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Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
kwatt wrote:However if you want to pretend that it’s all okay and it’s all being dealt with you go right ahead. 😉
I neither wish pretence upon myself or anyone else for that matter as I am as concerned as any other reasonable person would be over waste management and recycling. Whilst the WEEE directive may be chasing its tail at present and confusion rife within its management, its concept and purpose are applaudable and achievable.
Currently here in the UK very few major whitegoods appliances find their way (if at all) to landfill and as WEEE dither over the future the local authorities control the flow so to speak and nothing gets passed them. It may well be true of browngoods in that they do end up on a landfill near you and many small appliances small enough to hide in a wheelie bin do too, without doubt. But your average washing machine and fridge etc are handled differently and that fact is in no way pretentious in that as far as they are concerned recycling is happing right now. So the future (and we all must be concerned over our future mustn’t we? 😉 ) is looking more positive than negative.
If the Chinese want our old machines to recycle and sell back to us then I’m all for that too. I’ve mentioned before that very soon every conceivable consumer durable product, including washing machines, will have a ‘Made In China’ sticker on it. Currently, as is well recognised by us here on UKW, they have slipped in via the back door already. At present only the lower end of the market is being covered but being as many manufacturers are calling on China to produce their established products ‘under licence’ so to speak. Then China will encompass all areas of the market I’ll be bound. And the big wigs from the major manufacturers are out there right now hammering out a deal or three with them to offer their skills in the hope of securing their own future.
So in conclusion, recycling is improving at a pace, new products are more than 90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} recyclable whoever chooses to take on the task. And products will continue to get cheaper and cheaper to produce as a result. That’s the direction the trade is taking and many need to grasp that fact fully in order to go with the flow and to continue to profit from it and stay in business! No kidding, no pretending, no bullshoose….fact!
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
So, just so as I understand this…
You’re advocating that we all buy cheap crap in from about as far away as we can get, only to scrap it then ship it all back there, to ship it all back again?
Is it just me that thinks that’s a tad insane?
I don’t agree with your conclusions either, I think Kentish was more on the money with, to reduce costs you reduce materials used and this would normally be raw material as it is cheaper than recycled I should expect.
John and I have lived and breathed this stuff all through the WEEE thing as well as consulting for various agencies and politicians and, let me tell you a fact, it’s not all sweetness and light as you are making it out to be. I’d suggest the removal of the rose-tints. 😉
K.
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
kwatt wrote:So, just so as I understand this…
You’re advocating that we all buy cheap crap in from about as far away as we can get, only to scrap it then ship it all back there, to ship it all back again?
Not me Ken but the buying public through no fault of their own will be.:wink:
kwatt wrote:Is it just me that thinks that’s a tad insane?
No! No! I’m with you there pal but this ever shrinking world will rely on ‘those what do it’ calling the shots…oh yes!
kwatt wrote:I don’t agree with your conclusions either, I think Kentish was more on the money with, to reduce costs you reduce materials used and this would normally be raw material as it is cheaper than recycled I should expect.
I sincerely hope that’s true as I too share your expectation in that regard.:wink:
kwatt wrote:John and I have lived and breathed this stuff all through the WEEE thing as well as consulting for various agencies and politicians and, let me tell you a fact, it’s not all sweetness and light as you are making it out to be.
“Sweetness & light” is hardly how I see it or how business and commerce work. I’m not getting emotive over the subject at all but simply looking at the facts as is at present. How the world will pan out on the issue, how supply versus demand will transpire and more importantly for me and for us in the trade overall and it’s effects and consequences.
kwatt wrote:I’d suggest the removal of the rose-tints. 😉
Now you wouldn’t be getting too personal on this thread now would you? The choice of tint of my spectacles is down to me and whilst I welcome your comment, I’d rather you stick to open and free thinking debate if that’s OK with you of course?
I chose to ignore your earlier comment: –
kwatt wrote:You’re starting to sound like George Dubya there Martin and, we all know what a gifted intellectual he is 😆
My best regards as ever…
Martin
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
Phidom wrote:Yes, if these sealed tubs are so much cheaper to manufacture why can’t they pass on some of the savings to us in the price of a replacement assembly. If I could offer a cost effective tub renewal service it would be nicer work than messing about with bits of old broken bearing.
IMO this whole debate is down to spare parts pricing issues.
If these sealed tubs were supplied to us at a price where we could get the job done cost-effectively to the customer then we’d all be happy and enjoying the profit such work would bring.Again IMO, we should be concentrating on addressing the manufacturers or whoever else can help on the issue of fair spare parts pricing.
I don’t know if it’s realistic to think we could achieve any changes when it comes to spare parts pricing but it truly would be an achievement if UKW or even the WTA made progress in this direction.Bryan
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
Its a fair point , if these sealed drums could be offered to us at a fair price & we could do the job in an hour or so, it might be workable.
Still seems a wasteful way of curing noisy bearings, but having said that, the pecentage of customers who actually call you when the bearings alone can still be replaced & not just run it till the belt falls off is small.
