Why do appliance repairs (dishwasher, laundry, fridge, etc.) seemingly cost as much as the appliances themselves?
In: 5618
The factory is getting parts very cheap because they buy so many parts. They design the product to be assembled efficiently and cheaply. They efficiently move finished goods by the truckload to distribution warehouses. It’s hard for humans to compete with that level of efficiency.
The repairman needs to usually make 2 visits for your one appliance. First to diagnose, then buy a part, then come back, disassemble the machine (which may not be easy) – a slow, manual, inefficient process. Sometimes it’s not easy, and they need to have expertise, which you need to pay for as well.
They also pay more for the part because the economics are worse, they can’t buy in bulk and there’s so many different parts for different appliances, you need another distributor to even keep track of all of that.
That distributor needs to get a profit as well.
So there are far more slow and difficult and expensive steps involved to repair rather than replace.
Same reason many cars are totaled these days even with seemingly minor damage, it’s just cheaper and easier to replace many cars rather than do slow and manual steps to fix.
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