41–50 of 194 posts
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Sure, ask anyone with a Toyota.
Yep. My 2012 Tundra still runs well and looks good. The only issue is that over time the steering wheel has been polished smooth by all my driving over the years. I am at 160,000 miles and expect to get to at least 250,000.
Here in Norway, for large appliances there's a 5-year statutory warranty[1], 2 years for smaller appliances etc. It covers anything that's not a wear-item breaking due to normal use. The shop who sold it has the burden of proof in case they want to claim it's been exposed to non-normal usage. The shop has the right to try to repair the damage, but after two times (for the same issue), you have the right to get your m…
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I would even pay a subscription like Costco meets Ikea to make sure the business is always there to produce quality products (not just when I need to buy an appliance), but I want strong governance and controls to prevent enshittification, change in control to someone who is going to squeeze the business and leave it for dead, etc.
"I would even pay a subscription like Costco" Maybe pitch the idea. A Kirkland brand large appliance line doesn't seem so far fetched. It could be beneficial to the higher end manufacturers they contract with if the revenue structure looked right.
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Huh? Cars are lasting, on average, longer than they ever have.
Is there a good source of data on this? On the one hand, I could believe that newer cars have better engineering which makes many components more reliable. On the other hand, crumple zones and expensive bodywork mean that modern cars are Fabregé eggs that can be easily totaled in minor accidents. And increases in the complexity and scope of what cars do can increase the cost of maintenance and make them go obsolete f…
https://finance.yahoo.com/average-age-vehicles-u-roads-13030...
It's hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last, so the products are engineered to either be part of a subscription, to be replaced far sooner than necessary, or both. They're worried more about their revenue sustainability than they are actual product "sustainability." The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going…
Appliance manufacturers survived most of the 20th century making reliable products for a smaller global population. On the other hand, it's hard to have never ending quarterly profit growth without planned obsolescence to create extra demand that normally wouldn't exist.
On the LG side, I feel like the quality has really gone downhill over the years. I had a GE washer which gave me 13 years of life -- not bad for $400. I replaced it with an LG now and already regretting it -- complicated controls which seem somewhat redundant, more electronics instead of just knobs to turn.
Also bought an LG microwave. Kept blowing my circuit (and yes, it was rated for 15A and I have 20A circuits). Replaced with smaller model, still Chinese garbage, but less complicated. It's worked perfectly.
It's hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last, so the products are engineered to either be part of a subscription, to be replaced far sooner than necessary, or both. They're worried more about their revenue sustainability than they are actual product "sustainability." The "buy-it-for-life" brands ran into this problem because once you sell someone the classic product, they aren't going…
> hard to maintain a revenue stream if your product is good enough to last Servicing. High-end appliances seem to last just fine.
I mean, it's cool to pin it on manufacturers trying to increase margins, or on "planned obsolescence" - but a lot of it is our doing. We're willingly enabling it. There are manufacturers that make simple and serviceable appliances; for example, most Frigidaire fridges don't have cool-looking displays, wifi connectivity, and other bells and whistles. But how many Frigidaire products are sold every year, compared to LG…
> This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips. I don't feel this way at all. I don't know how to access information about products that I know to be unbiased. I can certainly find comparison websites and blog posts, some of which I'm sure are unbiased, but it's not clear to be how to reliably ascertain which is which.
Product reviews were never the right place to look, because they don't get published after 10 years of use. But unlike in the 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s, you are one search away from appliance repairman forums that lay it bare.
I confess to not having done this when I first bought my LG appliances, but that's on me. And then when they broke and I called a number of SF Bay Area appliance repair shops and they all said "we don't touch LG", I had an epiphany.
As a consumer you have to do your research more than ever. There are still appliances out there that will outlive you but you need to hunt them down. I recently bought the Gaggia Classic Pro coffee machine for this very reason. You can get into and fix anything in this machine in under 5 minutes.
Shouldn't this be any basic coffee machine? It's a switch, a waterheater, and a hot plate.