Ironically, given the start of this thread, i’ve had 2 Zanussi owners call me out for no drum movement in past 10 days. They had both ran it till the drum lip cut through the outer drum rendering it BER..
ARE THESE PEOPLE DEEF !! ?? :rolls:
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
Mammoth task and one that nobody here is running away from either. 😉
However something else came up in conversation this evening which will interest many, especially those that do any contract work.
We’re all pretty used to running about with a couple of backplates for Merloni machines or the odd set of bearings and the odd Hotpoint spider and we’ve even pretty much all accepted that bearing failures do now happen in warranty. Even if we do think it’s stupid. This is something that, when it first happened to me when Candy introduced the “Charme” range, we couldn’t believe, bearing failure under a year old was unheard of. In fact, under five years old was unusual. That was 1992/3 or thereabouts.
Then we had the cheap Philcos from Currys et all, I still shudder.
They destroyed Philco and moved onto Servis.
This annoys me as, for many/most, I don’t get paid any more to change bearings or whatever than I do for replacing a pump. That strikes me as a tad unfair.
But now we have a situation where it is entirely feasible that we have to run about carrying full tub assemblies on the van!?
Just the logistics of that sends me into a flat spin. I mean as an example, think about the poor Service Force guys as, if Lux hold true to form, there’ll be the usual seven derivatives for which you need the Prod. Code to identify across a range of over 50 machines with doubtless at least 10-15 tub variants, at least.
Then every one that’s swapped, will it be recycled? You can bet that the answer to that is a flat, no. I’ve NEVER, EVER seen any way to recycle spare parts, ever. This despite the “Carboran” tubs, bases etc. being supposedly totally recyclable up to seven times.
So, all these tub units, which by the way are totally exempt from the WEEE Directive, will almost inevitably end up in a landfill site near you. The guys that bring all these parts back won’t recycle them, they’ll go in a skip and then off to landfill. The agents won’t want to register for WEEE as that just adds another cost which they can ill afford, I don’t blame them for that at all given the rates they are paid.
So paid less, increased stocking costs, poorer logistics, more to carry on van stock weight and increased double calls. Double calls = loss on contract work. I can’t say this is appealing to me.
Manufacturers and the insurers that pay for this work don’t give a stuff so long as it doesn’t cost more.
It may well be “90{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}” recyclable but that’s only if the will and systems are in place to make that happen which currently, they most certainly are not.
K.
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
Antipodean Perspective
Frontloads in volume have only been on the market since the Mid 90s and sales only in the past few years have taken over dominant top load washers (water saving being the biggest issue)
Before this period the very small front load market was dominated by Miele ASKO & a locally produced Hoover .Bearing changes were few and mainly done on the local Hoover easily & affordably.
The influx of Ariston/Indesit ,Whirlpool ,Candy(Maytag Badged )LG,Samsung Etc frontloads gave consumers options they had never seen before .Varying price points larger load sizes dramatically increased the market share.How things changed for us poor repairers in a top load dominant market.
Halve the washer repairs nowadays would be on F/L
I.ll stick to bearing replacements as per thread
Washers in warranty from Ariston ,Electrolux with bearing shaft failures are generally changeover .Not to bad we get aservice fee for inspection & another to install new washer
LG pay us a more tham fair price to complete repair .
Most of the others for repair work are average
For those comsumers who wisley took extended warranty the machines are exchanged or we bill normal rates &plus parts at RRP
The extended warranty companies generally swap over Ariston machines
For the poor consumer with a 3-4 year old frontload with stuffed bearings etc time to go shopping for a new machine
Lg are the only exception parts pricing is dirt cheap & shaft bearing replacement is a viable option
The fact is price of parts is the big factor.
We can only take a service call for aAriston for example but for an LG we can make good money on Parts & Labor
And thats the bottom line were all here to a make a quid
The last two years have seen the chinese produced machines hit the market .Unless you are doing warranty work for these cannot see us making a brass razzoo out of themRe: One piece welded tub seized solid!
bigsmokepiker wrote:The last two years have seen the chinese produced machines hit the market .Unless you are doing warranty work for these cannot see us making a brass razzoo out of them
The same story in Oz it seems 🙁
Re: One piece welded tub seized solid!
kwatt wrote:
But now we have a situation where it is entirely feasible that we have to run about carrying full tub assemblies on the van!?
Just the logistics of that sends me into a flat spin. I mean as an example, think about the poor Service Force guys as, if Lux hold true to form, there’ll be the usual seven derivatives for which you need the Prod. Code to identify across a range of over 50 machines with doubtless at least 10-15 tub variants, at least.
K.
That put a smile on my face.
We carry the popular bearings/seals on all vans therefore taking away some of the double visits. even then the mixture of bearings, sealed kits and whatever else that can be put into the pot compounds this. Of course there is no way we could possibly carry sealed tubs, as you say the variants are extreme. Add to that pulleys & bolts as there is little point in hacking away the old one.
Interesting times ahead
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