Why do appliance repairs (dishwasher, laundry, fridge, etc.) seemingly cost as much as the appliances themselves?
In: 5618
The parts are usually pretty cheap. If you do it yourself it’s not all that bad. What you are paying for is a technician’s time, and there’s more of it than you think.
For example, right now my fridge is making a weird noise. I’m 90% certain the worst it needs is a condenser fan replacement. That requires about $70 and a screwdriver.
However, the fridge also weighs an awful lot and I do not have a great back or a dolly. So if I try to wrestle it away from my wall I can see myself tipping the stupid thing over and hurting myself. The kind of dolly I need costs about $200, and I’m still worried I’d manage to misuse it and I’m also not 100% sure the condenser fan is the only problem.
It’s going to cost me a minimum of $75 to get a technician to come to my house. Part of that is because he has to drive here from his last job, which could take 20-30 minutes of time alone. He already has the $200 dolly and presumably the $70 fan, so I don’t have to wait on shipping or pay for tools I don’t need. He’s going to probably spend 10-20 minutes moving the fridge, 10-20 minutes disassembling parts, 20-30 minutes investigating the problem and replacing a part, then another 20-30 minutes putting everything back right again and making sure the problem seems solved. The quote for everything is about $175 with some error bars around it.
So even if we decide there is nothing to replace he’s going to have to spend at least an hour and a half working with me if I count the driving. $75 for that is about $50/hour, which sounds steep. But it’s his back at risk, and his equipment he brings that I need.
I’d have to pay $200 to get the dolly or probably $30 to rent it in addition to driving to and from a rental place. I’d have to pay $70 for the fan myself. So to DIY it, I’d have to spend anything from $100 to $300.
So honestly, paying 20% of the cost of the fridge to get him to fix it makes sense because I’d have to pay more than that to fix it myself.
(My worst-case would be if the compressor is failing, those are more like $400 and much more labor to replace. If that happens we may consider getting a new fridge anyway. But that’s not likely, and part of why those parts cost so much is they’re made to be not very prone to failure even if they’re a little abused.)
**edit** I think it’s worth saying the fancier the appliance the less likely this gets. I should’ve included that.
Less fancy appliances tend to be “electromechanical”. That means they use fairly simple components like switches and relays and motors that can be tested to figure out what’s busted and sourced for fairly cheap. Part of why they’re cheap is often a lot of models use the same or similar parts so they just get produced in large quantities.
More fancy appliances tend to have small computers inside of them, and often those small computers consist of one single logic board with no replaceable components. Even if they were replaceable, it’d take a lot of special equipment to figure out which parts were broken. So these pieces tend to be expensive and can only be “repaired” by replacing them. These logic boards tend to be custom-produced per unit, almost like the manufacturers intend to make money selling replacements.
If you hear people talking about “right to repair” laws, it concerns that practice. Those people want laws that require manufacturers to use more replaceable parts and build devices in such a way that people are more likely to be able to make DIY repairs for affordable costs.
A few reasons:
* [Planned Obsolescence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence). The longer a product lasts, the fewer the manufacturer will sell. Manufacturers who engineer long-lasting products tend to go out of business, and we’re left with the ones that break often enough to keep the manufacturer in business.
* Difficulty of repair. The time and skill required to do the repair increases the cost of the repair. Learn to do them yourself and save lots of money. Youtube instruction videos are invaluable here.
* The cost of the replacement part can be prohibitively expensive itself. This tends to happen when the manufacturer wants to avoid you doing your own repairs, and the part is specific enough that there are no alternatives. Find an alternative anyway.
That last point happened to me when a piece of plastic broke for my Samsung dishwasher at 1 month after the warranty expired.
* The replacement plastic piece costs as much as the dishwasher and could only be acquired from Samsung!
* The plastic piece holds the dishwasher door closed.
* It was uniquely shaped and very specific to each model and version of the dishwasher.
* The forums were filled with Samsung customers complaining about this plastic piece breaking within months of warranty expiration (Planned Obsolescence)
* Replacing the plastic piece would take hours because of how it was housed (difficult to repair).
* Dishwasher would not function without this plastic piece because of a sensor to determine if it was in place.
In order to “fix” it, I “fooled” the sensor mentioned above and used a babyproofing cabinet lock to hold the door closed.
It’s been working ever since.
The parts are usually pretty cheap. If you do it yourself it’s not all that bad. What you are paying for is a technician’s time, and there’s more of it than you think.
