Report: 86% of Appliance Makers Withhold Repair Manuals - Week in Repair

An investigation of 50 appliance makers found that just 7 made service manuals for their products readily available. The report comes as the FTC weighs requiring OEMs to disclose repair information.

Report: 86% of Appliance Makers Won’t Share Repair Manuals

If you’re wondering why it is so hard and expensive to get your home appliances fixed these days, a new report by right to repair advocates reveals that it is no accident: nearly 9 out of 10 appliance makers refuse to share repair manuals for their products, even to certified repair professionals.

The investigation by US PIRG, iFixit and Repair.org, surveyed 50 appliance makers, 37 appliance technicians and industry experts. The groups also reviewed a wide range of academic research on the topic of appliance repair. The findings of that investigation were shocking. Of the 50 appliance manufacturers examined, just seven made service manuals available; 86% of the companies did not provide full repair instructions. The prohibition even extends to certified repair professionals. Fully 89% of technicians surveyed by the groups said they had trouble accessing service manuals.

Image courtesy of US PIRG.

The report comes as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) considers requiring manufacturers to disclose appliance repair instructions. The FTC in October released an “Advance Notice of Rulemaking” (PDF) and said it was considering a change to the Federal Energy Labeling Rule to “require manufacturers to include information on how consumers can repair their products.” Access to repair information, the FTC explained, “will strengthen consumers’ right to repair damaged products, without the need to go back to the manufacturer, providing them with potentially lower-cost repair options.”

“The manufacturers that make our home appliances have an incentive to either monopolize repair or discourage it so that their customers are forced to buy new products,” said Nathan Proctor, “People are fed up. It shouldn’t be so hard to access a repair manual. We want dishwashers and refrigerators that are easy to fix and last a long time.”

Manufacturers’ shenanigans was not limited to restricting access to repair information, the investigation found. They also limit owner and independent repair by requiring expensive subscriptions to software service tools to fix appliances. GE, for example, charges $919 per year for software tools, which effectively prices out “do-it-yourself” repair and drives up repair costs.

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• Montana Farmers Bureau chief says agriculture right to repair still needs to be fixed: Walter Schweitzer of the Montana Farmers Bureau wrote a piece in the Missoulian pointing out flaws in the recently announced memorandum of understanding (MOU) between John Deere and the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Even if John Deere honored this MOU, it still doesn’t provide the right to repair, only the right to diagnose,” Schweitzer wrote.

• Governments turn to EPR on waste: Only 5% of recycled materials are actually recycled in the U.S. and 36% of plastic produced is used for packaging (85% of packaging ends up in landfills.)

  • Environmental Social Governance (ESG) reporting and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs are all becoming more popular in the U.S. to hold companies accountable for the downstream effects of their production.

• “Internet of Things” continues rapid growth: The number of connected IoT devices grew to 14.4 billion with a $202 billion in enterprise spending in 2022.

• Fairfone gets $53 million in investing round: The Dutch electronics producer of modular smartphones, has raised €49 million ($53 million) in growth capital from a consortium of international investors to strengthen its brand positioning, integrate fair and recycled materials into its products, improve customer service, and increase device longevity.

• Google releases Pixel repair manuals in France: Google has made self-repair manuals available for the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, however, the manuals are currently only accessible to users in France through the company's support page, but outside users can access it through a VPN.

• Tesla repairs too expensive for insurers: Insurance companies are writing off brand-new Tesla vehicles as too expensive to repair, according to Reuters, which verified more than 120 Model Y units that were totaled after crashes and listed on auction sites, with most of them having fewer than 10,000 miles on the odometer.

• California introduces electronic repair legislation: Senate Bill 244, known as the Right to Repair Act, would require the manufacturer of electronic or appliance products to make available: sufficient service literature, functional parts, and tools. These will be available for product owners, service, repair facilities, and service dealers.

  • This requirement would apply to products with wholesale prices to the retailer ranging from $50 to $99.99

  • The manufacturer would be required to provide these resources for at least 3 years after the date a product model or type was manufactured.

  • Manufacturer would be required to provide these resources for at least 7 years after the date a product model or type was manufactured.