The lifespan of large appliances is shrinking

"This day and age, the knowledge is at our fingertips."

I disagree, there's lots of 'information' at your fingertips, but not knowledge. It's really a ton of work to find well designed and built appliances, that can be repaired etc, but that also have modern efficiency and essential features.

You can no longer necessarily even trust the expensive brand names, as many of them seem to be cashing-in on their, um, cachet, and reputation, and churning out similar junk to the rest of them.

I think it is good idea to delegate QA to shops. It aligns the incentives to don't sell me crap.

And I have no clue about what dishwasher is crap or not, and they do.

I wonder what amount of years would be good for an absolute guarantee. Maybe something like 10 years and then 5 years of some limited sort?

The guarantee probably need some odometer limit though to prevent commercial or multi housing usage on the long guarantee.

Just to be clear, within the entire 5 year period a defect is assumed to be a manufacturing fault? If not, isn’t it easy for the seller to claim damage/wear and tear etc?

We have 6 years in the UK but only in the first 6 months is a defect assumed to be a manufacturing defect, which is naturally the period with your strongest rights and when it’s easy to get a repair or replacement. After that, you need to argue quite a lot

Trade: If the company at ANY POINT calculates a lifetime analysis for the whole or any sub-component, the SHORTEST LIFETIME DURATION, MUST be advertised at the same print scale size and next to the price of the product at all times.

Quebec, Canada one-ups on this! Our warranty law essentially says a "product must work for as long as is reasonable". There is also a very easy way for citizens to apply to a commission, including past judgements, with a simple form and no cost.

One can also look at past judgements.

So far, the logic is that an expensive fridge should last 10 to 20 years. Same for other appliances. And if companies give the run-around, those costs are added to judgement costs too.

These laws, such as Norway's and this one in Quebec, are vital. And to anyone saying they care about the environment, creating a massive appliance like this, and then making it purposefully bork early to kick a replacement, is absurd. The environmental cost of production, shipping, and then trashing such an appliance is silly, just to pad the pocket book.

Note: I'm the first to say profit = awesome. Let the market decide. But LG (for example) is famous for having a compressor issue with fridges, to the extent that there have been class action lawsuits against them. And on top of that, having an inability to get any parts... so people cannot even get fridges fixed! Replacing fridges every 2 years (an example) instead of once a decade is probably incredibly bad for the environment... for no valid reason!

From:

https://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/en/consumer/good-service/goods/ap...

What is a “reasonable lifetime”?

The reasonable lifetime warranty provides that an appliance must serve for normal use for a reasonable period of time. However, the law does not specify, for example, that a stove must have a lifetime of 10 years. Why? Because several factors, such as the price paid, the contract, and the conditions of use, must be taken into account to determine the reasonable lifetime of the item. Thus, a $700 stove cannot be expected to last as long as another one with the same features, but that costs $1,500.

Also, add to the above another bit of logic I've heard. If you buy a clothes washer, and use it 3x every single day, obviously that might fall into "non-consumer use" or "excessive use", thus shortening the above "reasonable lifetime". Meanwhile, if you're a bachelor that uses the washer once a week, the inverse is true! It should last longer.