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France introduces a law mandating 12 year support for products

I recall hearing something on BBC Radio 4 a while back that discussed something similar here in the UK.
Domestic appliances and telephones were the main topic of discussion. People are thoroughly cheesed off with machines that are just out of warranty going tech and the cost of the repair being prohibitive.

Incidentally, had anyone notice how much more difficult it is to get a satisfactory result from a modern washing machine versus an old one?
The requirement to consume minimal energy and water renders these machines far less capable than the old ones that didn’t have to comply with such legislation.

Forever learning
EGTB

Wonder if the French law extends to submarines

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Oxford EGTK

Stickandrudderman wrote:

Incidentally, had anyone notice how much more difficult it is to get a satisfactory result from a modern washing machine versus an old one?

No, not really – our 2 year old machine (which replaced a nearly 20 year old machine) does just as good of a job. It wasn’t even a particularly expensive machine.

Andreas IOM

The French law, is probably aimed more at washing machines, tumble dryers, printers and other such electrical products about which many people have complained that as soon as the guarantee finishes the product does to.
Look at laptop batteries for instance. Once out of guarantee the battery no longer holds charge and of course the batteries are no longer available. Computer printers why do they fail just after you’ve ordered half a dozen new ink cartridges which of course do not fit the next model of printer from the same country?
You will have noted that it has been brought in under the environmental banner which makes its acceptance much more popular.
@Charlie I think that comment is not worthy of response. It is just snide.

France

@gallois it was not intended that way and I apologise if that’s how it came across

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Oxford EGTK

I think the boat builder will be too dead to worry about providing you service. But a wooden boat is perhaps the exemplar of something that’s easily repairable in the field by anyone with wooden boat building skills (including in many cases the owner), and doesn’t need the unfortunate drowned boat builder specifically if you need to have something fixed.

That’s a different topic altogether. Manufacturer supporting the product vs the product is repairable. Repairing a large wooden boat isn’t for everyone. Everything is repairable in principle. The question is how much money and recourse you will put into it. In the end it’s a question of the cost of a new one vs the cost of repair.

Supporting a product for 12 years therefore only means the product will be considerably more expensive, and with no other added benefits. In fact it will better to produce it even cheaper, and of course sell it for more. The support is then to send it in when broken and get a new one, for a considerably fee. It becomes more like a renting service, only you sign up for 12 years.

Making a product more repairable does not require support of the manufacturer. The product will also then become more expensive, but with the added quality that it can be repaired when needed, without signing up for 12 years at a time.

I wonder who is pushing this. It seems to me the manufacturer will gain most, while the consumer looses in quality and cost, and becomes tied up to the manufacturer

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Stickandrudderman wrote:

Incidentally, had anyone notice how much more difficult it is to get a satisfactory result from a modern washing machine versus an old one?

No, but I have noticed that washing takes more time. This is particularly noticeable with dishwasher machines.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

LeSving wrote:

Supporting a product for 12 years therefore only means the product will be considerably more expensive,

I don’t think it should necessarily be much more expensive. For most products except the cheapest ones, it should be enough just to provide spare parts and possibly improve a few joints between components so they could be disassembled and reassembled without damage. Yes, a repair by the official dealer would be costly, but France already has an emerging culture of “repair cafes”.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

The question is how much it helps the environment. As a small manufacturer you will have to buy a huge stock of parts before they are no longer available. As you do not know which parts will break you have stocked piles of parts which will never be required. Then after 12 years of well heated storage it goes to the waste dump. But customers do not see this so it kind of did not happen. I try to support all my products as long as possible even with redesigns, upgrades etc. but if I had to gurantee 12 years for each unit not knowing which components last how long the pile of waste would be huge.

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Like I said, much will depend on the details. You could “maintain” an ADL150 “for ever” simply by offering another box which does the same job. The cost? That’s the detail

It is fairly normal for chip makers to assure a 10+ year production life e.g. here. The problem is that the end product mfg does’t want to get involved in such a warranty (outside of the automotive/space sectors where they have no choice).

One can usually get rid of old stocks to the cowboy chip sellers; plenty of them in the US.

However France would never pass such a law unless there was a clear route to circumventing it in reality. It’s called “politics”.

Otherwise, a lot of companies will stop selling to France. Hmmm, just like a lot of mainland companies have stopped selling to the UK, due to the £135 business

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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