Probably about the time that it became cheaper to replace a thing than repair it. Labor is expensive in the US, and so are aftermarket parts. It might cost $400 to repair a TV, and $400 to buy a new, 'better' model. I've even witnessed folks choosing to spend a bit more on a new thing rather than repair the old out of fear the old thing will just break again soon and putting them in the same predicament. For most folks, that's a no-brainer. (personally, I would repair it myself, but that's not an option for some due to skills, required equipment, time, etc)
Yes, these are both good points. People remember the good old days of socketed chips that were easier to repair, but wave soldering is cheaper, produces a more reliable product, and fewer connectors means higher signal speeds and/or margin.
> It might cost $400 to repair a TV, and $400 to buy a new, 'better' model.
You are correct. This is also uniquely western. Labor costs are almost as much - and in some cases more than - buying a new item to replace the broken item.
I repaired my AV receiver recently with four $1 capacitors and a YouTube walkthrough. The local electronics repair shops wanted $100-150 just to look at it. Ridiculous.
Edit: this repair took 1.5 hours and required only basic tools and skills.
Yep. You essentially 'ate' the labor costs, which are exorbitant in the US.
I recently had a plumber come in to look at my leaking toilet tank flush.
Cost for parts = 10$ as I later found out at hardware store.
Labor = 236$ (I'm not kidding). It literally took the guy 5 mins to change the flush balloon thingy. I observed him and now do it myself too.
It's almost seems like Plumbers in the city (San Francisco) have ganged up together to set price for any kind of repair. I did call 2 other plumbers and they both quote price in between 220 and 240 USD.
The cost is whatever the market is willing to pay for things. The market is composed of those who are willing to pay for services.
Plumbing parts are cheap in most cases easy to work with and forgiving of screwing up. Turn off the water and start again. This is why poor people fix their own shit. Prices would have to be very cheap to be worth paying for services.
Middle class + are time constrained and willing to pay significant sums to avoid digging into their available time.
Offering a perceptively reasonable price for easy jobs like your toilet would result in lots of people calling them for such easy jobs when they could be engaged in more lucrative matters.
You can see your bill in terms of opportunity cost. Both the value of the middle class persons time saved and the plumbers who could be engaged in more lucrative endeavors.
Since the plumbers time and the average middle class persons afternoon is worth $236 its unlikely that you will find the service for a reasonable price.
So only software developers are allowed to charge "exorbitant" labor rates?
Plumbers (like mechanics) also often have set fees. Sometimes, the repair is really simple, as in your case, and would probably have been very easy to do yourself. Other times, there are going to be complications that can take quite a bit more time.
I'm surprised at comments about the cost of plumber service calls given SF HNers are often programmers commanding 6 figure salaries themselves. Something plumbing and programming have in common is that both are high-demand specializations that most people are not willing/interested in spending their time with. It should be no surprise that these specialists' time isn't cheap.
Probably once or twice a year, I find some piece of electronics out on the curb by the street (stereos, TVs, whatever). It is almost always a blown capacitor on the power board, because we don't have a grid where I live, and so we have pretty unstable power supply (at least by the standards expected by most Americans). Still vastly better power than most places in the world, but it does kill a lot of electronics, which most people just don't fix. So they toss it. And then I come pick it up, replace the blown caps with high quality replacements, and then I have a perfectly good television. It's pretty crazy.
You're probably right, and I've repaired so many over the years that I've started to run out of friends and family to give them to. I get so much out of the actual repair work that I don't feel like I'm losing out on anything, but your comment has got me thinking that it's something that could be valuable charity. I'll look for a proper place to donate. Thanks for the suggestion.
Not being super savvy with electronics - but enjoying to tinker - is this a visually apparent problem or do you need the test the capacitors to identify the issue?
This is almost universally a visually striking thing to identify. If you google for blown capacitors you'll see what I mean. I should also mention that "capacitor plague" is a different specific issue caused by poor quality components. I've seen a few different kinds of failures, but the majority of them are bad capacitors on the power board. The way these things fail (when it's due to a power issue like we see here), there's a loud "pop" sound, and that's a capacitor exploding, usually on the power board. It leaves black marks, soot, etc. I have very rarely ever needed to use my multimeter, although I do use my multimeter anyway, just to ensure I'm actually doing worthwhile repair work. Other things cause shorts on the boards which can damage something and cause someone to throw it away. I have opened up a TV and found one of those big, tropical, "outdoors-only" cockroaches that straddled the wrong traces. Heh I've seen some weird stuff but yeah, usually the problem is very easy to spot.
It doesn't seem unreasonable for a repair shop to charge $100 for a diagnosis if it might take them a couple of hours. I'd expect them to be charging at least $50/hr. for labor. And that would probably be half of the hourly rate for mechanics at an auto dealer. It's great that you were able to do it yourself for next to nothing but these are exactly the economics that make taking something like an AV receiver into a shop to repair so iffy much of the time.
