I don't get why you're being downvoted. Anyone remembers the years after RoHS went into effect and e.g. NVidia's mobile GPUs started failing left and right due to no one having experience with lead-free solder?
While planned obsolescence is probably a factor I'd also consider the desire for more complicated features, efficiency requirements, and high (upfront) price sensitivity on the part of consumers. To the last point in particular I think you will find that a refrigerator was way more expensive in real dollars in 1950.
A really long warranty only helps if the company remains solvent.
I would be happier with something the manufacturer was confident was serviceable. Control boards that approach the cost of a high end smartphone are unreasonable, but also common.
I always had this dream of starting a company where my disruption to whatever industry, say home appliances, or cars, isn't that I'm doing something new, per say, its that I'm engineering everything the company would sell with DIY easy access fixes in mind, and actually publish (and ship with the product) the repair manual so people can just order the parts (with some margin, nothing crazy i'd think) and be on their way. Sell it to the self reliant, tinkers, and generally just people who hate to pay the high cost of repairs on things.
I wonder, truly, if this would be successful. I have no way of even wrapping my head around how to get something like that off the ground.
I think if someone designed and shipped a car, for instance, that was completely serviceable by the owner and designed with that in mind first and for most, you could easily disrupt the car market for a very broad amount of people today.
Many cars are largely DIY-friendly already. I do all of the work on our cars except tires, exhaust, bodywork/paint, and manufacturer recalls.
In the last 15 years, I can only recall one time a car went into a shop for a reason other than the above and that was an independent shop where I was too busy to deal with the job. That's across a Mercedes, a Jeep, a Honda CR-V, and Alfa Romeo, and some classic Mustangs.
There are a few marques that are DIY-unfriendly (hello, BMW), but most cars can be effectively DIY maintained. A DIY-friendly car would not be as disruptive as perhaps you think.
True, but even this trend is slowly changing sadly. Remember when fuel filters used to be inline? Sure, it's still DIY, but it's now no longer safe or easy to change them yourself without relatively expensive equipment, and a prayer you don't break a bolt or strap. Ever tried to change a battery on the reintroduced Beetle? As time goes on, drive by wire becomes more prevalent, etc...cars are slowly becoming harder to repair for the shadetree mechanic. Even the things that are still possible have become, in general, more cumbersome.
Perhaps. However I don't think they were built in mind for maximum owner repairability. I suspect they wouldn't be fighting the right to repair so hard otherwise
I don't think you need to make it easy enough for an average person, but easy enough for a repair person to do repairs in about 30 minutes, so the service call is kind of reasonable.
Combine that with trying to keep parts compatible over years and you would develop a following.
This is how a lot of Sears products worked. When I was a kid we had a little Craftsman tractor, and the entire repair manual and parts were available online. This was also true of their vacuums, and was how I got a $200 vacuum for $20 in college(a belt was broken). You could even buy parts in Sears.
We cleaned up by buying the extended warranty on our dreadful dishwasher. For a modest charge upfront, Sears sent out technicians 5 or 6 times, replaced the electronic control panel, a valve, and the entire washer motor. It took months and months of angry phone calls, but the damned thing works now.
You can purchase an additional warranty for decent money. Handling repairs is still a huge mess and burden - even if you're not paying for them. I read a couple of "four weeks without refrigerator" horror stories. That they happend on the warranty time did not make them any better.
I don't want a good warranty, I want a well working equipment.
A good warranty from the manufacturer is different, since it incentivizes them to make a product they don't have to repair in the first place. Once you're paying for a warranty, that goes out the window.
I'm willing to bet manufacturers actually went and did market research, and found out the opposite.
As if there was a market demand, they would have build and market such products.
Thats always the assumption isn't it? That they already did the research and found no demand for x.
I think if I have learned anything from Silicon Valley though its this: Never assume that these assumptions are categorically true, or that they were undertaken with due diligence.
Perhaps it is true, and there is not enough interest in this to justify it happening. What if, though, they didn't do the market research properly? Or steadfastly, it actually didn't happen at all?