For example, right now my fridge is making a weird noise. I’m 90% certain the worst it needs is a condenser fan replacement. That requires about $70 and a screwdriver.
However, the fridge also weighs an awful lot and I do not have a great back or a dolly. So if I try to wrestle it away from my wall I can see myself tipping the stupid thing over and hurting myself. The kind of dolly I need costs about $200, and I’m still worried I’d manage to misuse it and I’m also not 100% sure the condenser fan is the only problem.
It’s going to cost me a minimum of $75 to get a technician to come to my house. Part of that is because he has to drive here from his last job, which could take 20-30 minutes of time alone. He already has the $200 dolly and presumably the $70 fan, so I don’t have to wait on shipping or pay for tools I don’t need. He’s going to probably spend 10-20 minutes moving the fridge, 10-20 minutes disassembling parts, 20-30 minutes investigating the problem and replacing a part, then another 20-30 minutes putting everything back right again and making sure the problem seems solved. The quote for everything is about $175 with some error bars around it.
So even if we decide there is nothing to replace he’s going to have to spend at least an hour and a half working with me if I count the driving. $75 for that is about $50/hour, which sounds steep. But it’s his back at risk, and his equipment he brings that I need.
I’d have to pay $200 to get the dolly or probably $30 to rent it in addition to driving to and from a rental place. I’d have to pay $70 for the fan myself. So to DIY it, I’d have to spend anything from $100 to $300.
So honestly, paying 20% of the cost of the fridge to get him to fix it makes sense because I’d have to pay more than that to fix it myself.
(My worst-case would be if the compressor is failing, those are more like $400 and much more labor to replace. If that happens we may consider getting a new fridge anyway. But that’s not likely, and part of why those parts cost so much is they’re made to be not very prone to failure even if they’re a little abused.)
**edit** I think it’s worth saying the fancier the appliance the less likely this gets. I should’ve included that.
Less fancy appliances tend to be “electromechanical”. That means they use fairly simple components like switches and relays and motors that can be tested to figure out what’s busted and sourced for fairly cheap. Part of why they’re cheap is often a lot of models use the same or similar parts so they just get produced in large quantities.
More fancy appliances tend to have small computers inside of them, and often those small computers consist of one single logic board with no replaceable components. Even if they were replaceable, it’d take a lot of special equipment to figure out which parts were broken. So these pieces tend to be expensive and can only be “repaired” by replacing them. These logic boards tend to be custom-produced per unit, almost like the manufacturers intend to make money selling replacements.
If you hear people talking about “right to repair” laws, it concerns that practice. Those people want laws that require manufacturers to use more replaceable parts and build devices in such a way that people are more likely to be able to make DIY repairs for affordable costs.
Because you are paying a minimum of $75 an hour for labor. Add parts to it, and a few hours of work and you should have purchased a new item in many cases.
To reinforce the point others have made: it’s not repair that’s expensive, it’s manufacturing that has been made unbelievably cheap.
Not appliances , but clothing for exemple was hugely expensive. People had one good suit and that was that.
For context, a dress in London in 1900 was ~20£ and the *yearly* salary of a young professional was 700£
To reinforce the point others have made: it’s not repair that’s expensive, it’s manufacturing that has been made unbelievably cheap.
Not appliances , but clothing for exemple was hugely expensive. People had one good suit and that was that.
For context, a dress in London in 1900 was ~20£ and the *yearly* salary of a young professional was 700£
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.
Anyone saying expertise in the repair is not true. Yes it does take expertise and that adds on to the cost but it’s really because the cost of the needed part is controlled by the company and they want you to buy new.
It’s so over priced purposely to make repairs not worth it. They also make it so everything is so connected that a small break can require a whole big replacement of a part. It’s all planned out.
A small circuit board for the appliance can cost 800 dollars which is outrages. That is the true reason why it isn’t worth repairing. It should cost like at most 150 with already a hefty profit margin.
So let’s say that plus the technician cost of 200 so out the door 350 which is reasonable. But nope.
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.
Anyone saying expertise in the repair is not true. Yes it does take expertise and that adds on to the cost but it’s really because the cost of the needed part is controlled by the company and they want you to buy new.
It’s so over priced purposely to make repairs not worth it. They also make it so everything is so connected that a small break can require a whole big replacement of a part. It’s all planned out.
A small circuit board for the appliance can cost 800 dollars which is outrages. That is the true reason why it isn’t worth repairing. It should cost like at most 150 with already a hefty profit margin.
So let’s say that plus the technician cost of 200 so out the door 350 which is reasonable. But nope.
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