While reading the article, the now-less-common business of vacuum and TV repair came to mind. I imagine it's easier than ever to repair vacuums, with improved tools and free internet repositories of schematics. But I only know of one store still doing this within 5 miles of my house. I haven't asked former vacuum repairmen, but my guess as to the reasons:
1) Labor costs go up with inflation
2) Rent goes up
3) New vacuum prices go down
At some point in the past, the downward line of vacuum price crossed over the upward line of repair cost. That's when this profession cratered.
Cars may have a while until that price point hits. But the quoted mechanic's suggestion that engineers optimize for simpler repairs instead of simpler production may be something similar. If simpler production makes the price of a new car $X cheaper, but increases the labor cost of repairs over the car's lifetime by $Y, there could be a time when X > Y.
I remember reading an article about the last TV repair shop in Chicago many years ago in the Chicago Reader.
This would have been in the early 2010s.
The reporter asked the owner why TV repair was dying: were TVs getting too complicated? Help too hard to find or too expensive? Nope, the owner said it was 100% parts availability. The vast majority of business coming through the door he'd have to turn away because manufacturers didn't want him repairing their equipment.
There may sometimes be a tradeoff for manufacturability vs repairability but even when there is not -- holding everything else equal -- manufacturers will choose the less repairable option because they perceive it to be in their interest to do so.
Tv repair made a lot more sense in the days of tubes which wore out quick but were easy to replace. Solid state generally lasts much longer and the parts that fail are not worth repairing.
I think even the parts availability argument starts to fall apart with scales of economy in manufacturing. I can walk into Best Buy today and walk out with a brand new 65" QLED 4k TV for $299 + tax. How much money is someone willing to spend to fix a $300 item? Even if the parts are free, you're better off replacing it if it's going to take more than an hour to fix. Keep in mind the overhead of finding a repair shop, scheduling a drop off, dropping off the TV, waiting for the TV to be repaired, picking up the TV again and remounting it. You can cut more than half of those steps out by buying a new one and it'll be available within the hour. At the rate of progression, it may even be an upgrade!
Most of the time the failed part is either the power supply board or a backlight and they’re usually available as aftermarket if you can’t be bothered to isolate the failed micro component or LED “bulb” and solder one in from a donor. Or a flex cable that just needs reseating.
PS is probably harder nowadays since it might be more integrated but not 10+ years ago.
It's really amazing how I quoted a repair shop owner saying the problem is parts availability and got two responses basically saying "nuh uh."
I have a more recent personal experience. My parents refrigerator went out. The repair man came out and diagnosed it as a bad inverter board and he'd get the part and come back in a few days. Great! The next day he calls my dad and tells him the part isn't available from the manufacturer so he can't actually fix it.
So I helped my dad go on an internet search and we eventually found an aftermarket (counterfeit?) board and installed it ourselves. My parents were thrilled they didn't have to buy a new refrigerator, but the repair guy got paid for the diagnosis but didn't make any money for the repair. I don't know if that's a long term sustainable business.
This is why when I replaced my appliances I chose GE/Hotpoint. GE does their own in house parts and service, and in particular Hotpoint is easy to fix with a screwdriver.
A quick note to say that at our local repair cafe we do a roaring trade in vacuum repairs for peanuts (not literal peanuts; though some of our repairers do get peckish). If you're in Europe, there's chance you have one nearby. https://repaircafe.org/en
Could you please go in to a bit more detail on how you set that up, how you handle issues, etc? I'm a member of a makerspace, and there's been discussions about doing something similar. There's just not a consensus about how to go about it.
...generally I've seen weekly/monthly "fix-it" workshops as a kindof open-house / membership drive.
Probably best to 1) have people sign safety waivers, especially if they're not members 2) have people sign a "we can offer to help you try, but your widget might end up worse than before" waiver 3) run it as a volunteer outreach event with a focus on getting membership rather than a transactional "fix my ____ for free" outcome
That is because there is not a cost for the disposal of the broken vacuum. Imagine if we paid by the weight of our trash. Some of the right to repair laws are trying to change that by requiring replacement parts be available to purchase. https://www.repair.org/know-your-rights
I really like the idea of adding taxes (or subsidies) to make repairing things more economical than replacing them, when this is not the case already. It seems difficult to fairly decide how to do this, but charging by rubbish weight is at least objective and easily measurable.
It can be argued that all taxes and subsidies are "artificial distortions" of market value, but capitalism strongly encourages externalisation of costs -- "the cost of making X" is often severely underestimated by "the cost of running a machine to dig X out of the ground".
TVs and vacuum cleaners are now a lot cheaper AND more reliable then they used to be.
Cars have become more reliable and relatively cheaper then they used to be, but they are a lot more expensive so have a long way to go until that point is reached.
TVs are definitely more reliable, but vacuum cleaners? I had a Dyson a few years ago and it didn't take long before plastic parts started to snap off. Meanwhile my mother in law's Electrolux or whatever is indestructible with occasional maintenance.
Also, new stuff just isn't designed to be opened up.
I took an old monitor that started failing to a local makerspace (which has a very popular monthly repair cafe), and it took some physical force to crack the case open. Once inside it was relatively easy to get the board out and find the leaking capacitors. Not exactly high-tech parts.
It was fun for me and for the volunteer, but I can't imagine anyone trying to do this for a living -- it would take a lot of time, and charging people for what the labor's worth would probably come close to the price of a new monitor.
1) Labor costs go up with inflation
2) Rent goes up
3) New vacuum prices go down
At some point in the past, the downward line of vacuum price crossed over the upward line of repair cost. That's when this profession cratered.
Cars may have a while until that price point hits. But the quoted mechanic's suggestion that engineers optimize for simpler repairs instead of simpler production may be something similar. If simpler production makes the price of a new car $X cheaper, but increases the labor cost of repairs over the car's lifetime by $Y, there could be a time when X > Y.