I don't believe this. In Germany, "built-in" home apliances are standard for a modern kitchen. Replacing a built-in refrigerator if it failed would probably cost around 400-600€ (only replacement costs, not talking about the price of the refrigerator).
From that page, it looks like the price of the washer, adjusted for inflation to 2016, is $1756.12. A comparable washer today, from Sears, appears to be somewhere in the $400 - $600 range, or about 30% as much as it used to cost.
I agree and think that this article needs an inflation-adjusted comparison of the cost of different models so we can see how much of the decline might be caused by a race to the bottom in terms of price.
OMG, the "features". My stove is relatively simple except for 1 part, the one that sets the oven temperature (and the time, but who the hell needs a third clock in their kitchen). That part is a 300 dollar, proprietary circuit board. Of course it's the first thing to go. I'm sure the board doesn't cost the maker anywhere near $300 but I'm sure it's a lot more than an industry standard knob. If they want to cut a few bucks off the price, there's a good place to start. Put a standard knob only stove on the showroom floor and it might not be the first appliance everyone purchases but it will the be second of anyone that realizes how stupid it is to have a computer where single function piece of hardware belongs.
I don't know about that particular example, but refrigerators with ice makers are an obvious case of people buying appliances way more likely to break down.
In my case it wasn't the ice maker itself, but the plumbing leading up to it within the refrigerator. I finally ended up turning off the water supply after my DIY repair broke a second time.
You can save a lot of money on almost anything if you're willing to get your hands dirty and do the work yourself. I don't think it invalidates the argument.
You're totally right. I was trying to weigh the convenience and time savings of automatic ice for 12 years vs the low cost in time and money to keep it working, but I only cited the latter in my response.
Do many people actually have a "desire for more features" or are most features just being crammed in in a bid to differentiate refrigerator A from refrigerator B?
Personally I usually perfer the least features possible mainly because more features = more stuff to break.
Companies have a staff for each area that goes around repairing the appliances and those people get jobs and the companies sell more appliances.
I bought a GE refrigerator last year. Just a few weeks after having it, I woke up one morning to the thing not getting cold. GE insisted they come to look at it, while I insisted they replace the refrigerator. Repair guy comes on the first visit 2 weeks later, tries some different parts, tells me, "I'll be back next Friday.", which was 7 days away. He comes back the next Friday and determines the refrigerator is unrepairable. It had heated up and completely warped the inside. The repair guy had to take photos and video for corporate. That means a brand new refrigerator went straight to the dump. It's upsetting. And note how much time it took before this poor guy could get to me. He was booked with appointments.
This was a month long fiasco. I had spent time researching and purchasing the refrigerator before hand, which was even more frustrating. During the month without a refrigerator my only option as I saw it was to bite the bullet and buy another refrigerator. That refrigerator has been great, albeit my standards for a 'great' refrigerator have lowered.
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 manufacturers come close, period.
Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey.
Same design, but it seems they use lower quality electronics and metals, as the most common failures are with the motors, control boards and bearings.
> The best appliances today, by the way, are made by Bosch/Siemens and Miele. None of the other manufacturers come close, period.
> Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey.
What's the price difference for a made in Germany Bosch/Siemens v.s. a wherever-it-comes-from Whirlpool? Does it justify shelling out the extra $$$ for it v.s. the expected life to replace the latter when it dies? (presumably sooner than the German one)
The price for Bosch/Siemens made in Germany is about twice as high than the ones made elsewhere.
But that's partly because they only make the top end models in Germany, with mid-range models being made in Spain or Poland, and cheaper models in China.
They should last longer, be quieter and have all the extra features, but I'm not sure if it's worth double the price.
I always use last generation high end stuff (refurb or used), and fix it myself.
I agree. It would be worth double the price, if they used all different components than the ones used in its cheaper siblings. But if much of the parts are the same inside, where it's manufactured doesn't really matter.
But what about the time spent moving it around/waiting for the technician/trying to repair something clearly not designed to last/shopping for a new one?
