I'm guessing it could have been repaired (gas leak?), but the absolute minimum for a tech to come out and try to fix it would have been 150-200 EUR (driving + 1 hour labor), plus parts/gas.
Part of the problem with repairs is that you often don't know what the final price will be. Sure you might get a quote based on a most likely scenario, but if that isn't the problem you just wasted all that money. And due to cost of labor, spending a lot of time troubleshooting isn't viable either.
We just got a new fridge instead, 400 EUR delivered at the door.
Source: two close friends of mine sold their HiAces.
It's the reason #16238 for instituting a carbon tax, and all those reasons are essentially the same: internalizing externalities. If, after accounting for full environmental impact, it turns out that replacing is still cheaper than repairing, then all is fine because the price correctly signals that it is better. In reality though, I'd expect that under carbon taxing, repair would be the better choice.
If it can be made simple[1] and affordable - it becomes a nice home project.
[1]How easy it's to repair a broken drain pump in a washing machine - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv-arx3FKRo
I'm just trying to point out that it's not some grand conspiracy to stop people from repairing stuff - here in the West labour is just very very expensive(which means our wages are also very high, so it's hard to complain). In countries where labour is cheap the same repair suddenly makes sense.
Don't worry, that will change next month
I found somebody on ebay that repairs the boards for 35 (same developed country), popped the hood, took the cables off and sent the small plastic enclosing by post. They probably just replaced a capacitor or so, sent it back to me and voila.
So I don't think the legislation is perfect, but I'm happy there's some movement in the right direction. I think it's obscene to throw away the whole thing because of a tiny repair. Everything still depends on having people skilled to do repairs, but that's maybe also part of the problem. Why is a repair person's job these days to take a manufacturer's part in a plastic enclosing and connect the cables? I can do that myself. If it was some advanced technology fine, but it isn't for a lot of things.
The guy on Ebay is someone with electronics skills who discovered that that particular machine had a very common problem with that board, and offered a service to fix that one thing.
It's too bad that can't be done more. It is done some: smartphone makers frequently will repair their devices, usually by having you ship the phone to a repair center. But an appliance is harder since you still have to have the on-site technician take the machine apart and get the board out for shipping, since you can't rely on consumers to do that. It's too bad consumers aren't smart enough to use a screwdriver and take simple things apart, but that's just how it is.
They are don't like that unqualified people play with gas or electricity, so they certainly don't try to make it easy for people to be able to repair themselves.
That's just a result of high labour cost in western countries though. Parts for appliances are usually pretty cheap, it's getting a specialist to come out that costs an arm and a leg. A heating element for an oven will be like £40, but good luck finding someone to come out and fit it for less than £80-100. Considering you can buy a brand new oven for as little as £200(with free delivery) the option to replace something instead of repairing it is unsurprisingly tempting. The further East you go the cheaper the labour gets, so it's normal that a repair that's completely unreasonable in the UK is actually pretty reasonable in Poland or Slovakia - the same part fitting would cost you maybe 50-100PLN(£10-20)? So actually the parts are almost always more expansive than labour.