Fixing Home Products:
Harder Than You Think
Oct. 9, 2002 -- Ron Mason's apartment is a junkyard of broken gadgets: a busted cellphone, television and videocassette recorder, along with a computer monitor and printer. It's all headed for the trash. Get things fixed? "What's the point?" asks the New York computer consultant. "For a few dollars more, I can just replace it with something brand-new."
If you've tried to get something repaired lately, you know it's frustrating -- but you might not realize just how bad things are. The number of repair shops across the U.S. has dropped by half during the past decade to about 9,000, even as consumers snap up a record $95 billion worth of gadgets a year. Much of the blame goes to the falling price of electronics, which has made it tempting for people to throw broken items away and prompted makers to pare back on service. Now, with the sluggish economy making people think "repair" instead of "replace," finding help can seem impossible, says Ron Sawyer, executive director of the Professional Service Association, a repair-shop trade group. "There's just too much demand and not enough service."
We should know. We spent the past few months trying to get 14 items repaired, from a scanner that wouldn't scan to a toaster that toasted only one side of the bread. Depending on what the makers told us, we sent about half of the items to the companies, and half to local repair shops. A couple of items we even sent to both places, waiting patiently on 800 numbers and punching in choices on phone trees. Along the way, we had moments of euphoria (one local shop fixed our printer -- free of charge), frustration (we had to e-mail one maker three times to get a phone number) and even sheer rage (two weeks and $110 later, our lawn mower still isn't working right).
In the end, we found that it's still possible to get many things fixed -- seven of our items came back working -- but the chances vary widely, mostly according to the gadget. Surprisingly, price has little to do with it: No one would touch our $149 scanner, but our cheaper portable CD player was replaced free. As a rule, local shops did better, although we did track down a far-flung hospital for TiVos (hint: Mount Rushmore). While dealing with the makers could be a hassle, some companies actually let us trade in the busted goods for new items -- at almost a third off.
It's clear, though, that these days some people are looking closer at the repair option. Sony, for example, says demand for repair support from customers is up 15% this year, while Philips Electronics says calls are running 5% higher. "It's cyclical along with the economy," says Ken Goins, who heads up service operations for Philips. "People do get more things fixed instead of getting new things." (In contrast, over the last decade, nearly a quarter of the almost 60 million households with broken items opted to ditch them, according to a survey by eBrain Market Research.)
But in order to defray costs, many companies, including Sony, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Handspring, now charge a fee -- ranging from $9.95 to as much as $25 -- just to talk to a technician on the phone. In some cases, they're taking planned obsolescence to new heights, making gadgets that can't be repaired -- with backs sealed shut or batteries that can't be replaced. At the same time, local fix-it shops, squeezed by low reimbursements for in-warranty repairs and the low prices of replacements, are raising prices -- or going out of business. "It's an impossible formula," says Wayne Markman, owner of Markman TV, in Hamden, Conn., which he says is on the verge of closing up shop. "We just have to limit what we fix to what pays."
Even Elmo has had to adjust. Luis and Maria's Fix It Shop on "Sesame Street," which used to repair toasters, closed this season after 32 years in business and was replaced by the Mail It shop where the monsters can use fax machines and mail packages. The show "had to stay relevant," a producer says.
For our test, we usually started on makers' Web sites, which told us whether to try a list of local repair shops or mail the broken stuff back to them. Here's what happened:
Sony TiVo
Problem: Kept freezing
Result: Now works
These "digital videorecorders" -- essentially fancier takes on the VCR -- have been slow to catch on (fewer than a million had sold by the end of last year) in part because finding one for less than $400 can be hard. That means it's also hard to find anyone who knows how to fix one.
In our case, we had a $499 model that had stopped responding to the remote control six months after we bought it. When we called the company's 800 number, the woman insisted we try to fix it ourselves. We refused, were transferred twice and put on hold for half an hour, and then told again we'd have to try to fix it. When the complicated instructions didn't work, we got fed up and went on the Web, where we actually found a company that specializes in the gadgets, a South Dakota outfit called Lakeview Communications. The folks there said they could fix ours for $49.95 in four days, so we happily shipped it off.
