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2nd March 2019, 11:15 PM | #1 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
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The right to repair
Want to fix your tractor? Tough luck, say some manufacturers
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-0...epair/10864852
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2nd March 2019, 11:37 PM | #2 |
Nasty Woman
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What about parts the manufacturers simply refuse to keep making?
I have an otherwise perfectly good dryer that has worked for 30 years but now won't start. The manufacturer no longer makes the replacement part. I have an otherwise perfectly good Ricoh laser copier in the garage that needs a drum that is no longer made. Couldn't get a new battery for an otherwise good camera. And on and on it goes. |
3rd March 2019, 12:48 AM | #3 |
Skepticifimisticalationist
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That's a bit of a different subject; realistically, manufacturers can't be expected to keep making replacement parts for their products forever. Often third parties sell parts like that, but even they can only make them for as long as somebody somewhere is actually buying enough of them to make it worth it.
Where "right-to-repair" comes in is, particularly in the digital age, some manufacturers of computerized products are increasingly trying to limit the ability of third-parties to sell those parts and perform the repairs. And they're getting aggressive not just against those third parties, but against customers: some manufacturers are actually programming their products to stop working, completely and permanently, if they detect aftermarket component has been installed or a non-manufacturer-authorized repair performed. Apple is the most visible example of this; they've gone so far as to push authorities to intercept third-party repair parts and prosecute the receivers for "counterfeit goods", like they were selling phony Guccis in a back alley somewhere. |
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"¿WHAT KIND OF BIRD? ¿A PARANORMAL BIRD?" --- Carlos S., 2002 |
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3rd March 2019, 02:09 AM | #4 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
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Apple in Australia has been forced to replace faulty goods even if a third party attempted to repair them. They didn't like that.
Vehicle manufacturers incorporate encrypted systems in their vehicle management computers. Third parties can't maintain them. |
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We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. “Perception is real, but the truth is not.” - Imelda Marcos |
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3rd March 2019, 03:15 AM | #5 |
Penultimate Amazing
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There was a push by vehicle manufacturers in the UK around ten years or so ago to block the manufacture of third party replacements for brake shoes and pads, fan belts, shock absorbers etc on 'safety' grounds.
They wanted the govt to pass legislation so only their own parts could be fitted by their own official dealerships for reasons of safety. It didn't fly. |
3rd March 2019, 06:41 AM | #6 |
Banned
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Simple solution
If you want a right to repair, only purchase from people who can agree to it. |
3rd March 2019, 10:13 AM | #7 |
No longer the 1
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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3rd March 2019, 11:37 AM | #8 |
Skepticifimisticalationist
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"¿WHAT KIND OF BIRD? ¿A PARANORMAL BIRD?" --- Carlos S., 2002 |
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3rd March 2019, 11:40 AM | #9 |
Master Poster
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3rd March 2019, 12:02 PM | #10 |
Penultimate Amazing
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There is no Antimemetics Division. |
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3rd March 2019, 12:23 PM | #11 |
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3rd March 2019, 12:26 PM | #12 |
Nasty Woman
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3rd March 2019, 12:30 PM | #13 |
Nasty Woman
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3rd March 2019, 12:50 PM | #14 |
Penultimate Amazing
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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3rd March 2019, 12:51 PM | #15 |
Penultimate Amazing
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd March 2019, 01:50 PM | #16 |
Philosopher
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Do you think it would be profitable for them to continue to make the parts?
Keeping machines that take up space, require maintenence, safety inspections and staff is kind of expensive for the tiny minority of people who take pride in keeping technology long past its best before date. Or to put it another way. Would you pay the cost of a new device for these parts? If not, it is not an issue of wanting the device, but wanting the company to dance to your tune. And in that case I do not believe they could take enough actions to please you regardless so the cheapest option for them is to not bother. |
3rd March 2019, 01:54 PM | #17 |
Philosopher
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Posts: 8,694
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Your tractor blows up, you are permanently harmed or killed.
Assuming you took a modicum of effort to throw away a receipt, how do they prove if it was a mechanical fault of the machine, or a result of the repair? Furthermore, do you not think this could impact efficiency of recalls? Popular modification, could easily seem to be a manufacturing flaw. So for the small cost benefit or repairing yourself, you would be driving up the price of the products. Doesn't seem people have thought this one through. |
3rd March 2019, 02:00 PM | #18 |
The Clarity Is Devastating
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Absolutely. The state establishes and protects property rights. Right to repair is a property rights issue; it fights an erosion of property rights in which what appears to be the sale of a product to a customer is treated by the seller as a limited license to use the product that the seller can revoke at will. |
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"*Except Myriad. Even Cthulhu would give him a pat on the head and an ice cream and send him to the movies while he ended the rest of the world." - Foster Zygote |
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3rd March 2019, 02:22 PM | #19 |
Agave Wine Connoisseur
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I can't believe we are arguing about the right to have laws to make sure anything we buy will work forever..
