I love a good DIY attitude, but seriously, why don't people think to return defective merchandise instead of attempting a repair of something brand-spankin' new?

not everything gets refurbished and returned to the service pool, so in those cases you could prevent adding to the trash heap with a simple repair... Also, replacing a plug seems like less of a hassle than returning the entire thing, waiting for it to arrive, clear inspection and eventually a replacement to be sent back

There's one caveat to the above: you have to be able to perform said repair safely... And you may void warranty if you're not careful and use an identical replacement

I mean, technically you're probably already voiding warranty by doing so, but if you do it carefully and neatly, it won't even be noticed when sent in for actual repair under warranty

good points on one hand. On the other, if mfgrs aren't held to account for producing a quality product and people just "take care of it" for them, well, what's the incentive for them to worry about quality control?

@FreeMan that's a very high level question and assumes the majority of people do home repairs... good or bad, we are very far removed from that situation, probably even more so than half a century ago :)

I reckon online shopping has vastly reduced the number of people doing repairs like these, despite the advent of repair cafes and other initiatives

I've got a couple of panels from a flat-pack wardrobe we bought a couple of years ago stashed away in my garage for a "future project". No matter how I adjusted it, I couldn't get both hinges attached because the holes were drilled in the wrong places. I've got a garage full of tools and could easily have relocated them, which my wife encouraged me to do. Instead, I contacted the mfgr, sent them pics of the door attached with one hinge and the other not lined up. They sent replacements.

Oh, that's nice :)

It would certainly get me to order future stuff with these people

And probably leave a few glowing reviews in places

So mission accomplished for them

To back up that I could have fixed it, I'm currently in the middle of building my own "flat pack" cabinets to match some IKEA ones we purchased a while back. IKEA's prices are ridiculous now, as is their ordering policy - "you'll get the product when the factory decides to ship the parts to our store".

Yes, indeed. Good customer service does get good reviews (we left some!). I just don't get buying something brand new and expecting that it's somehow "normal" to have to fix it right out of the box...

@FreeMan It should be as rare as possible, but it can happen... At least they solved the problem at their cost :)

I'm actually considering rebuilding an IKEA corner desk I bought a decade ago, which has a nice design (retractable side table and cable gutter), but consists of honeycomb cardboard covered with some kind of veneer type 2mm thick wood to provide the surfaces... You can imagine that has not stood the test of time :x

the hinges I can transplant, and maybe reduce the thickness of the deck by 2/3 so that my chair aligns better

I'm actually building the cabinets out of particle board, just like the ones they're matching - it'll have the finishes & look match better. However, the doors will be poplar. Probably painted, by I might try my hand at doing a laminate finish on them. Might be tough given the bevel detail on the doors, but... we'll see.

gl :)