Electrolux in Sweden do fixed price repairs on machinery up to 10 year old for £150 - parts and labour.

Question would I spend £150 on an item say 8 years old when I can buy new for say £300?

I agree that a more nuanced approach to this is necessary, as my own experience with cars shows that just 'keeping items in stock' does not mean that they are either:

1. Easily available (e.g. are kept in the HQ country, and thus delivery can take many days/weeks unless you want to pay a small fortune to have it sent by air freight asap), or;

2. Reasonably priced. OEM car parts in particular are often horrendously expensive for what they are, or, in many cases, those fixing the fault charge a fortune in hourly costs (with a min. cost) and call out fees (appliances).

It's one of reasons why (pandemic aside) the computer (PC) retail business was very good for customers, because there has been so much choice and almost all of the parts are generic and interchangeable between different manufacturers, plus, if you can diagnose the porblem yourself (not always possible), you can fix the fault/replace the broken part yourself with minimal training/expertise.

With kitchen appliances in praticular, a fault with one (often innocuous/small) part can mean the product is just not worth fixing - case in point - my 15yo Panasonic microwave oven's turntable motor likely failed recently (it stopped working once or twice a couple of years ago then started working again - not this time).

The replacement part cost £15 + about £5 postage. Not bad, but the only access point is via the base, which needs the panel to be cut out and a very stead hand in replacing bits, as things can get lost in the gaps. A secondary part might also be needed, bumping the total cost to about £25 - £30.

Still not bad, but that's if I do the work, and there's no guarantee it'll work after I change out the parts - it could be a PCB fault (though the unit works in every other respect). I checked with my local repair shop, and they wanted to charge nearly £100 for the job (parts included), with just a 1-year guarantee on the work.

I paid about £90 for the microwave oven back in 2006. Admitedly, unlike most other electronics these days (pandemic aside), getting a like-for-like replacement would cost me a lot more (I checked when the turntable stopped working 2 years ago and the costs were similar to today) - £135, but even so, the repair cost vs the age of the unit generally convinced me that buying a replacement was the best option over the long term.

I'm unsure why prices of these products has rise, where others like TVs, etc, have fallen dramatically over the same period. In the end, I bought a Kenwood product costing £85 - it has nearly all the features I wanted, aside from the 'inverter', which is a VERY handy feature.

The problem as I see it is that because many products are very complex (especially on the electronics side of things), i means they are often, but not always, hard to diagnose faults. This, in turn, means that repairers can often justify high hourly rates, though I think they have gone too high.

I also think there is no incentive - quite the opposite in fact, for product manufacturers to build-in complexity, whether through environmental laws (many of which are contradictory and/or daft and achieve little gain in that respect) or as vehicles for manufacturers to earn substantial revenue from repairs and selling spare parts, which often is far more lucrative than selling the new product.

As shown with computer printers, the product is often a loss-leader or barely earns a profit, but its consumables like ink cartridges (OEM ones deliberately short-filled these days to drop the cost of the printer) and other parts, noting that warranties for the product have barely increased in 30 years on many.

Only a few come with a longer manufacturers' warranty (you'll be lucky to get 2 years) - it's only a few retailers like John Lewis (TVs) and Richer Sounds (very cheap extended warrnaties) offer free or low cost warranty extensions.

With cars, certain parts like alloy wheels and tyres are very lucrative money-spinners, given how long they last due to their specs vs road conditions, plus it appears (IMHO) both the car and tyre manufacturers appear to have some kind of 'arrangement' that helps eachother force customers into going the big alloys/low profile tyre route.

There needs to be great thought about these issues from government, given the car 10y stipulation for parts doesn't appear to be working properly acorss the board. Like with pharmacuticals, there needs to be a far bigger 'generic' market and a big push to standardise many components. This should be something that hopefully can improve as the change to EVs comes, but I'm not holding my breath, given what's gone before and experience as regards home electronics.