Cars - For Car Enthusiasts
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It's not only that. There was a shift in the 70s because plastic became easier to industrially use, and it replaced more sturdy materials like metal. And after that came the electronicization of production, now electronic is less durable then mechanic. The neoliberal revolution made the salaries grow slower than before. Add to that planned obsolescence… all that opened the way for cheaper and less reliable production. Every decade since produced less and less durable things… There's a reaction now, but as the salaries are still low, it's a hard fight.
I agree for most things, they were just built to last a lot longer because product quality was a priority. These days, a company doesn't want you to buy once, they want to sell you a product that lasts just long enough you'll buy the same brand after it breaks. I'm a tradesmen and I can attest, the older a tool is, usually the higher quality it is. Same goes for lots of equipment. I once saw a sears model pressure tank from 1972 still in working condition when newer tanks last 5-10 years and the average before that was 15-20. That specific case might be survivorship bias, but every retiree i talk to will claim sears had some high quality stuff when they were yoinger.
Back then, not everyone had a washing machine, a frige, a stove, etc. The untapped market was those without those appliances. The focus was on reducing price while keepijg quality. Later, when most people had a fridge and the sales went down, the execs got the idea to add a shiny new shelf, a built-in freezer, a window, an ice machine, etc. Then they thought up of stuff like energy efficiency, durability, etc for marketing and planned obsolesence for maintaining their bottom line.
Nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised that more money is spent on researching novel ways of planned obsolesence (while avoiding laws against that in places where it exists), than just using "tried and true" methods would.
Yes, Craftsman was top of line, across the whole product line. When I worked at Lowes, Craftsman was the shittiest option in the garden center.
A rule I follow for kitchen tools is if I can find a manual, metal version, the better off I am. I use a pour over coffee maker and French press. Electronics just don't have the lifespan for me to waste money on them.
Same, some things I just do by hand because it's not so much more work, or leads to a better end result. Moka pot, big knife, iron skillet, some tools are so amazing and low tech. I can't refrigerate by hand though. We got a monster of a big fridge for the pantry, not hooked up to water, just a cavernous fridge/freezer thing and I LOVE it - it's like the TARDIS, will look full but if I shove things at I can add two loaves of bread dough, a cabbage, dozen eggs, so far it's never run out of space even around Thanksgiving with two turkeys in there. I am hoping that because there are fewer moving parts it will last.
And my Honda? I want it to live forever. 6 speed Accord Sport, stealth fun car in a mom car costume.
I see your survivor bias and raise you my value engineering.
Bingo! Everyone thinks they're so smart coming to these threads to shout about survivorship bias, but much of modern quality, and lack thereof, comes from cutting 1,000 tiny corners over time.
People now days gravitate towards the cheaper option. How is a company to stay in business when their competitors are making shit products, yet outselling them because consumers want cheap?
When there were only a couple of options for a refrigerator, everyone knew how those very few options ranked in quality. Appliances were far more expensive when I was a kid. In 1975, a fridge was $1,800 to $3,700 (adjusted for inflation). You asked friends, neighbors, coworkers, other parishioners, what they thought, because that shit better last! Generally speaking, more expensive was better. Now I have no clue what manufacturers are still quality, lost their way or are new and great quality. Lowes.com has over 700 models listed.
You asked friends, neighbors, coworkers, other parishioners, what they thought, because that shit better last!
You can still do this, I use the Internet tho. There are still brands here and there for each appliance that put the work in on some models, but you have to find them and you'll pay more. But that $1000 washing machine will easily outlast three $400 machines.
On the other hand the 1970s car was a giant hunk of shit that went to the crusher decades ago and the 2020s appliance is using 1/4th the electricity and 1/2 the water of something built in the 2000s.
I'm old enough to remember the 1970s cars and with some exceptions they sucked.; they were slow, heavy, smelly, and dangerous. I also have a 2 year old combo laundry machine (Washer + Dryer) with a built in heat pump that is freaking amazing.
Both nostalgia and survivorship biases are real.
It’s okay, we’ve all been gotten by this too. It’s easy to look at an older piece of technology that has survived, and ascribe that to ‘things used to be better’ while ignoring the materials advances or better engineering that doesn’t require massive buttresses to stop building falling over, or why using MIM instead of forging is better for 95% of use cases, or how wastefully overbuilt things were in the past because they didn’t know how to build efficiently.
There is a flipside of planned obsolescence and value engineering something to death where the wrong material/spec is decided for profit reasons… but that is not a new phenomenon
This is mostly value engineering and added complexity, not survivorship bias.
People learn a single concept and think it's the one and only. Suddenly robustness and complexity don't exist.
So you’re saying that survivorship bias also applies to survivorship bias?
1970s refrigerator: I will use four times as much electricity
1970s refrigerator: I will emit a gas that will give you dementia
"they don't make em like they used to!"
Good. "They" used asbestos for insulation and put lead in gasoline
We are swimming in renewable electricity. Who cares? Making the appliance consumes resources and energy.
