Every now and again you see a thing that just gets your goat, some you can let go and some, well not so much. APPLiA did that for me this week.
If you don’t know who APPLiA is, it’s a trade association that represents European appliance manufacturers and used to be CECED but quite what APPLiA actually stands for or means, your guess is as good as mine, because despite some time trying to find out, I failed.
It does represent a bunch of different regional associations though, like AMDEA here in the UK, to Europe.
What I can say is, they’ve been pumping out tons of stuff on LinkedIn, X and wherever.
A lot of it, I couldn’t give two hoots about, as they seem to be banging on about how European manufacturing is ever so important (no argument here) and how disadvantaged they are compared with non-EU manufacturing. But that includes Turkey (obvs, given the sheer volumes that come from there these days) even although Turkey… checks notes… nope, still isn’t an EU member.
Whatever.
Anyway, one of the things that they spewed out of their propaganda machine the other day was that 95% of busted appliances were repaired.
The actual post was as follows: see if you can spot that’s wrong before I rip into it:
"Repair works in Europe’s home appliance industry. At scale.
Today, 95 percent of repair requests result in a successful repair. In simple terms, 19 out of 20 appliances brought in for repair are fixed and kept in use, rather than being replaced.
That is not accidental. It reflects how appliances are designed, supported and serviced. Spare parts availability, repair networks and warranties make repair the normal outcome, not a last resort.
This is circularity in practice. Products that last longer, resources used more efficiently, and consumers getting more value from what they already own.
To strengthen what already works, Europe needs to ensure the right conditions for repair, durability and fair competition."
First line, yeah of course repairs work… if you can repair the damn things!
95% successful repairs? Of What? Where? Brought in where?
In warranty field repairs, maybe. You might get to that number or perhaps higher but it’d depend on what brands, products and so on. And, how the numbers are presented… or fudged.
Warranty returns, sure, with the resources and such in place, you could get that high. I know, I’ve been involved in that kind of thing in a past life so I know that’s achievable. I say “achievable” because you couldn’t guarantee it, depends on what we’re talking about here.
But that’s the point, there’s no details on what this is, where this figure came from, what products they’re talking about. Nothing, no info.
They had a link, that led to a page about protecting EU manufacturing, nothing at all on or about repairs or this random claim.
Critical Thinking
This stuff really annoys me because some people will just accept this kinda thing and move on, deluded that “it’s a fact” that appliances are repaired no problem 95% of the time.
Which obviously (to anyone involved in repairs and spares independently) isn’t true.
Not when you consider the sheer amount of sealed units, stupidly priced parts, restricted information to enable repairs and goodness knows what all barriers that a number of the members of APPLiA put in the way of both end users and independent repairers to prevent successful repairs.
Let me stress and be very clear here, they are not all the same and are not all equal and not all prevent or hamper repairs but some of them are well known to be “problematic” within the industry.
Of the 25 brands listed, at least ten don’t produce major domestics; of those that remain at least eight use the likes of sealed tanks (for example) and such, complete assemblies etc that make repairs not economically viable when they wear out, and they wear out.
Around eight or so restrict any access to technical information and/or parts information.
And all of them have parts that are, well, let’s just say somewhat overpriced on occasion.
All of which means that, once these products get out of warranty and need real repairs, out there in the real world where most folks live, there are a lot of barriers to a “successful repair” and hitting a 95% repair metric simply is not happening.
Despite the Right To Repair stuff.
At a guess, they don’t want to advertise that fact to lawmakers.
Anyone, APPLiA or whoever, in whatever industry, should be called out on this sort of thing, as it’s at best misleading if not just a pack of lies to support a position or assertion that at best tenuous, if not plainly untrue.
And lawmakers need to hear more than propaganda pumped out by one side, representing only one facet of any topic.