My tumble dryer stopped working last week. The repair man has just been to fit the parts required. He commented on what good service we'd had from the machine as it is over 10 years old. Said that it was the last of what he considered to be the really good decent machines because of a policy by manufacturers of white goods which ensures that, rather than repairing machines, we will buy new ones.
The cost of spare parts has been increased so that it is almost as expensive to repair a machine as it is to buy a new one. What makes it worse is that many of these machines are basically made from non-biodegradable plastic, with only the outer shells being metal. So we are constantly chucking out machines which will not biodegrade, only to replace them with other ones. Tbh, we did consider buying a new t/d as the cost of repair (£85) is not that much less than buying a new machine. But this machine has given us pretty good service so we decided to stick with it.
Should the government not be looking into this practice? Should manufacturers not be required to produce machines which will last many years, rather than encouraging this easy-come easy-go attitude?
It's all very well getting het up over excessive packaging on fruit, etc., but surely the bigger mountain is discarded white goods.