The idea of manufacturer defects is an interesting one. Should the manufacturer be held responsible for any and all repairs for a device after it has been sold to consumers and a wide-reaching issue has been diagnosed? If the defect is trivial, and has little influence on the operation of the product should they still be forced to mend it? Who decides if a fault is indeed 'minor ' and how should the entire process best be handled?
There are 1 or 2 examples lately of mass produced digicams that have well-known defects, but the manufacturers' employees when questioned about the difficulty will state they have not heard about it before. All the major camera makers are guilty of this, so it looks to be the policy of each company to reject awareness of a problem unless forced to do so legally.
When an enormous problem arises with a product, and the maker is aware of the difficulty, they should fix it. That does sound correct. For instance, it is announced that the Ford Motor Company decided it would be less expensive in the longer term to NOT recall the "Pinto" model automobiles that had a hefty rate of catching aflame and exploding when in certain accidents due to poor design. Instead of fixing the issue before there was accidental, they decided it would be less expensive to settle lawsuits against them for wounds and deaths caused by the design instead. Obviously in this situation, the maker should have fixed the vehicle before there was any injury or deaths in the first place.
When it comes to smaller consumer electronics, when is it worthwhile to take the company to court and try and require them to fix the product? For instance, the Canon SD790 side screws always vibrate themselves loose and drop out of the camera. This will cause the side trim of the camera body including the handstrap itself to fall off, leaving a large gaping hole in the side of the camera for dust and debris to enter simply.
The screws should be secured with something like "Locktite", and can be acquired online for about $7 including shipping for a pair. In this example if the manufacturer pay each buyer of this camera $7 or send them a pair of screws and some "Locktite" to secure them? We both know that the only real way that would happen is if they were legally made to do so. The issue is, a legal case will take forever to settle, and the only folk who really benefit from it are the barristers, and nobody else.
A lawyer in a case like this, representing thousands of buyerss, could stand to earn a hundred thousand dollars or more for their time, while the shopper sees just $7 each. Is this fair? Is this justice? The case could take forever to settle, and meanwhile all you need is a Canon SD790 replacement screws repair kit for your camera!
A rather more honorable thing for the maker to do is to own up to the issue and offer a solution for either an exceedingly minimum cost to the customer or no charge at all . This may go a long way to extend consumer confidence in the maker as well as keeping that customer trustworthy to the brand so making the money back through future purchase. Sadly it appears like sizeable firms might be too worried about today to consider the future.