What kind of argument is this lol
Until renewables hit continually provide 100% of your needs...everyone should care
Ping me on lemmy when we're done burning fossil fuels for good and I'll buy a 1970s fridge the same day
Even once they do we should care. Devices that run continuously consume a lot of energy over their lifetime. Keep your 70s drill, but a freezer should, even with cheap renewable energy, pay for itself after a year or two.
Repairable and reliable is often counter to efficiency. The tradeoff is very hard. A car that is less efficient is much more convenient than an efficient car that regularly gets maintened.
I mean the lack of reliability in modern refrigerators isn't because the better refrigerants and insulators and electronics are less reliable than electro-mechanical systems, it's because they use the absolute cheapest shit in the control boards, position them where they are exposed to humidity, and then duplicate that 4+ times to have different cooling zones.
There's a reason chest freezers last forever and are much cheaper than the refrigerator you put in your kitchen.
I talked about engines.
A 2003 Honda Accord has a more fuel efficient and reliable engine than many newer vehicles.
There are very efficient and reliable cars out there too. A good reason why most taxis for about 15 years now are hybrids is because of how reliable they are.
With the right maintenance you sure as hell can keep a vehicle alive for a long time. My dad has been keeping a 2001 Toyota van alive for a long time and, as a non automotive inclined or really interested person, I find that impressive.
Without any maintenance at all you can keep a Toyota alive, practically.
I once heard from a mechanic of a guy who had driven his tacoma 750k miles without any repair above the complexity of an oil change. When his water pump failed at 3/4ths of a million miles he was complaining about it…
Meanwhile I replaced the water pump in my VW twice in the last 30k miles
Do you think something might be up somewhere else in the engine? My family have had VWs (mostly TDIs) a while and they usually only need a water pump at about 80 or 90k miles. Either that, or you got unlucky like our TSI Polo that needed one at 20k (although nothing else in the 30k+ since).
Sometime it's just depend on whether you can still find the part or not, and sometime the part is badly engineered that when it break, it can't be repaired, and when replacement part can't be found or there's only low quality one in the market, then it's time to let the car die. I still fix car from the early to mid 90s from time to time, they all relies on cheaply-made or used part to survive.
2005 Peugeot 307 SW: i need a 1000€ part replacement per week
~~2005~~ 2025 Peugeot 307 SW: i need a 1000€ part replacement per week
Some things never change
Can confirm the fridge part. I've got an ice box from the 1960s ("Made in West Germany"), inherited from my grandma that has been running flawlessly since then. I had an energy meter stuck to it some time ago, it's using less kWh than our brand new, low energy certified fridge.
My 2006 Scion XA is still trucking along. I had to replace the alternator once and the catalytic converter needed to be replaced at around 130k miles to pass smog. Other than that it has only had a few minor wear and tear issues I fixed myself. I intend to keep that car until it is completely non repairable.
I totalled my 2000 Honda Accord twice (technically) and it still worked fine. Only got rid of it after I inherited my Mom's car. 200,000 miles, twice totalled, no issues.
Laughs in 1999 Civic...
You can't compare the longevity of a sports car to a honda accord. They are built for two completely different purposes.
The sports car will always require extra maintenance and cost to upkeep. This is what you bought it for and what you're paying for. You're trading your reliability and low maintenance cost for performance on the road.
Conversely, the Accord is heavily indexed on reliability, affordability, and safety, not performance.
Not really in my experience. Modern car electrics, as complex as they are, have been way more reliable than the nightmares in older vehicles I have dealt with. Engines too are a lot more predictable nowadays, and won't have the random weird quirks older engines do. They obviously develop faults too, but they are usually easier to deal with rather than strange faults on older vehicles. However, I do think serviceability has sometimes taken a step back, as there's a concerning number of cars that need you to take out the engine for certain servicing tasks that you are expected to do over the life of the car.
Yeah if you talk about normal cars but there are expensive luxury sports car brands that aren’t know for their reliability, like McLaren.
To be fair, I'm not sure there is any era with a lot of reliable sports cars, except for maybe the Honda/Acura NSX. To this day, if I say "BMW S85 V10 rod bearing failure" I would probably bring back some bad memories for some people even though it's been nearly 20 years at this point.
I'd have to agree, the quality of electrical components has gone way up since the 1980s, and almost every shitty part has been replaced with reliable electronics over time: ignition went from points to distributors to statically timed electronic boxes, carburettors have been replaced by very smart EFI with basically no wear items if you keep up with maintenance. All my old cars have had insanely shitty connectors, stupid wiring and finicky tuning.
Hybrids don't even need alternators.
I managed to buy a '90s Toyota with the one engine they made that actually isn't good (a 3VZE).
1993 Camry: Hold my beer
7th gen accord do be sturdy though, as long as you get the oil leak fixed and take care of the oil change(and using good engine oil), it should last forever. I have a customer that using it since new, it's not top notch for sure, but it still run pretty well, and it indeed transporting his children's children daily.
2003 is "brand new"
My 70s freezer came with the house. Still going strong dispite being patrtally underwater at some point. I just had to loan out some space because my parents freezer died.