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O Holy Crap

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Re: O Holy Crap

#31

Post by lordgroff »

bambax wrote: post #8

> Many blamed these problems on the government. They believed it had crippled certain products (major home appliances, especially) This is a claim that was already present in Death of a Salesman . Here's the quote: > I am always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it's on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when…

It's a matter of shopping wisely and, at least sometimes, of spending more money up front. People always reach for the smelling salts when I tell them how much my (hand) coffee grinder cost, but that thing is almost certain to outlast me.

Re: O Holy Crap

#32

Post by taldo »

Besides echoing the survivorship bias warning in other comments, I'd like to point out that just a bit of skill and will can turn the fate of a lot of this 'crap' around.

Dull peeler? Sharpen it. Now you have a sharp peeler that can probably last 10 years with occasional attention.

Dead grinders? I'm sure at least one of them could've been fixed and extended its life significantly.

Sure, things are getting less and less repairable, but most still can be fixed of some common faults. It just takes a pinch of skill and a bunch of will.

Re: O Holy Crap

#33

Post by robinsonb5 »

h2odragon wrote: post #10

Who needs most of this crap? I have a knife. It is a simple piece of metal that peels carrots, apples, and many other things with great reliability. It also performs other functions that a "carrot peeler" could not. It has done so for 20 years and can be expected to remain functional for several more decades. "Coffee grinder"? how many iterations of the idea of the blender does one kitchen need? (I count a half dozen…

I had a knife. It wasn't a simple piece of metal - it had a nicely sculpted handle with that horrible tactile silicone coating which gets gross and sticky over time and is really hard to clean (mild abrasive such as bicarbonate of soda will either clean it or remove it - and frankly I'm good with either outcome!) A few months back this knife fell to pieces when the handle split, causing the blade to do an interesting backflip maneouvre that I'd have preferred to spectate from much further away.

While I'm ranting about kitchenwares, I'm getting tired of saucepans with a life expectancy of less than two years - they're another item I'd expect to last decades. But again the existence of the cheap crap makes it harder to find the better stuff, and certainly hard to have any confidence that what you're looking actually is any better, and not just the same crap with a higher price tag.

Re: O Holy Crap

#34

Post by theK »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #14
bambax wrote: post #8

> Many blamed these problems on the government. They believed it had crippled certain products (major home appliances, especially) This is a claim that was already present in Death of a Salesman . Here's the quote: > I am always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it's on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when…

The difficulty is that the abundance of cheap crap often makes finding the good stuff like finding a needle in a haystack. Yes, price is the first indicator, but there are plenty of chancers who are quite happy to sell the cheap crap at the premium price point.

Yes that is exactly the problem. Especially with cheap as garbage direct sales from China and internet shopping being the norm, your chances of finding legitimate high quality sellers on amazon or else are practically zero. Even worse, nowadays on amazon you find the exact same product in all the price ranges sold by "different" sellers.

Re: O Holy Crap

#35

Post by BlueTemplar »

robinsonb5 wrote: post #14
bambax wrote: post #8

> Many blamed these problems on the government. They believed it had crippled certain products (major home appliances, especially) This is a claim that was already present in Death of a Salesman . Here's the quote: > I am always in a race with the junkyard! I just finished paying for the car and it's on its last legs. The refrigerator consumes belts like a goddam maniac. They time those things. They time them so when…

The difficulty is that the abundance of cheap crap often makes finding the good stuff like finding a needle in a haystack. Yes, price is the first indicator, but there are plenty of chancers who are quite happy to sell the cheap crap at the premium price point.

I am surprised that nobody pointed out the obvious : avoid items with the minimum legal manufacturer warranty.

Though this too can become hard in categories dominated by cartels : warranties for (magnetic) hard drives have been going down (not to mention the recent frauds by Western Digital, how they have fallen, sigh...), or, for (non-related) reasons, boycotting Intel and Ryzen CPUs (or Android an iOS smartphones) doesn't leave you many options, though RISC-V (and "real" Linux) have been making great strides in the recent years.

Re: O Holy Crap

#36

Post by JKCalhoun »

yetihehe wrote: post #20
jtbayly wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metal, vs plastic gears. Bigger vs tiny electric motor. Metal vs plastic moving parts in contact with the fruit. Plug-in vs battery powered. These are the things that I would place money on as the reasons the 70 year old one is still functioning, and none sold today will work in 5 years. (I’ve never looked at one of these items. I’m just guessing. But I’d still place money on it.)

> Metal, vs plastic gears. Sintered metal gears, last only a little longer than plastic and then fail catastrophically destroying half of the device so that you can't repair it. But at least they are much cheaper than proper machined gears.

My KitchenAid mixer ate a gear many years ago. They would lead you to believe they are a high quality brand, no?

After disassembly, it turned out to be perhaps the only plastic gear in the thing. It occurred to me that it was perhaps designed to fail rather than the mixer continuing to break the bones of the person who got their hand caught in the paddle.

So, I throw the engineer a bone for that one. I was bummed though to have to order a replacement gear from some obscure place in Florida for like $75 or whatever.

Re: O Holy Crap

#37

Post by doubled112 »

teekert wrote: post #17

I have Philips vacuum cleaner, I guess it's 30 years old. Some ducttape on the hose but still going strong. I bought a cordless one 2 years ago (also Philips, 8000 series), really love it, but it's starting to fail. I go back to the shop and the thing just works like normal, come back home... brush and leds fails periodically. So annoying. I also own a lot of supossed 25.000 hours-of-life Leds, that failed after 1-2…

Speaking of vacuums, I bought a $70 upright Bissell 10+ years ago now. It is one of my examples of "win some, lose some" in products, and how high prices don't mean quality or durability.

I've replaced the belt once. With the amount of hair I pulled out of the beater bar at the same time, I'm not sure the belt was the cause. Works as well as the day we brought it home.

Re: O Holy Crap

#38

Post by collinvandyck76 »

Under the Christmas tree this year: another Cuisinart electric kettle. Same model as always, this year recommended by wirecutter. They last two to three years and then break in various ways. This is our third one :(

My dad gave me the advice "buy cheap now and be guaranteed to buy it again at least once if not more, or wait, save up, and buy the more expensive thing only once" as I was becoming an adult. I've tried to follow that but sadly I don't think the advice really holds anymore.

Re: O Holy Crap

#39

Post by vageli »

cdelsolar wrote: post #30

My house came with a large high quality washing machine from the 80s I’m pretty sure, or maybe even earlier. It crapped out at some point last year, and we were about to buy a brand new appliance, but I did some research, got out the multimeter, and was able to diagnose a blown fuse caused by a faulty part (replacing the fuse just blew it out immediately). I ordered the part online and installed it and now the washer…

My washer and dryer have the schematics for them inside the button console. I have only had to repair a faulty closed door sensor but it was very simple.

Re: O Holy Crap

#40

Post by nicbou »

Your experience gets markedly better with a healthy fear of gadgets. Basic vehicles, appliances and tools are seemingly indestructible. Their fancy counterparts find the most creative ways to fall apart.
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