And waited. It turns out Lakeview is just about the only big place fixing TiVos, and sales manager Todd Burns says they can get overwhelmed. When we called after a month, our TiVo had gone missing, and though it was eventually located -- working -- it's unclear whether it actually got fixed, or just needed a good rest. "Maybe it got repaired and got lost in the shuffle," a representative told us.
H-P Scanjet color scanner
Problem: Wouldn't scan
Result: Tossed
This two-year-old scanner was taking up so much room in our office we were really just hoping someone would take it off our hands. No such luck. Not one of the 10 authorized local repair shops listed on the H-P site would touch it. "Just throw it away," one said. "It's dead." The service representative on H-P's help line said the same thing, albeit more politely.
That's the reason Mr. Mason, the computer consultant, never spends more than $150 on a scanner. The machines are especially fragile, he says, because the bulbs inside get shaken easily and crack. "It's irritating," he says. "The companies charge so little knowing these things are going to be replaced." (Indeed, the market for scanners has been so cutthroat prices have fallen as much 15% a year during the past decade.)
If you buy inexpensive, you get inexpensive -- that's the response we received from H-P. "Customers don't expect the same level of support for a $99 product as they do for a $799 product," marketing manager John Solomon says. (Fine, but we paid $149 for our scanner.) His advice: If your broken scanner cost less than $150 and is more than two years old, consider buying a new one.
Sony Camcorder
Problem: No sound
Result: Replaced
When Kim Kelleher's husband dropped their $350 Camcorder, she was so embarrassed that, even though it was still under warranty, she took it to a different shop to get it fixed. Bad idea. Two weeks and $325 later, she says, it still didn't work. So Mrs. Kelleher took it to the original store -- which took six weeks and two tries to fix it. Meanwhile, she'd missed taping her son's first crawl.
After consulting Sony's Web site, we tried the local route, but our fix-it place charged $55 and took two days to open the thing up -- only to tell us it would cost a whopping $482 to mend, more than many new models. Unwilling to give up, we tried Sony. They agreed, but then faxed us a list of new videocameras we could get at a discount in exchange for our old one. We chose one for $250 -- almost a third off what we'd pay retail. Even better: A couple of days later, we got a surprise package in the mail. We'd accidentally left a tape in the camera, and Sony had sent it back, gratis.
1991 Toro lawn mower
Problem: Wouldn't start
Result: Fixed, with problems
A lawn mower isn't something you can just drop in the mail, and, as we found, it's getting harder to find a place to fix one. Indeed, there's something of a national crisis in the industry, says Victor Medina, executive director of the Service Dealers Association, a Dallas group formed to combat the shortage of lawn-mower techs. With prices for new mowers down, and with consumers unwilling to shell out for repairs, Mr. Medina estimates 20% of all lawn-mower service stores have closed during the past two years.
Luckily, we found a place called Tree Tools not far from our house, and took our mower by. The man behind the counter leapt up and pulled the mower from our car, then gave us an estimate of two weeks and $105 for what he said would be a tune-up. That was more than a smaller place in town would have charged, in part because Tree Tools is an authorized Toro dealer (experts say authorized shops generally charge about 10% more for any work).
Our grass overgrown, we went to pick up the mower two days later than promised. It started, but was stuck in third gear, and the shop told us it'd take at least another week to get the parts. With the grass out of control, we took our machine home -- and ran behind it.
Epson color printer
Problem: Streaks on page
Result: Fixed
It was at the printer shop that we found nirvana. Lugging our $499 Epson color printer that was leaving streaks on our documents, we headed to the Printer Place, a local shop suggested by Epson. There, behind the counter in a bustling one-room store, a hurried tech asked us, "Are you sure you have ink in there?"
Yes, we said with a glare, expecting a long hassle. Instead, he went to work on the spot, pulling out a giant Q-Tip and cleaning around the printer head. Forget about months, this repair took 10 minutes. And the problem was our cat, Shmoopie.
"That's the culprit," the tech said, removing cat hair. He didn't charge us a dime.
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