Fix or replace?

HiTempguy wrote: This has been said, but really, it's all about cost benefit: How much time will it take me, and how much money will I save? If it costs more to fix then to replace, then you replace it. Pretty straightforward.

Sort of.

I had a starter on my GMC that I needed to replace because I was swapping transmissions and it needed to mount differently. I bought the cheapie from O'autovance, removed the nosecone, swapped it with mine, put my nosecone on their and returned it as the core.

Now, my part wasn't broken, but still, sometimes old junk is more reliable/better built/whatever even if you have to fix it.

Probably not with a table from Lowes, though.

HiTempguy wrote: This has been said, but really, it's all about cost benefit: How much time will it take me, and how much money will I save? If it costs more to fix then to replace, then you replace it. Pretty straightforward.

Not entirely. At least not for me. If a high-quality old something-or-other breaks, I will fix it at almost any cost if the only available new replacement is a cheap piece of junk made you-know-where.

In reply to Duke:

Wuss.

PeterAK wrote: What a waste David. You should have made a go cart out of it and written an article about the process.

Crap, that is a good idea.

While driving to work this morning I passed one of our local Jawas, but I didn't see my green table frame in his truck.

David S. Wallens wrote:

PeterAK wrote: What a waste David. You should have made a go cart out of it and written an article about the process.

Crap, that is a good idea. While driving to work this morning I passed one of our local Jawas, but I didn't see my green table frame in his truck.

Yes, it's a VERY good idea. HF has a cheap and wimpy horizontal shaft motors that would be perfect.

My last two full time jobs involved a lot of rebuilding. Company owned fleet of fork lifts. we rebuilt everything, even had spare on the shelf. John Deere dealer. Did a lot of work on old stuff. Anybody fixed a Wico inertia magneto lately ?

Dr. Hess wrote: Wally World sells waffle irons. Nice fancy ones that spin over like at the hotel breakfast bar. I've also seen regular ones there. I like waffles, but, alas, Too Many Calories for me, especially when you put a 1" thick slice of chocolate chip ice cream between 2 of them... I bought some machine tools from my industrial quality machine tool supplier a few months back. Taps, dies, handles for taps and dies, etc. All of it was made in China. I asked the sales guy if any of that was available from a US supplier and he thought a minute and said one piece might be available from a US source, but it would cost 2 or 3 times as much for basically the same quality. Nothing else was even made here anymore. Thanks W.J.Clinton for starting that process and W. for not stopping it. As a side thought, Bill and Hill thought they were going to screw us over by banning the importation of cheap Chinese rifles, handguns and ammo. What they accomplished was the creation of a new cottage industry and the preservation of our existing arms industry. If it hadn't been for that, there wouldn't be hundreds of different AR builders, AK builders, custom hand gun makers, parts makers, ammo makers, etc. I think even the big ones like Colt, Ruger and Remington would have been seriously hurt or destroyed. Perhaps not exactly what Bill and Hill had in mind, but, hey, think of the jobs created or saved.

Blame the free market. Simple economics dictates that if I can get a part made here for $500 and elsewhere for $10; the part should be made elsewhere.

Controls on a market aren't great solutions either.

In reply to HiTempguy: (just picking on you a little for example here but really this is all of us)

If we are getting real then we have to consider where all the stuff we throw away goes, not that much of it gets repaired/recycled. Most of it gets dumped somewhere that comes back to haunt us (like in our water http://apps.pathology.jhu.edu/blogs/pathology/going-green-in-pathology or air for us in china they have pink water and lakes that look like paintings http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4841333/Polluted-Chinese-lake-looks-just-like-oil-painting.html ). Then the natural resources are diminished as is the environment when the unregulated factories get more raw materials to make a new table.

Then there is the diminish-ment of the people (and their families) that make and sell the new table. They have to work more and harder for the same pay (less than a living wage) to make sure their rich owners keep seeing profit. Because if there aren't enough of the new cheap tables walmart will find another manufacturer. Is that table worth it to make an entire family work 16+ hours a day 7 days a week, and just to barely to eek out a living at that?

Its easy to say the problems only effect some 13 year old girl in china and turn a blind eye, but the problem is here too. We are all giving away our good factory jobs and our nation is starting to shift to working low paying customer service/retail jobs at walmart (other places too but wally world employs more people in the US than any other place 1of 13 of the entire US populous ). As things are changing now the good paying work that gives you the option to decide "How much time will it take me, and how much money will I save?' will turn into I have to live with it, or fix because walmart doesn't pay enough to afford even their table.

We as buyers need to change the way our economy is going. The congressmen get their jobs from the rich, neither of them are going to fix our problems. The consumer is the last hope to fix this. We are the ones telling walmart to keep those tables coming, and at a higher price than the yellow sticker reads.

Walmart has a "Sell USA made products" campaign going on now, just so you know. Coming full circle, I suppose. Sam strived to sell US made stuff. It was hard to find import stuff at wally world when he was alive. Of course, he also required his VP's to drive a car no fancier than a Buick or be fired.

jere wrote: In reply to HiTempguy: (just picking on you a little for example here but really this is all of us)

I have my own opinions on what is happening in your country, but considering that there are many countries that are surviving perfectly fine in this "global" economy, the reasons are much too political to state here.