You do notice the quality difference immediately, like the difference between an iPhone and a cheap flip phone. The high-end Miele machines do look a bit like what an Apple washing machine might look like, too [1]. It's not just the design; those things feel expensive.
We used to joke that Miele bought up all the metal that wasn't used for the Leopards for their washing machines (cast iron counterbalances and very thick walls) :D
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 a constantly filling drum that wouldn't be emptied. Que the film style comedy of water vomiting forth from the soap dispenser tray all over the kitchen.
The warranty is only 2 years standard (thanks for that at least EU) but anything more is paid. No 10 year guarantee anymore!
And mine wasn't the only newer Miele I've seen with expensive early failures as other friends have been caught too.
General consensus of the repair technicians I spoke with was all to get the cheapest non-condensing dryer (white-knight was mentioned as reliable but super cheap to repair if needed) you can and an LG washing machine for the sealed direct drive motor which comes with a 10 year [EDIT - seems they've dropped it to 5 years only now] guarantee.
Bosch dishwasher I'll concede is still going strong after 7 years. And It's really been abused (no filter cleaning for first 5 years!) so I take you point on that.
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.
The drum was a point all the repair guys brought up for basically all washing machines because all the modern ones are welded or something. Essentially they said they are terrible for repairs compared to the old style (which I presume weren't welded?) but the benefit to the newer setup was less leaks (or words to that effect).
I've got an LG direct drive. The bearings failed after about 6 years. The repair ended up being about $250(US). They replaced the stator, rotor, drum, and bearings (essentially all the moving parts of the appliance).
Staber washers are supposedly made with industry-standard components (seals, bearings, motors, etc.) so if they fail you can get replacements from any mechanical parts supplier.
Ha! That's not quite how my model works (you just use a wash pack to clean the whole machine) but yeah, when I did finally clean the filter because a plastic straw was stuck in it it was not so bad considering.
Well, I haven't had to clean my filter in over 5 years, but I still pre-rinse (yes, I know you're not supposed to need to anymore, but I don't want to risk it), so I check the filter regularly, but it's clean.
Are we ready to dismiss an entire brand because of one anecdote? All appliances fail at some point. We can't make a judgement based on a single data point.
Reading about this stuff also makes me sad that the rest of the world have such weak consumer protections. In Norway, sellers are obligated to provide 5 years of warranty by law, and the consumer has certain rights such as the right to get a replacement if the product cannot be fully repaired after a certain number of attempts at resolving a problem.
I took my anecdata straight to the shops, jumped onto the planned obsolescence bandwagon and bought the cheapest replacement I could find.
Now I don't care if they fail in 2 or 3 years because they're the same cost as the repair of an expensive model. And like you say, all appliances fail at some point, so I'll keep fueling this horrible new world we've built for ourselves and let the manufacturers fight it out over price.
recycling in the US has to be profitable. Where I live we are no longer allowed to put glass into the recycling because it is no longer a profit center for the city.
I should add that getting rid of big items can be especially difficult, but most appliance delivery includes taking away the old one to .. wherever they go.
The reason to recycle materials made of abundant elements (steel, aluminum, glass) is to conserve energy rather than ores. (Even the energy justification would be far less significant if world energy systems were mostly non-fossil.) Though city planners should do the arithmetic to double check that the collection system doesn't waste more resources than it saves.
Refining iron or aluminum from ore takes significant energy because you're basically un-rusting it, and that reaction naturally runs the other way; recycled metal gets to reuse that energy investment.
I thought the glass process was basically melting sand and adding some trace additives, rather than forcing any chemical reactions uphill. Recycled glass also needs melted (if it doesn't, that's called a reusable bottle, not recycling).
This is incorrect. Making good glass is not trivial, glass has been recycled since Roman times. Even today, "Savings for other materials are lower but still substantial: about 70% for plastics, 60% for steel, 40% for paper and 30% for glass."