Horse and buggy whip owners are turning over in their graves.. (from laughter...) |
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Maybe later.... |
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3rd March 2019, 02:28 PM | #20 |
No longer the 1
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As human right is always something given, it always in reality reduces to the right which men give, "concede," to each other. If the right to existence is conceded to new-born children, then they have the right; if it is not conceded to them, as was the case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it. For only society can give or concede it to them; they themselves cannot take it, or give it to themselves. |
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3rd March 2019, 02:30 PM | #21 |
Philosopher
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3rd March 2019, 02:40 PM | #22 |
Master Poster
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There are several youtube channels of folks that have purchased salvage teslas with the idea of repairing them. They do in fact have problems with their support. I don't think it's "disabled" to the point it wont run, but it is in reduced functionality. I'll have to go back and see what the details were.
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3rd March 2019, 02:41 PM | #23 |
Penultimate Amazing
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__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd March 2019, 02:46 PM | #24 |
Cowardly Lurking in the Shadows of Greatness
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And I can't believe I'm agreeing with Zig. The right to repair refers to the tendency of manufacturers to want to be the only ones who *can* or who are *allowed* to attempt repairs. Like the scifi story where if you pry open the hood of your car, you find more sealed boxes containing the operative parts of the car. Right to Repair is people demanding the right to have a chance to be able to repair the items they own.
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3rd March 2019, 02:50 PM | #25 |
Penultimate Amazing
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I don't think that's the issue. The issue is whether you -- the owner of the product -- should be able to have it repaired by anyone you trust. If you happen to own a horse-drawn buggy, you should not be required to discard it if the original manufacturer can't or won't repair it, or sets conditions that you find objectionable ("Dismantle your buggy, pack it in a crate no smaller than six feet on each side, and ship it via motor freight at your expense to our dedicated repair facility in La Paz, Bolivia."). Why shouldn't the same be true of smartphones, PCs, cars, washers, etc.? How much of a lifetime hold should the original seller have on you?
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3rd March 2019, 02:54 PM | #26 |
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At one point Telsa sent out notice of an airbag recall. But if your car was registered as "unsupported", they wouldn't perform the repair unless the car was recertified (at a cost to the owner). The federal rules apparently require the repair to be done on cars that are "safe and drivable", with Telsa trying to say that the cars are not, while the owner says it is.
Also reports that salvage units brought to the dealer have had repairs refused and autopilot disabled. |
3rd March 2019, 03:02 PM | #27 | |||
Philosopher
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Yeah! What if you just want to replace the home button on your iPhone and now the touch ID doesn't work because Apple doesn't like it?
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3rd March 2019, 03:06 PM | #28 |
Penultimate Amazing
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When the car has a "salvage" title, isn't it considered a total wreck? It no longer exists as a functional vehicle. It's not surprising that the manufacturer doesn't want it back on the road. This is how scammers do things like buy the undamaged front and back ends of two different cars that were totaled in crashes, weld them together, "wash" the title, and sell them as normal used cars.
This is just not the same as a Tesla owner getting new brakes at a chain store. |
3rd March 2019, 03:24 PM | #29 |
Master Poster
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So the manufacturer is the only entity that gets to make the call?
The issue is that the manufacturer sets the prices on repair parts, and Telsa vehicles tend to have prices higher than many others. Therefore a relatively minor accident can have quoted repair costs that exceed the value of the vehicle. In this case the insurance will total the car and create a salvage title. But that doesn't mean the car is unrepairable (perhaps at a cost much less than quoted), just that the manufacturer hasn't been paid for it. |
3rd March 2019, 03:25 PM | #30 |
Penultimate Amazing
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No that is not the case. A salvage title means, in most cases, that the car must be re-inspected before it can be registered, and that it will forever have a mark on its title. While there are undoubtedly scammers out there who wash titles and hide this fact, a salvaged vehicle can be driven and traded like any other. In certain cases a title is downgraded to "destroy," and that indeed means that the car can be used only for parts and never registered again. The rules for when this happens vary and are not always consistent.
