So instead we bought a second-hand Teutonia for EUR 120; heavy, Teutonic quality. Wider and heavier than the Bugaboo, and not nearly as easily collapsible, but extremely sturdy, it steadies you in the bus, instead of you having to steady it, and other than being light and nimble, it does everything the Bugaboo does. Okay, maybe it’s a bit too wide, but we’re happy with it and didn’t pay a fortune, and I think it’s going to outlive my son.

Hmm. I haven’t read them, but do the Harry Potter books ever mention babies besides Harry himself, or do kids just materialize out of thin air in his world?

It is common use in Australia, where a stroller refers to a smaller, lightweight item suitable for children that can support their head.

The $250 is because the closest repair center is 1440km = 900 miles away.

That is the minimum they would quote as they could not confirm what was wrong.

The pram was bought second hand on eBay

It is now rock solid….

Thanks

I thought there was plenty of appreciation for well-made things on BB?

Well, this pram did break, and the tiny parts to fix it were exorbitantly priced. I’d say there’s more appreciation for clever repairs than fancy kit around here. And as the following comments and their likers (+15 and +9 respectively at the time of posting) testify, plenty of us are aware of the ramifications of wasteful, poisonous consumer culture approaching its zenith in regards to well-off parents and their precious spawn.

In all seriousness, as a parent, I suggest NOT buying a Bugaboo in the
first place.  The cheap ones go for around $800.  I hope to spend less
than that on my son’s first car.

today i learned it’s a stroller for self absorbed twat parents who take
up more space then they need to because of lack of awareness outside
their own bubble once they have a kid.

/firstworldproblems

I particularly liked the comment mentioning the chemicals oozing out of plastic crap (brominated flame retardants, anyone?), and exhorting parents to buy their kid a second-hand stroller. I’m sure your kid couldn’t give a flying fuck whether you find an old pram a hassle or an embarrassment in front of your consumerist friends, but would probably rather not inhale a soup of questionable substances that had never existed until the 1950s.

On the other hand, I can’t vouch for the Bugaboo brand specifically.  And maybe Bugaboos aren’t so well-made if their parts break like this.  And $250 for the part is so out-there that I almost don’t believe it.  But I really didn’t expect all the stroller-hatin’.

They are too wide, take up too much space in stores and restaurants, and hell, sidewalks for that matter.  They are the humvee of strollers.  I used to get mad at stores that would not let people in with their strollers, now I get it.

On the other hand, can’t wait to send this to my friend who has to make a part for his Audi that breaks more often than is financially feasible to buy repeatedly. 

It’s also why the UK is going to be a particularly friendly legal environment for 3D printing, because we have a very strong tradition of laws that favour permission for third-party repairs to consumer products, especially where such repairs are functional rather than cosmetic.

(Disclosure: I wrote a paper on this, co-authored with Adrian Bowyer of the RepRap project, as name-checked above.)

I ended up finding one at a junkyard for about $20 (again, I had to buy the whole doorhandle), but it would have been so much simpler to make on a 3D printer.  My question is: how sturdy is the plastic used for 3D printers?  This particular piece, while fairly small, was required to handle a fair amount of torque as it transferred the horizontal pivot of the trigger-handle to the vertical movement of the rod connected to the latch.  Can 3D printers use materials that can handle fairly strong stresses like that?  Or do they normally utilize more delicate and/or brittle plastics?

My hot tub has a pump that has failed and been replaced a couple of times now.  The first time, the pump impeller housing leaked, and the second time the pump motor itself seized.  Both times, I would have been happier to replace just the part that was broken, but they are assembled in such a way that you can’t remove the pump impeller from the shaft without breaking the impeller.  There’s no good reason for this, except that it forces you to buy the entire $320 assembly.  I have no ethical compunction whatsoever against fabricating my own replacement parts using any means necessary when confronted with a “replacement parts” policy as draconian as this.

If the 3D printers of today can make genuinely durable parts, then I’m gonna have to get me one sooner than later.

As for the Bugaboos, yeah, they’re loaded with features, but the pricing is pretty out there.  They had become a bit of a status symbol, too, so I wouldn’t like pushing one even if it were a gift.  My household has two preschoolers, and over the last four years we’ve owned at least nine strollers, each aimed at a slightly different specialization, and all nine of them together cost significantly less than one Bugaboo.  We’re currently down to six strollers, and really only three of them that we actually use in any given week, so I don’t mind the fact that we have a fleet in place of a single high-end stroller that could replace any of them (except for the two double strollers we have, and the disposable Chinese one we got for free which we use for air travel because we’d never miss it if we lost it).