The right kind of sand for making glass isn't found everywhere. In the UK, we have a particular problem that the only glass-suitable sand we have is not suitable for making clear glass, so we can only make coloured glass. All our clear glass is imported, mostly from France. However, most local recycling centres only have a "mixed colours" glass bin, so we can't even make our own recycled clear glass. And That's Why We Can't Have Nice Things (tm).
The other thing that's discounted here is how people treat their products they've purchased.
I'm not saying that's the sole cause, but it surely doesn't help when filters aren't cleaned, things aren't replaced at their regular intervals, and other standard maintenance isn't done.
I'm comfortable with buying a used car given the maintenance paperwork and/or maintenance-related receipts are provided. But that's about it.
I'll probably never buy any used household appliance related to hygiene or food consumption -- washing machines, dishwashers, or even a microwave.
Point of order: The non-filter cleaned item is the longest lived.
Also, do you guys even dishwasher? You clean them by using a wash pack like this[1]. You don't need to physically remove the filter save for a blockage as you just wash it in place.
So yeah, I exaggerated, what a dastardly scallywag!
> Sorry but I'm not drinking the Miele Kool-Aid any longer.
My parents installed Miele appliances in a kitchen remodel about 6 years back. The fancy expensive oven must've broken down 5 times in the first year. I think it eventually settled down though.
Miele's reputation is based mainly on their washing machines. When we bought the appliances for our kitchen we did not even consider any Miele products, but for washing machines I would never buy anything else.
"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 washer/dryer set cost $495 in 1953, which is ~$4500 in today's buying power. You can buy a cheap washer/dryer set these days for $500 on sale, which is pretty incredible. 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 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.
Not only that, but people also _want_ to buy new appliances, since they actually become better. More silent, less power drain, more features, etc. So if everyone buys new stuff every ten years or so anyway, why bother building stuff that lasts fifty since that undoubtedly is more expensive.
And then account for interest, inflation, improved efficiency and possibly future reductions in cost -- a $500 one that lasts 10 years might be a better investment than a $4500 one that lasts 1000.
Having to worry about safety (electric shocks, leaks, fires, short circuiting) when something breaks, hauling big heavy appliances in and out of the house, selecting new ones,... those are costs you have to factor in when choosing to go with the shit that doesn't last. I'd prefer having the stuff that lasts longer for a little bit more money if I had a choice.
Well that, and a home appliance doesn't cost 1/7th of your annual budget anymore. Some things were built to last because to justify the expense, they had to last.
James May (unusually) made a very good point that the "good old days" is an illusion created by survivorship bias, nostalgia, and failure to understand economics. The survivorship bias especially should be obvious:
Lots of cheap crap was made throughout the years, but it didn't survive. We only have examples of the stuff that managed to survive, or was notable in some way. The $50 Smartphone equivalent of the 50's was no more notable than today's version, and no more long-lasting.
Definitely, you'd have bits rattling around otherwise, and maybe even some harmonic issues. Even if it wasn't a noise issue, it would probably wear out the tapes a lot faster, and lead to more jams.
Then of course, you have Beatz headphones, which really are the next best thing to a scam.
The spectacular failures in these products that I've seen in the last decade were all skimping.
In the case of a refrigerator, the manufacturer undersized the motor, probably to meet some efficiency standard. The previous years model had an adequate motor, which worked much better.
I've also seen cases (Whirlpool refrigerators) where they included a rubber nipple that was too narrow, and would either freeze up and clog with biofilm. End result was icing of the condenser and evaporator. (Here's a description of the problem: https://partsdr.com/blog/w10619951-updated-drain-tube-fix-ki... )
A deep freezer is a very different beast. It is a simpler appliance with very basic components. Far fewer things to break than your combo which has to precisely regulate the temperature and has auto de-icing. I grew up with fridges that needed to be de-iced every few months. Those didn't break much either.
That 25 year old refrigerator is almost certainly very expensive to operate. Look at the energy use over time: 1990 -> 2015 saw a halving of power usage (1000 kWh/y -> 500 kWh/y) -- over a ten year lifespan with CA electricity at $0.19/kWh, that's $950 in increased energy expenditure as compared to a new refrigerator. ie it would be close to free.