I have actually done this - bought a totalled car with a salvage title, and registered the repaired vehicle. I later sold it too, though for peanuts as it was well worn out by then. The whole deal was entirely above board. An inspector came around to my place and checked the vehicle out, and provided the necessary paperwork. It was quite a big job involving welding in a new roof and a lot of other body and glass work, but even with the purchase of tools and parts I got the resulting car for about half its going price, and drove it for years. I don't know if anyone else here has done this, but if I were a betting man I would not bet much against Casebro. |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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3rd March 2019, 03:29 PM | #31 |
Master Poster
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Yeah, https://www.carscoops.com/2018/05/te...telling-owner/
Keep in mind, the order of events were: 1 - car was charging fine. 2 - took it into a Tesla dealer for service unrelated to charging. 3 - Tesla determined it to be out of warranty and disabled the fast recharge feature. There are plenty of youtube videos of people trying to repair Teslas and hitting the Tesla brick wall. I'm not saying Tesla should be providing warranty service to vehicles out of warranty. They should not be getting in the way of it either. A salvaged title just means that the car was too expensive to repair as calculated by an insurance company. The damage could have been all cosmetic, or really extensive, you never know. It does not mean it's unsafe or mechanically defective. |
3rd March 2019, 03:46 PM | #32 |
Penultimate Amazing
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If you're not a scientist but you think you've destroyed the foundation of a vast scientific edifice with 10 minutes of Googling, you might want to consider the possibility that you're wrong. Its TRE45ON season... convict the F45CIST!! |
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3rd March 2019, 04:23 PM | #33 |
Unbanned zombie poster
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MCM use to be a good place to get OEM parts for audio equipment but now they are just part of Newark electronics.
https://www.newark.com/mcm-partnersh...SAAEgJdpvD_BwE I use rockauto for our cars parts (them that's out of warranty that is) https://www.rockauto.com/ and Bikebandit for my motorcycle parts https://www.bikebandit.com/parts I found a site for appliance parts but can't recall it now, I'll have to check one of the receipts tonight. Some stuff like furnace parts (just replaced the combustion chamber) I just get through amazon and that's an old trailer furnace. Had to get a replacement blower fan motor support some years back for the furnace, got a universal type from I think Zicon. http://zicontrols.com.sg/ |
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BRAINZZZZZZZZ |
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3rd March 2019, 04:36 PM | #34 |
Unbanned zombie poster
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BRAINZZZZZZZZ |
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3rd March 2019, 04:49 PM | #35 |
Master Poster
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Agreed. Apple computers, on the other hand, have turned that behavior into an art form.
CBC Reporter takes a barely functional iMac into a genius bar. Says it's too much work to repair, you might as well buy a new one. They take it to Louis Rossmann, and he kinda knows what is going on, opens it up, fixes a pin on a bent cable, puts it back in and it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2_SZ4tfLns Then there was all sorts of internet drama when Linus Tech Tips broke their 5K apple device, tried to get it serviced, and damn if Apple didn't throw up as many road blocks as they could. What was worse was all the Apple fans coming up with all sorts of excuses, as if what Apple makes is made from magical parts and not consumer level electronics. |
3rd March 2019, 05:02 PM | #36 |
Illuminator
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This is a problem I've faced my entire life. It's easy to get parts when a tool is new and you don't need them, once it's 10,15,20 years old not so much, they just want you to buy a new one. Still, I'm hesitant to say that government should step in and require a business to engage in unprofitable operations. |
3rd March 2019, 05:22 PM | #37 |
Unbanned zombie poster
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What's the part?
We don't use hot water in the washer because that input switch valve doesn't open anymore. I should probably put in a hose splitter valve. Reversed so hot, cold or both can go to the one working input when wanted. https://www.amazon.com/Morvat-Heavy-...gateway&sr=8-5 |
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3rd March 2019, 05:43 PM | #38 |
Penultimate Amazing
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....A lot of furnace parts are at least partly generic, and can be bought from suppliers that stock large quantities of them. Interestingly, perhaps because oil burners are so ubiquitous, some of the parts, despite their great precision, are incredibly cheap. If you had to buy the equivalent of a burner nozzle for your car, it would cost a fortune. You can go to a furnace parts dealer and get a nozzle drilled and milled to such precision that not only does it spray evenly, but its spray is precise as to width and pattern, and the consumption of oil per hour is precise to a hundredth of a gallon. Nowadays it costs about seven bucks.
someone wasn't thinking very well there. Can you imagine a car on fire, and no way to open the hood to put it out? Call the dealer to boost the battery? Sorry, the radiator overheated in the desert. Say your prayers. Those washing machine valves are almost entirely generic as well, the only difference generally being the finer point of how they're mounted to the washer. Try some place like Home Depot or an appliance dealer. They're really quite inexpensive, and an easy plug-in job. They're almost all even made by the same company though I forget its name. |
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Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
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3rd March 2019, 05:52 PM | #39 |
Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning
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We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy. Everything is possible, but not everything is probable. “Perception is real, but the truth is not.” - Imelda Marcos |
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3rd March 2019, 05:55 PM | #40 |
Unbanned zombie poster
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Ah perhaps that's why they started putting batteries in the trunk. Overheating? With an aluminum block prayers may be all you can say.
Yeah, Moebob hasn't made any point of it and seems fine with cold water washing. Though I'd still like the option if I got something particularly nasty to wash. |
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