I'm going through an extremely frustrating experience at the moment in that I have a washing machine that's just died. It's only 3 years old and just out of warranty - other than the bearings that need replacing, it's in perfect health.

Naturally, I order the bearings I need and start taking the machine to bits. Low and behold, the tub, which can traditionally be split and bolted back together again is now sealed so you can't service it.

Now I have the choice of buying a whole new tub assembly (including drum and bearings), at £200, or just buying a whole new machine.

But really, I have little choice in the situation. A new machine won't cost much more but will come with a 3-5 year warranty. As a consumer, I only have one reasonable choice to make - but it's the one that's totally wasteful.

I ran into the same issue, and the solution that I found was to find a smaller appliance dealer and get a commercial washer/dryer without the coin acceptor installed. The price is a little bit higher (about 20%), but in my case the washer and dryer (made by Speed Queen) has a 5 year warranty on parts & labor, and 10 year on a few specific parts.

All of the big consumer brands spend a lot of engineering resources on planned failure. My understanding based on talking to one of the engineers that works on this for a major manufacturer is that something like 50% of certain lines, subjected to medium/high use will fail by design between 36-40 months.

I want to cry. The cost of a new one and the inability to fix the old one myself at a reasonable cost is pretty depressing. But the totally unnecessary consumption and waste so corporations can drive up their revenues should very much be criminal.

Exactly, we the consumers are not being tasked with paying for the cost of recoverable electronics. Car manufacturers have been made to improve the recyclability of cars and in the end the actual cost to the buyer has not risen much - and now at the end of a cars life the value is higher due to the easier and more efficient recycling of the materials.

Until we actually pay for the full cost of ownership, then we will continue to pollute. I'd love it if we also had to pay for the actual costs of our energy too - such as the costs that coal powered plants have on society.

> Until we actually pay for the full cost of ownership, then we will continue to pollute. I'd love it if we also had to pay for the actual costs of our energy too - such as the costs that coal powered plants have on society.

I'd love that. But I need to find a new way to argue for it, since most of the time I mention CO₂ emission tax, I get accused of being a bad man who wants fuel to be more expensive.

You mean higher, not lower?

Yes.