Many items have a useful life of less than 2 years. How do they determine what a "reasonable" expectancy should be?
I am a human being, so by definition I am not a lawyer.
But as far as I know, there are exceptions to the 2 year warranty, for example batteries.
Basically all expendable items are excluded.
Actually it’s not just a German law, but one for the whole European Union instead.
By the way, the law is called “Gewährleistung”. AFAIK there is no really precise English translation, since it has some important differences compared to a warranty.
For example, the seller is always liable by this law, not the manufacturer. And a seller cannot modify the conditions and terms of the warranty. It’s entirely determined by the law itself.
And there is a reversal of evidence after the first 6 months. That means during the first 6 months the seller has to prove that the good was not faulty in the beginning and that the fault was instead induced by yourself.
After the 6 months you have to prove that the good was faulty from the beginning (or at least had faults that eventually causes it to fail) and that you haven’t done anything wrong with it. But most retailers will replace or repair a faulty unit during the 2 years without too much of a hassle.
I think 2 years is actually quite a low lifetime expectation for consumer goods. Back in the 80s/90s most goods lasted for way longer than that. But nowadays manufacturers use the principle of planned obsolescence to f*** us all and force us to buy new stuff every couple of years.
I heard even the most expensive TVs will die after about 2 to 4 years nowadays. Which is freaking horrible considering that a high class TV can easily cost more than $2000.
Funny story: Years ago I bought an electric toothbrush, a Braun Oral-B Triumph 5000 to be precise. After about 2.5 years the built-in (non-user replaceable) rechargeable battery had lost almost 80% of its capacity. So in the beginning a single charge was enough for 2 weeks of daily usage, but in the end it lasted only 1 or 2 days. I paid about $200 for it (it was a kit with 2 toothbrushes), so I did not want to buy a new one, just because the battery was bad. I was looking in the Internet for a way to repair the damn thing and finally found an ebay auction where they sold a replacement battery and instructions to replace it. It cost about 10$ per battery, so a total of $20. Replacing the battery was not a very easy process, but doable by someone who can use a soldering iron. What really made me angry was the fact, that the replacement battery had a much higher capacity than the original (about 3 times as much). Now with the replacement battery inside a single charge lasts about 2 months (!). Why did Braun not use the higher capacity batteries to begin with? And why did they make it so hard to replace the battery? It was very clear that the battery would only last a couple of years at most, so making the battery non-user replaceable means the planned that the user will throw it away after quite a short time and buy a new one (maybe again one from Braun!?).
Just a couple of weeks ago I had a similar experience with a Samsung PC Display. The display had started to flicker every time you switched it on. It got worse every day. So I searched for information about the fault on the internet and finally found repair instructions. It turned out that it was just 2 faulty capacitors worth a couple of cents. I ordered replacements and replaced the faulty ones and now the display is working as if it was new. So instead of buying a new display I spent about $2 for replacement parts. So f*** you Samsung!
By the way: When I opened it I was shocked what I was seeing. There was quite a big motherboard inside the display, but 80% of it was empty. But although there was so much empty space on it, they placed the capacitors right next to the main transistors and the converter coils. So to me it seems like they deliberately placed the capacitors to the hottest spot they could find on the whole motherboard, so that they will die shortly after the warranty is over.
I wish more people would actually try to repair broken things rather than throw them away and buy new stuff. I think every household should have a soldering iron.
But manufacturers make it harder and harder to repair things.
Gosh, I hate the modern capitalism.
On the other side, people are not willing to spend a reasonable amount of money for quality. All I hear is "I want it cheaper".
So to some extend it's the consumers own fault. If I can choose I almost always tend to buy the middle priced or high priced goods. Someone told me a long time ago "Buy cheap and you buy twice".
But please don't get me wrong: Nothing is wrong buying cheap if you can't afford something better. What really makes me angry is seeing wealthy people not willing to pay for quality although they could easily afford it.
Planed obsolescence, the NSA affair and all those things just tell me one thing: This world is going south!