My Samsung TV will start showing bad artifacts like there are compression dropouts on the HDMI. The first time it happened I tried swapping cables and Blu-ray players but it didn't work. Finally I unplugged the TV and plugged it back in, and it's all good. I've had to do it twice more since then.

I actually just replaced a 3 year old Samsung Electric Dryer. The heat was no longer working, and I suspect it was the heating element. To access the heating element required me to: - Take off the control board - Take off the entire top of the dryer - Take out the door - Take out the Front panel - Take out the drum

I only figured this out after finding a service manual, as I did not want to risk destroying a dryer to figure out how to fix it. A new heating element was $80 off the grey market. I wanted to see how much it would be to get it fixed by a service place, and any service place I went to wanted to charge $100 just to look at it!

When I saw a new dryer was $400, I just decided I did not want to deal with it anymore and bought a new dryer.

I will not be buying Samsung products again.

That the way all new washer / dryers are now. It's cheaper to replace than to fix them... the cost/benefit of having someone come out to see what the problem is just isn't worth it anymore. This isn't a Samsung thing... I had the same thing happen with a Whirlpool washing machine just a few years ago.

And I did take the thing apart to see what needed fixing -- it would have been much more expensive to fix it rather than replace it.

I agree, at $100 to bring someone out just to look at it (and not even fix!)...it really isn't worth it. Some dryers seemed to be a bit more friendly, I ended up getting a dryer that you could remove the back panel. I would assume (more hope) this makes it easier to replace parts.

Continuing in to off-topic-ness, I had to replace the heater element on our Samsung dryer at about 6 years of age or so. It wasn't hard, but I have really good mechanical aptitude (for lack of a better way to put it). I think you should have attempted disassembly yourself (without buying the heater element first), just to see if it was actually hard to do. You might have surprised yourself.

I halfway disassembled it, and I knew I could do it, I just value my free time more than that (I'd rather spend the $400 to have my weekend). The other concern is a heating element is a relatively simple thing, so for that to go out after 3 years, I was concerned other things would go out too, making me have to fix it again.

the situation reminds me of 1950's American cars in Cuba, or the situation with MacBooks and other Macs. replacement is so expensive, some people just repair the product themselves.

is it necessarily a bad thing that, for some products in some times/places, people find repairing their own products the best option?

It is not, if the part was easier to replace I probably would have done that. However I was concerned other things would go out if the heating element died (it's not a complicated part, so I question the workmanship on it). I really wish I did not have to go to grey sources to get a spare part and the service manual, and that they would be designed with repairability in mind, I would pay extra for that.

Shit hardware too as you find out when they need repair. Components are combined for cheaper manufacture, so don't expect to easily replace a defrost heater element without a whole bunch of other components in the block and a regas at the same time.

Unfortunately most makers are at this game now. No surprise that it promotes a lot more replacements when you can't change the £20 broken part but have to get some £250 thing that includes lots else.