The person responsible for this makes his money on craigslist, probably buying and selling old appliances. So he probably has a lot to gain by getting people to buy old "better" appliances off of craigslist than the "terrible" new appliances at a box store. Sure, maybe he's right, but it is worth considering when reading this article.
They Used To Last 50 Years
621–630 of 877 posts
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#622Earlier quoted context omitted.
My experience, which is not anecdotical and is shared with friends, say the same. I just change a refrigerator bought less than 12 years ago and I am changing a washing machine with the same age. My family is using the same refrigerator for more than 30 years.
I just changed a refrigerator, stove is basically dead, both 8 years old, Whirlpool brand. My Mom is still using the same appliances from when I was a kid. Nearly every family member I have says the same thing, new stuff lasts about 8 - 10 years and why can't we just get one like Mom's that will last 35+ years. My bosh dishwasher runs like new and is 8 years old.
Counter-anecdote: my Bosch dishwasher lasted barely six years before the impeller motor failed.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#623Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Europe you will find nowhere toploader. We know they are poor engineering: Bad water and electricity efficiency combined with more stress and wear out for the fabrics during washing. Only plus side I can see is that it is faster... but wasting so much resources does not justifies it IMHO.
This is not true. Modern top loaders, such as Samsung High Efficiency top loaders don't waste water like the old mechanical top loaders. They weigh the clothing, adjusting the water levels accordingly. They also don't have agitators, and wear fabrics less than the spinning action of a rotating drum. For a 2nd story laundry, they are a no-brainer, because the spin cycle (which is much faster than an old-school top loa…
Even Samsungs best top loaders still use significantly more water and energy than a front loader.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#624The Korean car companies really broke into the market by providing unheard of warranties on their powertrains. I'd love to see a new entrant to the white goods market try something similar. Guaranteed to last 10+ years; engineered for maximum reparability at minimum cost.
The trick would be to market the total cost of ownership, rather than the sticker price at the store. They already do that with electricity consumption, but don't for repairs and warranties.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#625When I went to the first semester of engineering school at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, there was a class called Engineering Professional Development 160: Introduction to Engineering. One of the early class sessions was a lecture from a guy at a power tool company, making some kind of jigsaw or handheld cutting tool. He explicitly told us, paraphrasing, "You don't want to make your product too reliable, bec…
I had a similar experience in a mechanical engineering class, our professor was discussing MTBF (mean time between failure) and how calculating this more accurately allowed companies to better engineer their product for obsolescence. For a company, a product that is too reliable is unprofitable in the long term and so they adjust by making sure that the product works beyond the terms of the warranty but not much more…
It's obvious that companies do this sort of thing. The main thing that prevented it in the past was that parts and labour were actually a significant cost, so things would be more expensive (in real terms) than today. When a TV or washing machine could be as much as 100% of a month's salary for a family, people couldn't afford a new one every 4 years. Companies realised this, so they made stuff that lasted longer.
But today, when everything is made in Asia by people who earn orders of magnitude less than the people buying the products, that TV or washing machine is ~10% of a months salary, and you end up with "fixing it is more expensive than buying a new", because the labor costs of fixing stuff (locally) is orders of magnitudes larger than labor costs for manufacture (in Asia).
Corollary: if global salaries become more equal in the future, we will get quality long-lasting stuff again.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#626I had no idea this was a pitch for a startup until the very end. Well played.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#627"Cheap" rather than "good": that's the switch that ruined it all!
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#628I seriously doubt a real study of appliance reliability over the past 70 years would show that the stuff sold in the 50s is actually more reliable or longer-lasting than the stuff sold today. Sure, you can find appliances that old that still work fine, but you don't see the ones that broke down after a year or two--they were junked decades ago and forgotten about. Since you can't grow the supply of working 50-year-ol…
In the URSS the appliances had a mandatory 25 year warranty. So, it makes sense to me...
In Europe it's 3 years minimum for electronics - conflicting with a lot of electronics' manufacturers who want to do 1 year at best. It's not a lot, but better than nothing. I'm reading on an official site that it's two years, which I guess is for all products, not just electronics.
Electronics are the kind of things that really shouldn't be expiring. They do though, and for most cheap electronics it's on purpose - they install underrated condensors that will start to leak shortly after the mandatory warranty expires.
I have an old LCD monitor which stopped working, but my dad's handy with a soldering iron, replaced the leaking condensors and it's lived for twice as long already with no signs of giving up any time soon. I'd rather want to replace a monitor because there's better and more modern alternatives, than have to because of leaky condensors / planned obsolescence.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#629This whole article could have been avoided if the author was introduced to the concept of planned obsolescence, an umbrella that reaches across each point they argued and even beyond it.
Apparently not.
From the article:
> It’s either incompetence or more likely, planned obsolescence.
Re: They Used To Last 50 Years
#630Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also studied engineering and I think your professor missed the point. You don't overengineer stuff anymore nowadays, not because you want to scam your consumer out of money (aka planned obsolence) but because the design tools got better and every gram of metal or plastic and every screw and every operation like welding, glueing and so on costs money. Nowadays simulation tools, new manufacturing processes and experi…
To your point, I saw or heard an interview with a Ford engineer a while back where he basically said look we know how to make parts that last forever, but they are heavy and expensive. He went on to say people want more affordable cars (cheaper parts) and we need to make cars lighter for fuel efficiency standards (lighter parts), so they set an internal goal of 10 years of longevity for a part, and then try and make…
Having worked with their racing teams in the past, you are correct. A good example is the clutch. Most clutch pads made these days, and likely for the last 4 or so decades, are made out of composite materials like ceramics, carbon-fiber, and even paper. These clutch pads have higher heat tolerances before warping occurs, yes, but they wear out much faster under daily driving conditions. Brass clutch pads will last beyond the next 2 ice ages, but do warp at very high heat/pressures, as one may experience when first learning a stick (but then decided to continue grinding away for the next 15 years anyways). They also do not design such that it will only last 10 years, they design such that it will last until some statistical deviation longer than the warranty for that part/car (depending on the contract corporate pushes out). Example: The manual transmission has a warranty for 3 years/50,000 miles. The clutch pads are then designed to wear out at 55,000 miles/3.25 years, or whatever the algorithms says will produce the most money.