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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 30th, 2023

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  • The EU has been grappling with right to repair laws for over 10 years now. It’s a complete shit show.

    At the moment, a washing machine maker in the EU is only required to release repair documentation to professional repairers who are insured, not consumers. And they only have to do it in the 1st 10 years, not in the time period that things actually break. At the 10 year mark, they automatically lose the docs and stop making parts.

    The law you reference is not yet in force AFAIK. But when it comes into force and each member state eventually legislates, look at what we are getting-- from your reference:

    A European information form can be offered to consumers to help them assess and compare repair services (detailing the nature of the defect, price and duration of the repair). To make the repair process easier, a European online platform with national sections will be set up to help consumers easily find local repair shops, sellers of refurbished goods, buyers of defective items or community-led repair initiatives, such as repair cafes.

    That’s crap. It’s fuck all. Consumers are not getting service manuals. They are just being told where they can go to get someone else to do the work. We can of course already find repair cafes because they publish their own location. But repairers at repair cafes are just winging it. You cannot bring them a large appliance like a washer. They don’t even have water and drain hookups. And even if one repair cafe made an exception for large appliances, their repairers are not insured and thus cannot legally get access to service manuals.

    Everything at the state/fed/intl levels is a total shitshow. This is why I asked in the OP what can be done at the local level.