Not mentioned is that LG and Samsung have been caught colluding before.
They Used To Last 50 Years
131–140 of 877 posts
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#132On a related note, I accidentally cracked the touch screen of my 8 year old Ford Radio/AC control unit. Cost to replace 4,500 GBP, which is more than the entire value of the car currently. Insane, because it basically means if you crack the touch screen, you have to scrap the car, if you want to claim via insurance. Managed to get it replaced with a second hand one for £300, including labour.
can you imagine cracking LCDs in this car? (not a concept btw)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvZpBy_5xAA
Skip to 0:30
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
And this is a very interesting point. How good is a similarly priced 2017 fridge compared to a 1950's when price is measured in real dollars.
Pretty damn good. You can still buy refrigerators built like a tank, intended for commercial environments, if you're willing to spend 4 figures. http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=329&year1=1952... That household refrigerator that was $329 in 1952? $3024 in 2017 dollars.
And you will save a lot on heating.
People forget that old tech is not known for being efficient be it electric appliances or cars.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
touch pads have high failure rates. if they don't go, the control board does. and if neither, the connection between them. as for easy to change, replacing the mother board on my refrigerator would cost 600$ without installation fees. guess who bought a new refrigerator? :(
I know it happens, but how does a mother board just die? I mean it's a piece of plastic with durable metal channels on it. The channels don't wear or burn out. Everything's just inert. I know some components like capacitors do die, but they can be tested and replaced. How can a mother board just stop working?
1. Corrosion 2. Electrolytic caps. 3. Vibration. 4. Flexing due to thermal cycling. 5. Electronic designs operating near their limits, resulting in increased failure rates.
It used to be everything in a hostile environment (hot/wet/corrosive) was potted (dipped in epoxy) and in an enclosure. Now they have bare boards. Electronically controlled motors and very limited protection circuitry for the ICs. Just not built to last. No commonality in circuit boards so parts are very expensive (possibly by design; they only need parts for warranty repairs, after that they don't care about cost/availability).
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#135Isn't this largely driven by consumer demand? The prices of appliances has dropped dramatically in the last few decades. Building a long-lasting appliance often requires even marginally more expensive materials - many of which are highlighted in this article. If consumers are primarily price sensitive at the time of purchase, they may choose the $50 cheaper appliance even if it lasts 40 years less. What I mean to sug…
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Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
Along the same lines, probably the easiest way to get quality in almost every type of product is to buy the commercial version. The people using these products are very familiar with them, so nobody sells garbage. Businesses are also generally more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers. I personally started doing this a few years ago. I even have a throwaway LLC that sounds nebulo…
>more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers. Which means that if you need some replacement part in the future it's going to cost even more.
Perhaps, but they'll be available at all, and the device will be repairable.
I don't even mind that modern appliances break so often; it's the fiddly plastic bits and lack of parts that are the problem. Give us something made of metal with some screws and the damn thing can probably be fixed.
(re: the article topic, this is another thing that's kept me away from automobiles for the past twenty years)
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#137This discussion is useless without knowing how much those appliances cost compared to ones today. My wife and I just bought a house (after more than a decade of renting) and for the first time were in the market for a washer/dryer. I was expecting to have to spend a few thousand dollars, but turns out that you can get a washer and dryer under $1,000 at a big box store!
I suspect the market has optimized for low acquisition cost, and longevity is a side-effect. People these days move more, rent for longer before buying a house, and remodel their houses more often. I wouldn't be surprised at all if manufacturers were incentivized to make cheaper units that can be replaced every 10 years when the "start to look dated" rather than ones that last 50 years.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#138It's just like every other company that shares an oligopoly over an industry; they keep diluting the quality of their product over time but they do it slowly enough that nobody notices. There was a case where Cadbury (the UK chocolate company) changed the recipe for their 'Cadbury Creme Egg' (to make it more profitable) but they changed the recipe too much and there was some backlash from consumers. There are other c…
I distinctly remember when McDonalds reduced the size of the buns. I don't remember the exact time (early 00s perhaps?), but I do remember being pissed off. A typical corporate "reduce costs" manoeuvre, but I guess you couldn't expect any less of McDonalds.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#139He mentions it in the article: It's a failure of feedback that makes this happen. If people can't get reliable information about quality, quality will not determine what they buy. Price will, and price is readily available. To get price down, you need costs down. To do that, you replace the parts with crappy parts. If feedback worked, people would know they were paying less for a less good appliance that will have mo…
I'd love to see a store that sells buy-it-for-life style products that are probably more expensive up front but also built to last, all with robust warranties so you know the claims are backed up. A place you could go into and know everything in there was good. If you wanted the cheapest you'd go somewhere else but man, I'd shop there.
They could do appliances (stuff like SpeedQueen washers), hand and garden tools, kitchen stuff like pots and pans and knives... just anything that's solid and lasts and doesn't require ridiculous maintenance to make it so.
Sometimes now I'd be willing pay more but either I can't even find the stuff that isn't cheap junk, or I just can't tell what's going to break and what isn't.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#140I've worked on hundreds of domestic appliances. Newer ones from any manufacturer are indeed failing more often, and are designed worse. The only explanation is that this is on purpose - just like cars or laptops or smartphones, they are designed to fail faster so you buy new ones. Planned obsolescence, plain and simple. The best appliances today, by the way, are made by Bosch/Siemens and Miele. None of the other manu…
"The only explanation..."? What about "never attribute to malice..." and Occam's Razor. I think a more likely explanation is that in the majority of cases when shopping for an appliance and your choices are a $1500 one and a $2000 one, you buy the cheaper one. This forces manufacturers to compete on price, and to cut costs wherever possible to remain profitable. Additionally, I just spent 30 seconds googling and a wa…
don't look any further, I bought a 3k washer and dryer combination from LG 4 years ago. It boasted a ten year warranty!
the paint, drum, motor, finish, everything looks like new. But, the controller board burned.
I know my way around electronics, mind you, I can see exactly what is wrong (burned transformer), but the whole board is covered in some gelatin that makes any repair impossible.
the power input board is also water proofed with the usual epoxy that you can chip away and do your repair. but the controller board gelatin thing makes it impossible!
oh, and that board not only is NOT covered by the ten year warranty (only the drum and motor) but not a single place carry it. even LG cannot provide me that part for any money in the world. discontinued they say. after 4 years.
if anyone want to pick it up and drive the pristine electronics with an Arduino, msg me. machine is in socal though.