The paradox is that the same design features that make the assembly unrepairable are the ones that make it affordable to manufacture.
There’s an old saying that you can tell a natural-born engineer because he’ll spend an entire weekend and $249 repairing something that could be replaced for $29.95. I cannot count the weekends I’ve spent doing that. I simply can’t resist the challenge. {
As long as they perform their main function is all that matters; lasting long enough to get through the warranty period.
@The same mountainbike; I’m the same way and will either repair an item or even design my own and build it myself. I always find the experience rewarding in the satisfaction that I built it myself.
I never needed a hydraulic press for anything other than wheel bearings. But I spent a day cutting and welding up my own press to mount on my 2 foot X 4 foot welding table. The whole point was to have something that didn’t take up so much floor space. After building it, I realized I could have gone to Harbor Freight and bought one for half the price and just cut the legs shorter before I assembled it.
But then Harbor Freights Hydraulic jack probably would have only lasted through one wheel bearing.
Yosemite.
The mistake most people make with hydraulic presses is that they go by the price rather than the rating. 10 or 12 tons sounds like a loot, but it isn’t really. With wheel bearings, you want the highest rating you can afford, no less that 30 tons.
Anyway, yeah, I’ll usually repair or design and build my own if at all possible. I too find doing so to be rewarding. I’d love to build a car from the ground up, but I lack the budget and the facilities to do so. If I won the lottery, the first thing I’d do is build a house with a 4-wide, 2-deep garage with high rafters, a lift, lots of good lighting, and a dedicated 220 power line for a welder.
I’d like to build a boat too, but that’s another forum.
The blower motor died on my 79 Camaro. I had to remove inner fender to reach it. My car had working a/c. I could see blower motor but could not touch it. Was a simple job, but tedious.
I had the bearings,of the blower motor become noisy on my 1978 Olds Cutlass about 1 month after the warranty expired. I paid the dealer for the new motor and installation, but I wrote to Oldsmobile customer service and they reimbursed me. The next time the motor failed, I bought a motor with a lifetime guarantee at NAPA. In the 33_years,I owned the car I replaced the motor 3 or 4 times. It was a 10 minute job.
When I worked for a local Ford dealer in the mid-'70s, we usually replaced the blower motor on slightly earlier Ford pick-ups from under the hood by putting a cut in the outer flange of the blower and its plenum. After removing the screws that held the blower in place, half of the cut in the blower could be bent inwards. Then the the blower could be "uscrewed " out of the plenum by turning it out like a big screw. It made the repair take 20 minutes instead of three hours by the under dash method suggested by the book. The owners were given the option, considering that it would leave a blemish on the plenum and new blower that was sealed with putty. I never saw one decline paying for the cheaper repair.