Looks like a prime opportunity for whoever is manufacturing AK-47 these days to come in and disrupt the market with a washer dryer.
They Used To Last 50 Years
41–50 of 877 posts
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#42My furnace is supposed to have a useful life of 15 years. Every once in a while, it breaks and I call the repairman. I watch him work, and there isn't anything complicated about it. It's just figure out which part broke, and replace it.
So why does it only last 15 years? You can no longer get replacement parts for it. The machine looks to me like it should last 50 years.
The part failures mine had over the last 17 years are:
1. blower motor failed due to the bearings not being lubed, the replacement has sealed bearings and never needs lube
2. a relay on the circuit board failed - new board is $600. The relay is a $2 part.
3. the igniter failed. It's a $25 part, and 5 min to replace it. A $300 service call.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#43Cradle to Cradle (2010) is a great read on this subject, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0012KS568 . It's written by a couple industrial designers and I suspect it would be widely interesting to the HN audience.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#44I knew a guy who was a "reliability engineer". His gig was to make things predictably reliable. (Or break on schedule)
If you want a reliable appliance, buy the least energy efficient, oldest commercial model you can find with most mechanical controls possible. I've had my commercial Speed Queen washer and dryer since 2001.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#45He 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 more downtime, and they would act accordingly.
Part of it is statistical noise: you only get to use so many washing machines in your life, and you may or may not have big problems with them. Your only direct evidence on quality then depends on this roll of the dice.
Part of it is lack of competition: only 4 competitors. You only need to be in the ballpark of "OK" to sell. You're not scratching around for every customer, there's definitely going to be some. So why spend a lot of money making your machine more reliable?
Part of it is cost of information: how much time are you going to spend finding this information? You'll need to learn a bunch of technical terms. And how do you find trustworthy reviews? Most likely reviews are another source of noise, for the same reason as mentioned. So information is expensive to get and anyway if you're right about the manufacturers being the same it's also worthless!
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#46I'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…
Sorry but I'm not drinking the Miele Kool-Aid any longer. Maybe in the past they were great (my MIL has a 20 years old washing machine that's going great) but not the new stuff. Both my washer and dryer failed within 2 months of each other after 6 years. The dryers main board failed and price to repair was nearly £350 just for the part. The washers pump and some kind of water sensor failed simultaneously, leading to…
Well, the rate of failure is the lowest compared to other manufacturers. And those repairs are way too expensive I should say.
White Knight dryers are surprisingly good, yeah. The LG washers work fine for 3-5 years, their weakest point is the suspension (really hard to replace) and the drum bearings/spider (irreplaceable), especially if you overload them.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#47I'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…
> I don't know what super heavy duty high end washer/dryer you could get these days for $4500, but I bet you could find one that would last 50 years.
I'm hoping the Electrolux I spent $3000 on 5 years ago lasts another 45. That would be great. So far so good though. No rust, no leaks, and the only problem we had to call a service person for turned out to be the fault of our electrician, not the appliance.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#48Isn'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 suggest is that price sensitivity at time of purchase often trumps long term gains - which is why you often see things like payday loans being used. When a person is paycheck-to-paycheck they probably aren't thinking about their financial position in 50 years, simply out of necessity.
Another reason might be that the Nokia 3310's of the world have been basically prototypical products - they are overdesigned. When the user has a perception that a phone is fragile, what's the threshold? We might not need a phone that can be run over by a truck to think a phone is tough. If the split of material cost -> price point and consumer perception is optimal at a certain point - companies will try and design to that point.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#49I fondly remember my grandmother's old washing machine and stove from the 60's, but what will be left of our economy if we stop throwing away appliances and other products that used to last much longer within 5-10 years? We'll kill off the little growth we have left in the US/EU and go into recession.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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…
> I don't know what super heavy duty high end washer/dryer you could get these days for $4500, but I bet you could find one that would last 50 years. I'm hoping the Electrolux I spent $3000 on 5 years ago lasts another 45. That would be great. So far so good though. No rust, no leaks, and the only problem we had to call a service person for turned out to be the fault of our electrician, not the appliance.
Some little controller will break in 3-4 years and cost $450 to repair.