Undercover video exposes Apple’s price-gouging on repairs

The CBC was quoted $1,200 to fix a laptop by Apple. An independent tech fixed it in under two minutes, and for free.

Independent repair is critical to fixing our relationship with throwaway products and our throwaway culture.

When the only option for repair is going to the companies that made the product, there is a perverse incentive to get the customer to upgrade to the newest version. That’s why we need repair options, and why companies need to stop blocking access to repair from third parties. More options for repair means lower cost, and less waste.

And, as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) found, sometimes the cost difference is staggering:

I hear stories like this a lot.

In testimony in Washington state, Brian Englehard told a story of his work repairing computers (you can find his testimony here, starting at 1:04:11). A local school district had 20 iMac computers, sitting in storage. Apple told them they were completely dead and would be $1,000-$1,200 to fix. The school instead replaced the computers, at around $2,000 each. Mr. Inglehart asked to take a look at a computer, opened it, and discovered the problem was an internal battery had gone dead — a $1.75 part. He thinks the school could have repaired them for a few hundred dollars, instead of the $40,000 they paid to replace them.

Much of the problem with both of these examples is that Apple techs seem to read a few indicators and then propose replacing all the components affected. Meanwhile, the independent tech starts by troubleshooting things that don’t require replacing all the parts.

Many repair techs will tell you that the most common problems in electronics are broken connections, switches or power supplies. Louis Rossmann, the computer repair technician featured in the CBC piece, and who has a well-known YouTube channel, found a broken connection almost immediately, fixed it quickly and the computer was working like new.

But unless we pass Right to Repair reforms, we might not have options like Louis Rossmann to take our computers to.

The CBC story also touches on “Battery Gate,” when technicians discovered Apple was throttling iPhone processors if the phone had older batteries. After that story broke, U.S. PIRG did a survey of 164 independent repair businesses who reported a 37 percent increase in weekly battery replacement service requests in the month after news broke.

Self-repair interest surged as well — online traffic to iPhone battery repair instructions went up 153 percent. Overall, 180,000 people viewed instructions between Dec. 20, 2017 and Jan. 22, 2018.

Our findings reinforced the fact that people want repair options. Even though Apple was offering a low-cost battery replacement plan in light of the scandal, independent technicians still saw a big surge in battery replacement requests.

And over the next few months, we saw a big surge in Right to Repair laws introduced across the country. Go figure.

The fact is, people know it’s becoming too much of a hassle to fix our computers, phones, appliances and other devices. It’s becoming more inconvenient and expensive, with fewer reliable options. A lot of us have been in a position where we were told the repairs would cost more than the cost of a new item. And when we see exposés like the one CBC did, we have to ask ourselves, were we misled?

We might never get that $1,200 back. But, by backing Right to Repair, we can make sure we have options to keep our stuff working.