For refrigerators at least, it doesn't make sense to make them robust enough to last more than 10-15 years since it's worth it to replace them over that time period. My understanding is the vast majority of refrigerators are then recycled. All those metals are valuable.
When I moved in with my wife, we replaced her 10-year old bachelor-sized fridge with a new one that was over 3x bigger and the new one had nearly the exact same power draw...
That's actually the series in which he makes the observation I was paraphrasing. I found that show pretty entertaining actually, and oddly satisfying. Edit: I think it might have been the stand mixer episode.
I also strongly recommend the mini-motorcycle episode.
I agree... it's mildly amusing, mildly engaging, mildly informative... it's just mild in the best possible way. It actually feels a bit like looking over someone's shoulder in a workshop, in a pleasant way.
Well, there's buckling spring model-m style keyboards, or even other keyswitch keyboards vs typical gel membrane keyboards... but even then, the casing material and backplate on a newer unicomp doesn't match the older IBM keyboards... it's definitely cheaper plastic everywhere except the keys themselves. Unicomp are about the only kb mfg today whose keys don't show obvious wear within a year of purchase.
Even Lego is looking to cut mfg costs (or has, was an older article) by switching to cheaper plastic, and removing some of the supports.
What kind of world are we living in where we need cheaper plastic?
The keyboards are significantly cheaper as well. The Model M keyboard retailed for 150$, which would be almost 400$ in today's money. For 400$ I guarantee you you will find a keyboard with a thick casing and quality plastic today.
These product comparisons all fail because today, we can make so much cheaper products than we could back then. And we are now comparing the cheapest crap (even a 100$ keyboard is cheap in comparison to the Model M) with MUCH more expensive products from the past. (Lego might be an exception here, as that product is the same)
LEGO are, officially at least, looking to move to a more sustainable plastic rather than a cheaper one. They have spent a lot of time and money coming up with an analog that is more environmentally friendly without sacrificing quality (compression strength, deformity, discoloration, etc).
Being both non-American and non-public, LEGO are less susceptible to the MBA bean-counting that is at the root of most of the problems described in this thread.
I'm on board with half of this claim. The failure-due-to-defect rates actually are rising, according to systematic studies of home appliances. But the cost decline might actually compensate for that, at least in consumer terms. If you cut costs on the most over-engineered parts of your product, you can often create a less-reliable device that's still more cost-efficient. Of course, whether you pass those savings to consumers is a second question.
This is why if you are a thrift store, the older-looking item is often a better buy than the newer-looking item of the same kind. The newer one is often further along is wear cycle than the older one.
>"The only explanation..."? What about "never attribute to malice..." and Occam's Razor.
Experience tells us that the simplest explanation for manufacturer's behavior is the kind of malice called "maximizing profit, all else be damned".
That's Occam's Razor in use right there -- we would need to get out of our way to invent morally good businesses, incompetent engineers who can't get things to last, and modern conveniences that have short lifespans as necessary engineering tradeoffs to explain that away.
Maximizing profits also involves making products at the price points customers want. If customers don't want to pay for 50 year appliances, why should they make one?
I do want to pay more for a 50 year appliance. How can I tell it will last 50 years?
I was going to suggest that a lengthy warranty would be a good guide, but gcb0 below says their LG came with a 10 year warranty which was worthless because it didn't cover one part.
Exactly. What incentive is there for manufacturers to make appliances that last 50 years when consumers won't even be able to tell? They'll just buy the cheapest one anyway.
>Maximizing profits also involves making products at the price points customers want. If customers don't want to pay for 50 year appliances, why should they make one?
Are customers even offered the option?
And why would "50 year appliances" have to be more expensive? The simple parts, and more basic processes used to manufacture them don't sound like costing more. And they could drop most of the electronics, IoT crap, and fancy features. If the average household could buy a fridge in 1970, why wouldn't they be able to afford one today?
Sure they are -- eg Ford, Chevy, Toyota, and Honda still sell cars. We're betting on getting to 250k and the maintenance costs: do you pick a Honda Civic/Toyota Corolla, or a domestic brand?
