Household appliance repairmen began to breed Russians for wild money

On the shelves of stores, the shortage of spare parts for household appliances is not particularly felt – there are simply no such public stores. Motors, gears, transformers, seals, heating elements, compressors, a great variety of plastic parts – all this is ordered in online services. And there the situation with spare parts is already obviously complicated. This is where master extortionists play.

The Muscovites Kuznetsovs began to leak a dishwasher – after a cycle of work, a small puddle appeared on the floor. It would be necessary to call the master, the couple decided, not suspecting that a simple repair would turn into a real detective.

…A specialist from a popular company, Alexey, having entered the apartment, took off his dirty shoes, put on no less dirty slippers with a specific smell and went to the dishwasher.

– Well, what do you have here, let’s look. Whoa, trouble! he exclaimed. And, without asking permission from the owners, he began to unscrew the panels that separated the dishwasher from the neighboring compartments of the kitchen set.

– Why are you doing this? How are panels related to leakage? – only clients had time to ask a question.

Alexey looked at the residents with the eyes of an experienced pro and asked them not to interfere. (By the way, for the dismantling and subsequent installation of the panels, as it soon turned out to be completely useless, he subsequently paid 5,100 rubles on the bill.)

After fiddling a little more, the specialist said: Khan’s typewriter, but since it is Italian, it is better to repair it than to buy a new one, “some dubious Chinese one.”

The Kuznetsovs didn’t mind. They were only interested in the cost of repairs. Meanwhile, the master was already cheerfully drawing up a contract with a detailed description of the necessary work. “You have 19,750 rubles,” he said, having finished the calculation. “How much?” The clients thought they had misheard. Aleksey repeated the price, adding that if the tenants cannot pay the entire amount at once, they must make an advance payment (at least 20%) plus money for the necessary parts – another 8,400 rubles. According to him, it was necessary to replace the upper and lower sprinklers (in professional language – impellers) and the lower seal.

– Pay faster! There are no parts in stock, they need to be ordered as soon as possible, Alexei hurried. Order today, they’ll be here in a week. And if we hold out until tomorrow, we will have to wait 10 days, or even we will be completely left without “native” spare parts.

obsessive service

The clients decided to search on the Internet how much the impellers of the same brand cost, which the master was going to buy for 5500 rubles, and the sealant, for which he demanded 2900 rubles. The price turned out to be exactly two times lower, and delivery took 1-2 days, which Alexei was immediately told about. “I won’t even get involved with parts at such a cost and from dubious warehouses! – said the master. “They will break in a week!” We order directly from Italy!”

Okay spare parts. And why does the work cost more than 11 thousand rubles? The right, what such operations are estimated in such money? “You won’t be able to cope on your own, but I appreciate my work,” Alexei said immodestly. “I’ll also seal all the cracks with sealant so that it never leaks anywhere else.”

There seemed to be no reason not to believe Alexei. He spoke convincingly, with him he brought a large bag with tools, fragrant slippers again. But all these “advantages” crashed against the crazy cost of repairs …

“We will think about whether it is worth repairing our machine or is it better to buy a new one for the same money, we will inform you tomorrow,” the Kuznetsovs announced their decision.

– A new one? What are you! If you buy a cheap Chinese device for 20 thousand, it will fly right away! And this car is Italian, you know? Okay, think about it, but at least pay for the 8400 parts, I’ll order them quickly. Or do you think that I will buy spare parts for you with my own money?! Alexei was outraged.

Paying for the details, despite the aggressive perseverance of the master, the clients refused. They paid 1,500 rubles for the so-called diagnostics (its results, as it soon turned out, did not correspond to reality), asking the master to screw the panels back to their original place. However, Alexey said that he would not do this: “I am one hundred percent sure that you will think carefully and agree to my terms. So, when I come to you in a week, I will again have to spin the panels back and forth. Why waste your time and mine? Are you going to wash dishes under normal conditions at all?”

After Alexei left, the owners called the company where he came from, asking him to send a price list for services. But they were refused. “We do not send out price lists. We trust our employees, they won’t take too much,” the administrator replied.

Muscovites learn to solder

Pushing around, the Kuznetsovs found master Ruslan, who named a completely different repair cost – 3,500 rubles, and taking into account the price of a new part. As it turned out, only the lower impeller had to be replaced. The rest of the filling, including the bottom seal, top sprinkler, as well as the panels were in perfect order. Yes, and it was not necessary to separate the panels from the walls, they have nothing to do with leakage. “Apparently, your Alexey is not only a fraudster, but also a dropout. I decided to see what would happen if the panels were unscrewed,” Ruslan smiled.

Having coped with the work in a matter of minutes, Ruslan said that would-be masters like Alexei are the norm rather than the exception. The fact is that the management of some companies, including well-known ones that have been operating on the market for a long time, requires that they bring in revenue of at least 6-8 thousand rubles from each order. Such a price usually does not arouse suspicion among customers, although in reality, as a rule, it is too high.

