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Caveat emptor! We& #39;ve got a couple of hair/beard trimmers around the house that have turned out to be pretty useful during the lockdown for home haircuts. They started to get a little dull, so I bought a whetstone and sharpened them - it& #39;s pretty straightforward.
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But here& #39;s the gotcha: one of our @WahlGrooming trimmers - the 9899L - sprang apart as soon as the screws were out and there was no obvious way to reassemble it; after looking for a tutorial of a manual, I called the 800 number.
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I spoke to a very helpful and patient customer service rep...but what they told me convinced me that I would never buy another Wahl product.
It turns out that by design, you can& #39;t sharpen the blade of this clipper - you& #39;re expected to throw it away when it gets dull.
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It turns out that by design, you can& #39;t sharpen the blade of this clipper - you& #39;re expected to throw it away when it gets dull.
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That means that less than six months after buying a $60 clipper, I have to shell out $40 (including shipping) to replace its blade; alternatively I can mail the entire thing to Wahl for in-house sharpening.
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That& #39;s bad enough, but when I pressed the poor CSR on this, saying that I felt ripped off because this non-owner-maintainability nowhere on the product packaging, they told me that ALL Wahl consumer products are designed to be non-owner-maintainable.
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That is, if your blades get dull, they expect you to either mail the clippers to them, or throw them away and buy another product.
Now, I think this is probably rationalization in defense of a new product design that is deliberately hostile to owner-maintenance.
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Now, I think this is probably rationalization in defense of a new product design that is deliberately hostile to owner-maintenance.
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One of the other clippers I sharpened is an only-slightly-older Wahl model that was simplicity itself to disassemble, sharpen, and reassemble, and Wahl& #39;s own tech support department cheerfully supplied links to videos - including one from Wahl - explaining how to do this.
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But the official statement from Wahl saying that I should not expect to be able to sharpen any of my clippers, ever, triggered a memory - @jason_koebler& #39;s coverage of Wahl& #39;s bizarre 2018 campaign to kill state-level #RightToRepair legislation:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbxk3b/appliance-companies-are-lobbying-against-right-to-repair
8/">https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
https://www.vice.com/en/article/vbxk3b/appliance-companies-are-lobbying-against-right-to-repair
8/">https://www.vice.com/en/articl...
Wahl sent letters to state legislatures saying that if people who own Wahl products service them themselves, they could burn their houses down!
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4446374-Wahl-Opposition-Illinois.html
9/">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents...
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4446374-Wahl-Opposition-Illinois.html
9/">https://www.documentcloud.org/documents...
There& #39;s nothing wrong with Wahl offering to maintain my shaver if I want to mail it from California to Illinois twice a year for maintenance. But that& #39;s not what& #39;s going on here: they& #39;re not offering, they& #39;re INSISTING, having altered their design to so there& #39;s no choice.
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I think it& #39;s a fair statement to say that Wahl doesn& #39;t expect to be taken up on this offer by most of its customers - instead, we& #39;re expected to either throw away the whole shaver and buy a new one (perhaps enduring a dull shave until the clipper is completely useless).
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Or we& #39;re expected to shell out $40 once or twice per year for new disposable blade assemblies to keep our $60 shaver in good working order.
Either way, it& #39;s a personal and timely reminder of the importance of the work that @ifixit and @repaircoalition are doing.
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Either way, it& #39;s a personal and timely reminder of the importance of the work that @ifixit and @repaircoalition are doing.
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