He has a lot of opinions I personally put down to "old man yelling at clouds" - but that's just me...
Sealed tubs are indeed a huge PITA for future collectors. It is a certain repairability issue.
And there are stil a bunch of machines here in the EU (and thus the UK) that have splittable tubs, and even at a bunch of price points.
Many Midea (I think it was Midea) designs still have splittable tubs. So do LGs here. And Miele in the TOL.
So I don't think it's necessarily a pricing issue - but a sealed tub is easier to produce. Ultrasonic welding is a 0 person 0 interaction job, and even the simplest splittable tub needs something like 8 bolts and a somewhat delicate seal.
The parts being expensive is mostly down to storing them.
They are HUGE, so even if you have to store let's say only 1000 of them for 10 years, that's a big volume of pretty irregularly shaped stuff takeing up space in a warehouse somewhere.
And for repairs in the end, I don't think it makes that much of a difference.
Can't say when I actually paid an appliance technician - but I guess their hourly rate is 100-200€?
Of course it's a huge variance from case to case -
but you'd have to rip out the entire tub anyway.
And then, with a split tub, you have to take apart the tub, take out the bearings, clean everything up, put in the bearings, reassemble everything and HOPE the seal is ok at the end.
That takes what - at least an hour to do, probably more?
So if you spend 300€ on the tank or 150€ on parts and 150€ on extra labor - most people would still not do that for a machine that's 500€ new when the total bill at the end is around 500€ anyway.
And then there's the additional layer of work context.
I think it was on here someone hat a Miele W1 have a bearing failure during warranty. Unfortunate, but manufacturing defects happen to everyone.
I think that the W1 is actually one of the designs where you could - with some finesse, though I haven't seen proof of it yet - get out the bearing cross without tearing the tub out.
But they just replaced the entire machine. Why? To do that repair to Miele standards, you'd need tools not easily transportable. And even if not, to not violate work safety in relation to max lift weights per person, you'd need 2 people there.
So, even for Miele, it would be more expensive to do a bearing job than to replace the entire machine.
I do think it's a shame that that's what it has come to - but I don't think having splittable tubs, or stainless tubs, would change the fact a bearing failure is not economically repairable.