Ruslan admitted that he himself got a job in a similar company a few years ago, but could not work for even a month: “Dozens of craftsmen left from there, because it’s a shame to“ breed ”people from scratch.”

By the way, the Kuznetsovs were lucky that Alexei turned out to be too arrogant. After all, if he had named a more modest cost of repairs, at least half as much, Muscovites, most likely, would have paid without suspecting a dirty trick. As for the impellers, they, according to Ruslan, are already running out of stock. But since this detail is one of the most common, good craftsmen keep them in sufficient supply.

Another Muscovite, Tatyana, shared a similar story with MK. The woman said that the master Eugene asked for 10 thousand rubles for the repair of the dishwasher – the control board ordered a long time to live. But if Aleksey lied about the high price and the long wait for impellers from Italy, Evgeny took advantage of the fact that machine “brains” are really in short supply (waiting for an order is from one to three months, an advance payment of 50% is required) and are expensive (from 12 thousand rubles , in fact, half the price of a new machine).

Now Tatyana is learning how to solder using videos from the Internet. She is sure that she will master this science and fix the control board herself. “It’s not for nothing that I received a technical education,” the interlocutor says.

Easier to buy than fix

Honestly, a dishwasher breakdown is not the worst thing that can happen in life. Washing spoons and plates by hand is not difficult. But as for more important devices that are difficult or even impossible for a person to replace – refrigerators, washing machines – there are problems with them.

The Gaev family lost two household appliances at once. In the Japanese refrigerator, the sealant “died” (not the most popular brand for Russia in this segment on order, approximately 60 days). In a European front-loading washing machine, the manhole cover stopped opening. For localized equipment – for example, for those manufactured in Lipetsk – everything is faster, but still there is almost nothing in stock.

“Over the past summer, I had a dozen and a half orders that were stuck because of spare parts,” says Philip, a repairman for household appliances. – Washers of European companies – Miele, Electrolux, a number of Bosch models. There were problems with Candy, Samsung. For refrigerators – troubled Liebherr and Sharp.

During the spring and summer of this year, distributors of spare parts for household appliances tried to establish a parallel import of parts, and some components still come to Russia. However, according to Philip, the range of necessary spare parts is so large that there is no way to organize significant warehouses in Russia.

“These are not auto parts, where the most popular items can be brought in for the future, almost everything in household appliances is made to order,” says the master. – And under the order in our conditions – it means to wait a couple of months. A couple of people have already received spare parts and they called me back, I came and repaired. And so far, no one has responded.

As a result, the Gaevs preferred to buy new European equipment – from the last copies on the shelves.

My seal is light

Of course, neither a washing machine, nor a dishwasher, much less a refrigerator, can wait two months. Therefore, the idea almost immediately comes to the mind of both the master and the owner of household appliances, from which you can “pick up”. In recent months, many experts have realized that it is doubly necessary to create stocks, even for used spare parts – at a critical moment, your own disassembly can save the day.

“Before, I always used only new spare parts, in principle, because I give a guarantee for work,” says Dmitry Ignatov, a repairman for household appliances from Yaroslavl. – Now I have agreed with a company that recycles refrigerators and other household appliances. Vandal those knots that are difficult to get. I had to rent two garages in the city for storage.

According to the master, there is already competition among repairmen in the city for these used spare parts. They are not given to customers as new ones – they warn that we are talking about parts from the “dismantling”. But, since the price is similar, and there is not much choice, they usually agree.

Another way to find missing parts is innovative: plastic mechanical components, which are often the culprits of breakdowns, can be printed on 3D printers. As the Moscow master Philip told MK, individual people specialize in 3D printing, who know how to do it and have the whole set of equipment. If necessary, repairmen order parts from them, it takes several days to print.

“But if the gear crumbled to dust, then there would be a problem: there would be nothing to scan,” the repairman says. – And then, if it is not in the library of finished parts, you still have to look for a spare part.

Printed spare parts also have a drawback: since they are not made by casting, like original ones, but by “bypass technology”, strength can differ markedly. But there is also an advantage: the material is fresh, so the gear will definitely not crumble like the old one.

Despite all this, repairing old equipment now makes sense, according to the masters interviewed by MK. In terms of the quality of components, in terms of durability, competitors to European, Japanese and Korean household appliances of 10-20 years ago will not appear for a long time.

– Key parts – for example, the tank of a washing machine – used to be metal, now they are often plastic, says Philip. – Thrust bearings: you can simply compare the diameter, the new ones are twice as thin and lighter, their resource is, accordingly, less. And so in everything: relief, cheapening. Even the premium type of Miele is not what it used to be.

The line between “to be repaired” and “easier to throw away” is quite thin, the craftsmen assure. Usually, the recommendation “dispose of” follows if the refurbishment of all units will cost more than new equipment of a similar class. For example, if a compressor, a seal and several plastic elements need to be replaced at the same time in a refrigerator, it is easier to replace the unit than to repair it. But if we are talking about replacing one, albeit complex, component, the game can be worth the candle.