Miele sells dishwashers.
And better made things cost more money for lots of reasons -- better materials ($$), more coats of paint (time, materials), heavier duty metals or plastic (time, materials, shipping expense), more careful manufacture, tighter tolerances, and marketing.
When did I contest this? What I asked is: if they could afford a 50-year-good fridge in the 70s, why wouldn't they be able to afford a 50-year-good fridge today?
Maybe they couldn't afford a refrigerator in the 1970's. Living within ones means is a value that has not been a large part of the country's identity (US.) We could just be growing more conscious of living with in our means now because of the economic crisis. I don't mean to sound like an expert or anything, I'm just playing devil's advocate
don't look any further, I bought a 3k washer and dryer combination from LG 4 years ago. It boasted a ten year warranty!
the paint, drum, motor, finish, everything looks like new. But, the controller board burned.
I know my way around electronics, mind you, I can see exactly what is wrong (burned transformer), but the whole board is covered in some gelatin that makes any repair impossible.
the power input board is also water proofed with the usual epoxy that you can chip away and do your repair. but the controller board gelatin thing makes it impossible!
oh, and that board not only is NOT covered by the ten year warranty (only the drum and motor) but not a single place carry it. even LG cannot provide me that part for any money in the world. discontinued they say. after 4 years.
if anyone want to pick it up and drive the pristine electronics with an Arduino, msg me. machine is in socal though.
The gelatin covering the board does serve a purpose--it helps with vibration, among other things. It's called a potting compound, and you'll find it around electronic components in other high-vibration applications (automotive, power tools, etc.)
This is the subject of this thread. How much "less expensive" you get on a $3~4k machine where the competition is $500. To compare with well built machines going for $3~4k in the 50's
An SMPS controller burned on my LG Washer control. LG didn't have any boards in stock, so I decided to repair it myself. Pried the board out of the tray with autobody pry tools and pulled away the silicone goo where I needed to repair.
I don't know what the rationale is for the board being covered in a half inch of rubber potting. A smaller coating would have provided a water seal, and this rubber is a heat insulator. Seems counterintuitive to me.
You will have to replace the board if the transformer has an open winding, because all these transformers are application specific. The silicone was burnt around some of the transformer terminals on my board, which scared me, but I didn't find any open windings. The other special part on this board is the cpu, everything else on the board is commodity and it is a real shame that LG decide to use this rubber potting AND screw up the supply of replacement parts.
I think it's a real flaw to integrate switchmode power supplies into control boards.
200$ in 1959 for a washer = 1600$ today inflation adjusted. So yes I can go on Best Buy's website and pick a mid range washing machine for 1/2 the price. And yes there are plenty of cheaper examples, but the mid range cost in no way justifies 1/5 the the lifespan.
He said a washer dryer. I can buy a brand new Hotpoint washer for about $250, but you won't find a washer dryer for that price.
Also, a sidenote - that Hotpoint washer comes with a free 10 year parts warranty - you have to pay for the engineer to come and install it, but Hotpoint will replace any part of the washer for free, or give you a new one if they can't fix it.
And people complain the average machine does not last 10 years. So, unless you found the cheapest washing machine from 1950's it's not exactly a direct comparison.
Came here to say the same thing. I am always skeptical when people use the phrase "they don't make them like they used to" because the reason they used to make them like that is either (a) they had to hand make them and it wa super expensive, (b) they didn't have cheaper materials so they used thick and strong stuff just so it wouldn't fall apart before being delivered, (c) they didn't have the infrastructure to repair or replace parts, or (d) there were no economies of scale because everything was a one off.
Take jackets. I guarantee you that a modern windbreaker is in every way better than an old school leather jacket. Lighter, cheaper, requires no maintenance, and lasts longer. But polyester is not as cool as leather and doesn't feel as sustatial so we have the sense that things used to be better. No way. It's just that synthetics like that didn't exist 100 years ago and leather was the best you could get.
