2 ms·

Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem, and perhaps not specific to one corp. Plastic parts break but, OTOH, overbuilding consumes resources

by psd1 18d ago

Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem, and perhaps not specific to one corp. Plastic parts break but, OTOH, overbuilding consumes resources with diminishing utility. A deep spare parts market is a cost. May i suggest basic home repair? Two techniques that work in many cases are: - "welding" with a soldering iron, using cable tie as a filler rod. You'll want good ventilation and a sacrificial tip - epoxy repair putty Superglue (cyanoacrylate) tends to give disappointing results on its own, but can be a good first step before putty. Putty can be reinforced with some kind of fibre. Never use cyanoacrylate with the welding technique (cyanide). I don't love the model profusion that makes spare parts markets inefficient, but free markets are inefficient all over the place. Price in the externalities.

stdbrouw 18d ago
I used to think this too, but e.g. Bosch and IKEA have great replacement parts websites accessible to the consumer. IKEA’s parts are mostly free, too! With modern logistics (automated warehouses, cheap shipping, ordering online) it is actually a solvable problem, if the company gives a damn about it.
- psd1 18d ago
  I'll take that as a recommendation, thank you! Fwiw, i have found spares for many brands by searching model numbers and wading through spate parts aggregators. The market exists. It's often uneconomic :-(
cassianoleal 18d ago
> Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem Perhaps, but LG has proven problematic to deal with. To give you an idea, I tried directly with them at first. They gave me an official website to search for the part. It wasn't available. They then game me 2 or 3 third-parties to search. None of them had the part available. I emailed and called. They would at best say "not available". Eventually I got LG to escalate to a manager, who called me back the next day. The manager was very nice. Told me to go to that official website again. I couldn't find the part. She then instructed me how to navigate to a form on that same website where I could send a message requesting the part. Remember, this is an official LG website. I sent the form. The next day I got a reply from a third party, telling me they didn't have the part and I should contact the manufacturer directly. Now this is with dirty laundry already accumulating and us risking running out of pants. There's no laundromat near me and I don't have a car, nor I have the time for this crap. Eventually I found what _could_ be the right part. Only there was no way to be sure it was, and it had a 3-week wait and would cost about 100 quid. At that point I sat down and calculated how much I paid for the machine, its expected lifetime, deducted the time I had it for to get an estimate "remaining value", and it was less than the time I was wasting with this ordeal, plus everything else if I had to arrange alternative washes for the time being and the price of the replacement part (assuming it was the right one), so it made sense to just buy a new machine and send that one for recycling, so I did that. > May i suggest basic home repair? Sure you can, but I don't have that machine any longer, would probably not get it to a good state, and would waste even more of my time. It wasn't a simple plastic crack. The drawer was comprised of 3 bins (on the same part), 2 of them covered by rubbery lids. The rubber needs to seal the bin below, otherwise detergent and softener leak and make a mess (which was happening at this point). One of the bin walls somehow got completely deformed. The rubbery lid wouldn't seal, and to make it worse, it eventually split at the seal because of the pressure from the bin wall. It would have been a nightmare to repair to an acceptable state. Also note that the bin lid is something that needs to be opened and closed frequently for top-ups and cleaning. No home repair would survive for long.
- psd1 17d ago
  Yep, that sounds over-engineered for questionable benefit. Ty for the exposition. Sounds like something i would junk, too. I'm angry on your behalf.
  - cassianoleal 14d ago
    :D Thanks!

by psd1 18d ago

stdbrouw 18d ago

I used to think this too, but e.g. Bosch and IKEA have great replacement parts websites accessible to the consumer. IKEA’s parts are mostly free, too! With modern logistics (automated warehouses, cheap shipping, ordering online) it is actually a solvable problem, if the company gives a damn about it.

psd1 18d ago
I'll take that as a recommendation, thank you! Fwiw, i have found spares for many brands by searching model numbers and wading through spate parts aggregators. The market exists. It's often uneconomic :-(

cassianoleal 18d ago

> Your broken waking machine drawer is an orthogonal problem Perhaps, but LG has proven problematic to deal with. To give you an idea, I tried directly with them at first. They gave me an official website to search for the part. It wasn't available. They then game me 2 or 3 third-parties to search. None of them had the part available. I emailed and called. They would at best say "not available". Eventually I got LG to escalate to a manager, who called me back the next day. The manager was very nice. Told me to go to that official website again. I couldn't find the part. She then instructed me how to navigate to a form on that same website where I could send a message requesting the part. Remember, this is an official LG website. I sent the form. The next day I got a reply from a third party, telling me they didn't have the part and I should contact the manufacturer directly. Now this is with dirty laundry already accumulating and us risking running out of pants. There's no laundromat near me and I don't have a car, nor I have the time for this crap. Eventually I found what _could_ be the right part. Only there was no way to be sure it was, and it had a 3-week wait and would cost about 100 quid. At that point I sat down and calculated how much I paid for the machine, its expected lifetime, deducted the time I had it for to get an estimate "remaining value", and it was less than the time I was wasting with this ordeal, plus everything else if I had to arrange alternative washes for the time being and the price of the replacement part (assuming it was the right one), so it made sense to just buy a new machine and send that one for recycling, so I did that. > May i suggest basic home repair? Sure you can, but I don't have that machine any longer, would probably not get it to a good state, and would waste even more of my time. It wasn't a simple plastic crack. The drawer was comprised of 3 bins (on the same part), 2 of them covered by rubbery lids. The rubber needs to seal the bin below, otherwise detergent and softener leak and make a mess (which was happening at this point). One of the bin walls somehow got completely deformed. The rubbery lid wouldn't seal, and to make it worse, it eventually split at the seal because of the pressure from the bin wall. It would have been a nightmare to repair to an acceptable state. Also note that the bin lid is something that needs to be opened and closed frequently for top-ups and cleaning. No home repair would survive for long.

psd1 17d ago
Yep, that sounds over-engineered for questionable benefit. Ty for the exposition. Sounds like something i would junk, too. I'm angry on your behalf.
- cassianoleal 14d ago
  :D Thanks!