Manufacturers are set to be forced to make major appliances more repairable and, repairable for longer under new rules set to come into force from the EU from 2021. Finally!
For well over a decade we’ve been pushing for this to happen along with others including the “Right To Repair” campaigns that have seemingly finally started to get some traction with the notion that, throwing out perfectly serviceable appliances and buying new ones isn’t either financially or environmentally sensible at all.
On the face of it, this new legislation is set to make repairs to appliances both more cost-effective and in a good many instances, possible as opposed to where we are now with many not being one or either.
That’s a huge win for consumers.
It’s a huge win for the repair and spare parts industry.
Not so great news for manufacturers but they should bear this in mind, it’s now a level playing field (at least at a minimum benchmark) so everyone is going to be saddled with the same costs to do this.
For those that don’t, including the dodgy own label brands bringing in cheap stuff from China or wherever, they ought to be… how can we put this nicely, “exposed” for the practice of breaking the law.
We agree with many that have spoken about this already though, it doesn’t go far enough. There is still work to be done on this to ensure that consumers and the repair industries are not being ripped off. But, one step at a time we suppose and we’ll take the win for now.
Spares should be available to anyone that is confident enough and, to be blunt about it, sensible enough to be able to diagnose, identify and order the correct items as well as professional repairers and, be supplied at a sensible price that makes repair viable.
Manufacturers say this raises questions about risk and liability which, in our view, is utter nonsense. If people want to and are capable of repairing their own products out of warranty they should have no right to stand in the way of that or, erect any barriers preventing people from doing so.
Repairing the products you already have is the most environmentally sensible and effective things you can do.
Throwing it out and buying new stuff is the polar opposite of that so this news, making a repair more viable and possible can only be good news for all.
Excellent news…..but in reality it will not change anything!!
Trouble is the manufacturers will easily get around the problem under the ruise of lower more eco friendliness but in doing so will make the machines far more complex that noone will stand much of a chance at fixing them e.g onsite programmable pcb where Hotpoint / Indesit do do the card reader and smart card system as a customer alternative, trouble is the card reader is £150 odd the smart card is 20 quid and the pcb could be 120 quid so who the hell is going to do that? OR/ AND the spare parts could end up being very expensive that noone is going to repair them and EU has no influence over charges.