You've discovered the high price of American labor . . . and most repairmen would rather replace something than "fix" it. Or he simply doesn't want to fuss with it, which is more likely the real reason.
We are all now in a throwaway society -- don't fix anything; just go out and buy something new . . . something where the cost of labor is pennies on the dollar.
Gary Hildebrand St. Joseph, MO
On 8/10/07, kclug-request@kclug.org kclug-request@kclug.org wrote:
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Today's Topics:
- Re: Laptop repair (David Ambs)
Message: 1 Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 10:15:04 -0500 (CDT) From: David Ambs dave@ambs.net Subject: Re: Laptop repair To: kclug@kclug.org Message-ID: Pine.LNX.4.64.0708101010570.9761@surreal.mirage.org Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed
I have a Dell Inspiron 9300 with the back light gone out. I have been quoted $350 for parts and $50 for labor. Would you guys think that
this is
a fair estimate?
I'm no repairman, but $350 sounds pretty high for the work that's involved.
I replaced the inverter in my Inspiron 8600 just last year. I bought the inverter from Hypertech<I think>, it was about $45. It's very simple to replace if you can take the display apart. I actually replaced the bulb first w/o luck, it took a little more work though.
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End of Kclug Digest, Vol 37, Issue 9
On Monday 13 August 2007 01:24:45 pm gary hildebrand wrote:
You've discovered the high price of American labor . . . and most repairmen would rather replace something than "fix" it. Or he simply doesn't want to fuss with it, which is more likely the real reason.
We are all now in a throwaway society ...
Kids these days, everybody's a critic, barbarians at the gate, hell in a handbasket, etc. My wife has a text from about 3,500 BCE that says pretty much the same.
Take a look at what it would cost for a knowledgeable technician to troubleshoot down to the component level and fix a system rather than replace a module. Do you want to pay the difference? You'd be outraged if somebody charged you for that.
At the very least, the savings of troubleshooting the module on a bench where you have automated test equipment and room for plenty of gear and spare parts, wave-soldering tanks, etc. make it much more reasonable to swap a module and get you up and running that much quicker.
It's not the high price of American labor, it's the high price of _skilled_ labor, and the low price of machine-made spares. Often a whole module can be manufactured for less than it costs to troubleshoot a bad component, so it's not even bench-refurbished.
Add to that the cost of having an inventory of new/refurbished modules facing a very rapid obsolescence, and pretty soon you have a warehouse of junk you can't give away. You're paying taxes on it too!
It's pretty clear the most of the people who replied to this thread didn't read the original message very carefully. Labor wasn't the high cost in this particular instance.
Yep, that's why I thought it sounded backwards if it was a component replacement. At rates of $40-80/hr It makes more financial sense for a shop to do a whole module. If it's not a warranty repair or if it is something that can be done at home by a competent person, it would make more sense to replace the component.
Jon.
On 8/13/07, Jonathan Hutchins hutchins@tarcanfel.org wrote:
It's pretty clear the most of the people who replied to this thread didn't read the original message very carefully. Labor wasn't the high cost in this particular instance. _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
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