Upgrading through replacement parts
I was interested by a piece on Gizmodo reporting that Leica — rather than releasing brand new models of their digital rangefinders — are offering a service whereby they will upgrade the components of your Leica M8. Given that the M8 costs $4795 (body only — sheesh) that’s probably just as well.
It’s rare enough these days to find companies making products which are repairable at all, so it’s great to see some enabling not only repair, but also upgrades to the features as technology advances.
We’re having problems with our espresso maker at the moment, not much more than a year after we bought it. We’re going to try get it repaired (it’s a Krups model) because I hate the thought of the financial and ecological waste of essentially throwing out a product so soon after we bought it. We’ve treated it with care (cleaning and de-scaling it regularly, using filtered water in the tank and so on), but we do use it at least once a day. It seems really difficult to find home appliances that are actually built for frequent use, unless you buy one intended for commercial use.
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It's rare to see this, as you say.
Have you seen The Story of Stuff? http://www.storyofstuff.com/
by Pica @ 02/02/2008 1:12 pm • Permalink •
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Bsag old beaness, I would suggest that you jump up and down on Krupp from a great height, clearly your "not a coffee maker any more" is not fit for purpose. Once a day is very light use, and any claim by Krupp that "The warranty has expired" is untenable; just one year is not a reasonable length of time for a domestic appliance to work before failure. I would express all this in writing and demand a replacement; and inform them that should you not have heard within 4 days, copies of the letter will be going to Watchdog, Which Magazine, What Domestic Appliance, and that the offending item will be passed to The Electrical Engineering Department at the University at which you work to report on the standard of manufacture ................ This approach works well when you are correct.
by Jonathan Briggs @ 02/02/2008 5:43 pm • Permalink •
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Pica: Nice! I haven't seen that before. Pretty good.
Jonathan Briggs: Not a bad idea at all. Initially, we're getting a quote for repairs. Then we'll lay in with the 'letters to Watchdog' stuff.
Ironically, we bought a Krups machine because we thought it would be better built and more reliable.
by bsag @ 11/02/2008 7:19 pm • Permalink •
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and once you have it working give it away and switch to a stove top coffee maker - after extensive research I recommend the stainless steel one from Ikea.
by Julian @ 17/02/2008 9:13 pm • Permalink •
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Julian: I've found something else, so I might just sell or give away the espresso machine!
by bsag @ 18/02/2008 7:22 pm • Permalink •
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My espresso maker got broken after only one month, and I was desperately looking to find out some good parts to repair it. I finally found on internet a cheap way to buy all the appliance parts you would need. They sent my order quite fast, and in no time, my espresso maker was back in business.
by Ada @ 10/05/2008 3:22 pm • Permalink •
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