Bonus Post: RANT!

The trouble with mass production is that it's created our throwaway society. Why do people pitch things that would take minimal effort to repair? Because of the expense. It costs more to repair an item than to replace it with new. Or damned close.

I've already noted the easily repaired La-Z-Boy I salvaged from the curb during Cleanup Days. That fix involved two screws and some wood glue. The wood piece through which the screws  passed cracked with the invasion of screws slightly larger than the nails they replaced, but if that eventually fails, I'll obtain a replacement piece by some inexpensive means.

But the latest example is the DVD/VHS recorder/player I received recently. It came with the caveat that the VCR half did not work. The last tape inserted into the mouth had to be pried out. Unbelieving such a wild tale, I had to have proof. It just needs a good head-cleaning, I figured. So I tracked down a tape-head cleaner (you know how hard those are to find these days?) and went to work. Clunk. Tape jammed. No ejecting it. No playing. No cleaning. No nothing. Fine. Whatever. I'll just watch a DVD instead of dubbing an old tape for posterity.

The gear in question is to the right of the one
labeled 1, above.

Guess what? With the VHS engaged and jammed, the DVD player wouldn't kick in. No movie that night. So I removed the cover to get at the tape. Head cleaner removed, I gave it another try — maybe it just stuck because I didn't get it going quickly enough when I pushed the tape through the door-flap. Nope. Stuck again. Extract tape and start observing.

Now, I'm not very mechanically inclined, but I eventually figured out that a drive gear was broken. When the machine was powered on I could see the "worm gear" turning in screw-like fashion, but it wasn't connecting with the round gear beneath it, the one that would engage the tape with the mechanics that play, FF and RW. Cool. That looks like a simple enough repair.

Fat chance. I spent 21 minutes on the phone with Sony customer service (several of those minutes waiting for the first representative to track down another who might better grasp my description of the broken part. When we finally got on the same page, Service Rep 2 informed me the part cannot be supplied. I suppose the gear assembly cannot be disassembled to allow for individual replacement. Out of curiosity I thought to ask if the entire VCR interior could be replaced as a unit. Surely that couldn't be too much in this DVD-centric age. Well, if you consider $117 not expensive.

Better view with the crappy part circled.

OK, get it in Galesburg. On to Lindstrom's TV and Appliance I rode to see if they possibly could repair it. The service tech wasn't in but I was told it would be $75 to $80 to fix it (I'm guessing they can't even do it). I understand mechanics enough to know that even the smallest part — a defective O-ring, for example — can wreak havoc or render a machine inoperable. But should something like this make repair fiscally illogical? That simply does not make sense to me.

Here's an interesting tidbit I found just now while searching for an image to accompany this rant.

I discovered during a trip to Walmart yesterday that a comparable Magnavox machine is available new for $140 or $150. Not that I'm buying, just noting the ridiculousness of this situation.