Why didn’t you repair my equipment?

It will likely be one of several logical reasons, depending on the circumstances, such as:

1. Did the budget allow for the complete/recommended repair?
2. Was the equipment viable to repair?
3. Did the equipment have an intermittent fault?
4. Did we explain that further work may be needed?

See, just because a customer takes a 50+ year old piece of equipment for perhaps the first proper attention it has ever received, that doesn’t automagically mean all of its issues are resolved on the first visit for an impossibly small invoiced total. It just doesn’t work like that, unfortunately!

Technical Stuff

We focus on complex, older equipment, often deemed unrepairable by others, often neglected until needing serious attention and presenting with challenging technical faults that need in-depth work to repair. This classic Technics SE-A100 power amplifier that had visited almost every repairer in Perth before we fixed it is the perfect example:

We fix most equipment brought to us for repair, where repairing it properly is viable. This is significant, because much of it:

• Is older equipment, sometimes without service data
• Has visited others who could not effect repair
• Has been damaged by those previous repair attempts
• Requires deep component-level fault-tracing and diagnosis
• Exhibits multiple and sometimes interacting faults

Complex electronic repairs are not like replacing brake pads or changing an air filter. If these sorts of repairs were easy, I can assure you there would be no demand for our services, yet we are almost always fully booked, have a perfect 5-star review record and constantly receive enquiries from around the world specifically about complex repair work.

Put all of that together, and you’ll quickly realise that if we haven’t repaired something, there will be a good and likely simple explanation for it, and you’d want to properly understand what that explanation was. The owner of said equipment will have been carefully briefed, though whether they ‘like’ the answer is, of course, beyond our control and not really our concern.

Viability

There will always be circumstances where repairs aren’t viable, typically when repair costs are likely to exceed equipment value or customer budget. The combined parts and labour cost, and sometimes an element of uncertainty caused by a job’s complexity, can quickly drive costs beyond what a good, working example is worth. Intermittent faults can contribute to this by chewing up diagnostic time.

We consider the make and model, condition, faults, value and work needed to properly repair a piece of equipment and even the customer when making the viability call. Here are some examples of non-viable jobs:

• A customer does not want to have their equipment properly repaired
• A customer does not have the budget to have their equipment properly repaired
• Critical parts and/or substitutes are no longer available
• A repair is unlikely to be reliable, for a variety of reasons
• The equipment is in very poor condition, dirty or damaged
• A customer is problematic, and we’d prefer not to assist them

To avoid disappointment, it’s important to understand that we are not responsible for the condition, faults or repair viability of equipment presented to us. This will be obvious to most, but for some it isn’t.

Example

I was contacted by the owner of an old Philips amplifier, in very poor condition, with various issues. The owner had emptied a can of WD-40 into it, it was modified, damaged, filthy, not well cared for and was brought to me too late, as a basket case. I explained this to the owner, who seemed to understand, but in hindsight, he just wanted the thing fixed and didn’t care about the details.

After working through issues, I concluded that further work was not viable due to its poor condition and uncovering additional problems. Despite only charging our minimum, I was ‘blamed’ for not fixing the amplifier, as though all of its problems were somehow my fault!

Whilst this is obviously a ridiculous position, that customer is now blacklisted as are any others who are rude or ungrateful for the help they receive from us. This is an example of why we screen equipment and customers. We help people, and my time and energy are valuable. We’re here for reasonable people, not all people!