens with lots of car parts. One example: say 20 years ago you repacked bearings, now you "just" buy replacement OEM bearing assemblies because
by privacypoller 9y ago
this already happens with lots of car parts. One example: say 20 years ago you repacked bearings, now you "just" buy replacement OEM bearing assemblies because they essentially can't be repacked or even disassembled.
"Fixing" lots of appliances means wholesale replacement of the entire "board" (i.e. component representing 90% of the total electronics) which likely never makes the device as good as new but costs almost as much as a replacement unit.
- mcguire 9y agoFord F-150 wheel hub / brake disk combinations, for example.
- bdonlan 9y agoComponent level repairs are definitely possible in many cases - particularly when the issue is a bad electrolytic capacitor or a cracked solder joint - but requires specific electronics experience, which many appliance technicians might not have. Replacing the board becomes a trade-off between more expensive labor vs more expensive parts. For smaller devices like cell phones it becomes much more difficult due to a combination of miniaturization, specialized parts not available on the general market, and secret schematics that can't easily be derived from the complex multilayer PCBs in use.