Our local MP has signed the Manchester Declaration and has also offered his ‘shop window’ at some point this year, to display the declaration, and also hang some items around it that are impossible to repair either because we can’t get parts, we can’t even open them etc.
I wonder - do we have a list of some of the work offenders, say the top ten, so that I can do a shout in the city for ‘dead items’ so we can use them in the display. (I’d love to hang the actual items rather than simply photos, as think it will be more impactful.
… followed by a long list of brands with 1 or 2 records.
(Can’t really say that Kenwood appliances are more likely to break, it could just happen to be a more popular brand or one that happened to be recorded more by fixers.)
Thank Monique…I might just try and get a selection of items that we can’t fix at our next few sessions and hang them up. Also we neighbour the home of Kenwood, so don’t think it would help our case to highlight them particularly as we have some ex staff from there, and they can fix loads of them
Covering some of the most common issues with items that are difficult/impossible to repair sounds like a good approach.
Some ideas for products:
For impossible to open, how about Apple Airpods (more info). Some toasters and blenders are pretty tricky too.
For short-lived security patches / software updates, certain types of Android phone (I think Huawei have a pretty bad record on this, but perhaps someone else can confirm this)
For issues with quality control, a Nintendo Switch could be eye-catching (and a chance to mention the “JoyCon Drift” issue). Alternatively/additionally, a MacBook with a last-generation butterfly keyboard (for this issue) could work too. As a bonus, both of these are also good examples of manufacturers trying to make repair harder by using unusual/proprietary screws (tri-point for Nintendo and pentalobe for Apple)
iFixit also rates the repairability of various smartphones, tablets and laptops. It might be worth looking at some of the lowest scoring devices there!
on the blenders - I’ve seen at least two Nutri Bullets in recent Restart events. I think the design has weak points (where you need to press down hard on plastic lugs, they are going to break.
Latest thinner luxury no user serviceable/upgradable (i.e. unrepairable= i.e. disposable) notebooks; notably Apple MacbookPro & Microsoft Surface Pro 7
iFixit rating both are 1/10 "the processor, “RAM and flash memory are soliderd the logic board”
Quick comparison: Give some idea why the latest notebooks are awfully worse than before
