In article , "William Sommerwerck" wrote:
It appears there is no Federal law, but many states require manufacturers
to at least provide some "satisfactory" solution to service problems for a
period of time after a product is discontinued.

That is so vague that it is unenforceable, unless you are talking about
products that are covered under warranty or extended service contracts.

This is what I was told by my friend at Sony, who heads the parts department.

According to her, the period of time is 7 years in California.

Virtually all products are implicitly covered by the common-law implied
warranty
of merchantability. Enforcing it is difficult, and it appears that many state
laws have chipped away at it over the years.

I do know for sure that anything sold to Government or US Military under
contract requires a certain amount of parts availability.

I do know for sure that anything sold to Government or US Military under
contract requires a certain amount of parts availability.

That is not by federal law, but by specification in the contract. It then
becomes a matter of contract law between two parties.

On Wed, 5 May 2004 7:00:20 -0700, William Sommerwerck wrote
(in message ):

This is what I was told by my friend at Sony, who heads the parts department.

According to her, the period of time is 7 years in California.
--------------------------------snip----------------------------------

Bill, did you ask her about the rumor that Sony is about to let a lot of
parts (almost a million dollars' worth) go out of stock? That's what we
heard, and also that somebody has determined that it's easier for them to
just replace units outright, rather than spend the money for a service person
to repair them.

If nothing else, this would help explain the rash of Sony factory service
centers that have recently been closed all over North America.

--MFW

This is what I was told by my friend at Sony, who heads the parts department.
According to her, the period of time is 7 years in California.

Bill, did you ask her about the rumor that Sony is about to let
a lot of parts (almost a million dollars' worth) go out of stock?
That's what we heard, and also that somebody has determined
that it's easier for them to just replace units outright, rather than
spend the money for a service person to repair them.

No, I forgot to.

Considering how grossly overpriced Sony parts tend to be, $1M worth isn't that
much.

The question of "replacement versus repair" would seem to depend on the item's
price. For cheap items -- and especially considering Sony's virtually
non-existent warranty on them -- in-warranty replacement would seem to be a good
idea.

This approach also assumes owners are almost always going to throw away a
broken-but-out-of-warranty $50 Discman, rather than have it repaired.

I don't see how it can be economically advantageous to replace expensive
products rather than fix them, especially when a lot of such repairs could be
handled (relatively) quickly with a board replacement.

By the way, GE used to handle warranty repairs by swapping for a reconditioned
unit of the same model. The customer got a prompt "repair," and the technicians
could work on a half-dozen of a given model at the same time, which ought to be
quite efficient.


If nothing else, this would help explain the rash of Sony factory service
centers that have recently been closed all over North America.

It might, but not all of them closed. Of course, electronic service shops in
general are closing.