4 ms·

> I bought a Bosch 500 series because our old one broke, and we needed one quick. Slightly OT (or maybe not) older dishwashers are usually not very hard to fix

by bambax 1y ago

> I bought a Bosch 500 series because our old one broke, and we needed one quick. Slightly OT (or maybe not) older dishwashers are usually not very hard to fix (depending on the problem). My dishwasher is over ten years old. The pump broke: I replaced it. It was easy and cheap (EUR 60). It wasn't even the pump that was broken, just the heating resistance attached to it that had fried. You can replace only the resistor if you're skilled enough to reattach a new one. I couldn't: removing the old one was easy, but I couldn't put it back in place so I bought a whole pump instead. Likewise, my laundry machine is over 15 years old. I just replaced the carbon brushes: they last for something like 10 years and cost less than EUR 10 a pair. I don't think I will buy a new machine any time soon, or if I have to, it will be a used one.

tomw1808 1y ago
shhhhush, corporates hate this trick :P
tetris11 1y ago
Same with ovens. Stopped heating? Check the heating coil either at the back, top, or bottom of the oven. You won't even need to pull the oven out, chances are you can unscrew it right there from within. £20 replacement coil for 10 minutes of work, or pay for a whole new oven? (The retailer assured us over the phone that they could not repair it, but had great discounts on new ovens...)
- hnaccount_rng 1y ago
  But in order for an unskilled (no value judgement intended) person to fix that, this means having the technician run out to their house and find out whether that's the case. That's an hour of work, at least. What does a new oven retail for? Add to that the expectation value of "need to come back because it's not the first thing I tried" and that replacement oven with fresh warranty starts looking even cheaper
  - tetris11 1y ago
    The diagnosis is found in that 1 page in the device booklet "troubleshooting", or through a quick internet search. It's worth forking out £20 first, seeing if you can fix it, and then if not escalating the cost.
pjmlp 1y ago
When I was a 70's kid growing up into the 1980's, repair shops were all over the place, for any kind of electronics. Then suddenly we got into this throw away garbage culture at the slightest sign something stops working. The only way back is rebooting the system, or having governments step in.
- scotty79 1y ago
  Appliances got so cheap there was no more value to extract by repair shops so they shut down. Government could step in with 200% tax on new appliances and the repair ecosystem would regrow, but pretty much no one wants that.
- TacticalCoder 1y ago
  Same thing, thankfully to a lesser extent so far, for cars. Everybody's applauding the move to lots of tech and EV batteries for car but meanwhile my german car from 1988 is still running strong. People shall complain that it's a gas guzzler but 38 years old is easily twice the lifetime any EV shall ever see. I don't see that taken into account much when talking about the lifetime CO2 of cars. I have nothing against EVs: tried a Porsche Taycan and loved it and someone I know has a little BYD (chinese) SUV and it's very fine car for its price. But sadly EVs seems to rhyme with "we can (and shall) remotely modify your car's software" and that's very close from "we'll remotely disable your car for good at some point in the future, when we consider it's time to upgrade to a new model". As for car mechanics: those at official dealerships seems mostly clueless. They read the diagnostic and the diagnostic says: "Replace the entire braking system for the front right wheel". While if you go to a proper, old-school, mechanic, the dude shall happily find what's wrong and replace only what's necessary. Gearbox noisy? Under warranty? Leave us the car for a few days and we'll replace the entire gearbox. Been there with my daily. They're not really car mechanics anymore: they just swap complete parts, following procedures written by the car engineers. Meanwhile you go into a shop taking car of oldtimers and youngtimers and you still get to see the actual proper mechanics, who can troubleshoot and fix only what's necessary.
  - pabs3 1y ago
    EVs don't need to be spyware on wheels, just take an ancient ICE car and convert it to an EV, with spare EV parts and some open source electronics. https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://youtube.com/@evbmw https://youtube.com/@evbmw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43898280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43898280
pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
derbOac 1y ago
That post about the dishwasher hits home because I bought that same dishwasher recently and have had the same reaction. After reading it, I was parsing why I don't return it, and remembered that the other options in our area had their own problems. But now I'm wanting to reconsider.

by bambax 1y ago

tomw1808 1y ago

shhhhush, corporates hate this trick :P

tetris11 1y ago

Same with ovens. Stopped heating? Check the heating coil either at the back, top, or bottom of the oven. You won't even need to pull the oven out, chances are you can unscrew it right there from within. £20 replacement coil for 10 minutes of work, or pay for a whole new oven? (The retailer assured us over the phone that they could not repair it, but had great discounts on new ovens...)

hnaccount_rng 1y ago
But in order for an unskilled (no value judgement intended) person to fix that, this means having the technician run out to their house and find out whether that's the case. That's an hour of work, at least. What does a new oven retail for? Add to that the expectation value of "need to come back because it's not the first thing I tried" and that replacement oven with fresh warranty starts looking even cheaper
- tetris11 1y ago
  The diagnosis is found in that 1 page in the device booklet "troubleshooting", or through a quick internet search. It's worth forking out £20 first, seeing if you can fix it, and then if not escalating the cost.

pjmlp 1y ago

When I was a 70's kid growing up into the 1980's, repair shops were all over the place, for any kind of electronics. Then suddenly we got into this throw away garbage culture at the slightest sign something stops working. The only way back is rebooting the system, or having governments step in.

scotty79 1y ago
Appliances got so cheap there was no more value to extract by repair shops so they shut down. Government could step in with 200% tax on new appliances and the repair ecosystem would regrow, but pretty much no one wants that.
TacticalCoder 1y ago
Same thing, thankfully to a lesser extent so far, for cars. Everybody's applauding the move to lots of tech and EV batteries for car but meanwhile my german car from 1988 is still running strong. People shall complain that it's a gas guzzler but 38 years old is easily twice the lifetime any EV shall ever see. I don't see that taken into account much when talking about the lifetime CO2 of cars. I have nothing against EVs: tried a Porsche Taycan and loved it and someone I know has a little BYD (chinese) SUV and it's very fine car for its price. But sadly EVs seems to rhyme with "we can (and shall) remotely modify your car's software" and that's very close from "we'll remotely disable your car for good at some point in the future, when we consider it's time to upgrade to a new model". As for car mechanics: those at official dealerships seems mostly clueless. They read the diagnostic and the diagnostic says: "Replace the entire braking system for the front right wheel". While if you go to a proper, old-school, mechanic, the dude shall happily find what's wrong and replace only what's necessary. Gearbox noisy? Under warranty? Leave us the car for a few days and we'll replace the entire gearbox. Been there with my daily. They're not really car mechanics anymore: they just swap complete parts, following procedures written by the car engineers. Meanwhile you go into a shop taking car of oldtimers and youngtimers and you still get to see the actual proper mechanics, who can troubleshoot and fix only what's necessary.
- pabs3 1y ago
  EVs don't need to be spyware on wheels, just take an ancient ICE car and convert it to an EV, with spare EV parts and some open source electronics. https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://openinverter.org/wiki/ZombieVerter_VCU https://youtube.com/@evbmw https://youtube.com/@evbmw https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43898280 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43898280

pinoy420 1y ago

[dead]

derbOac 1y ago

That post about the dishwasher hits home because I bought that same dishwasher recently and have had the same reaction. After reading it, I was parsing why I don't return it, and remembered that the other options in our area had their own problems. But now I'm wanting to reconsider.