I used to buy a nice looking faux-leather jacket from Zara three years ago. The faux leather layer started discoloring making it look like shit after a year and completely peeling off after a year. Worst shit ever. I learned that I have very little need for fancy clothes, and I don't care about styles. But I learned to buy leather jackets after that. A good (not nice) leather jacket is very much worth the money I paid for. Same for shoes, shoes that are built to last are very valuable to me.
I wear leather jackets because I like them. A good leather jacket is better than a shitty faux leather jacket. But for the same price, synthetic probably wins.
That's what you get for buying fake leather. A polyester jacket will perform better and be lighter, and not need maintenance. It won't look like leather, though. That's why you're having problems: you're trying to get something that looks like leather, because you want that style, not because it actually performs better.
> New fridges aren't just a little more efficient, they're incredibly more efficient. A 1986-era 18 c.f. fridge uses 1400 kWh a year, while a modern energy-efficient model uses only 350 kWh — a whopping 75% reduction. At 15¢ kWh, trading in a pre-1986 fridge for a new efficient one would save about $158 a year in electricity costs. And some older fridges are even worse than the average. One reader estimates her savings to be $238 per year for trading in her 1979 fridge for a 2004 model.
There's not some great conspiracy of appliance manufacturers. All those difficult-to-repair parts have been added to make the appliances cheaper, or more energy efficient, or quieter, or speedier and more effective (compare how dishwashers and washing machines and dryers from a few decades ago work to how they do now).
Here is a much simpler explanation: people want to buy cheap stuff. If given a choice between $1200 appliance which lasts 25 years, and $1000 appliance which last 15 years, and no infomation about the actual lifetimes, most people would choose the cheaper model. The people feel good, the sales rise, and who cares what happens in 15 years -- the company will have different execs by that time. And once people get used to 15 years life, the company can introduce even cheaper mode which lasts 10 years only!
See -- no conspiracy theories required, just general greed and irresponsibility. :)
That's the mistake PC laptop makers made for 20 years, collective racing to the bottom until they figured out ways to produce $300 laptop. But they eventually learned that a large consumer base had no problem paying $1200 for a MacBook. It turns out, people were willing to pay substantially more for a better product. Now, PC makers are dishing out laptops that are comparable to Apple's.
In my view, main problem is this; when you make washing machine ranging from $500-$2000, inevitably they will share significant number of parts. And the weakest link will most likely be the shared parts engineered to cost, so that they can be profitable in the $500 model.
So why use not bespoke, higher quality parts for the $2000 one? Because it will end up costing more like $4,000-$5,000.
Overall reliability of appliance would shoot up, if a company stopped making their cheapest model so dirt cheap.
Also, on average people move houses every 7 years in the US (give or take based on age) and it is typical for the appliances to stay with the house. This means the original owner/buyer is pretty unlikely to see the appliance fail before they sell the house. The next owner might, but will buy a new one and then move before it fails. Repeat...
I think this is also why "no brainer" upgrades like solar panels (depending on location) and very efficient HVAC systems aren't installed. Ditto woodwork that's not actually glorified cardboard and can be refinished indefinitely, et c.
Not to mention that warranties on major appliances or home products are often either explicitly or practically non-transferrable to new owners. The previous owners of my house had the basement waterproofed but I can't makes claims under the warranty unless I pay a yearly fee!
VW aggressively cuts costs and reduces quality of their American products. The American Passat is different than the European Passat, we get the Euro Passat in the US as the CC. VW also massively decontented the Jetta a few years ago to better compete with the Japanese cars. Despite the car reviewer universally chastising VW for making their cars feel "cheap", Jetta sales skyrocketed.
This is not just a VW thing. For the longest time Honda did the same thing: European Accord were sold in the US as Acuras while the US got it's own special Accord.
This is probably due more to the high vehicle taxes and lower volumes of Europe than it is an inherent "cheapness" with Americans.
A lot of people want cheap stuff. Cheap PC laptops are still popular.
Anecdata: Most people I know outside of my circles of engineers, gamers and well-off college students who disproportionately own Thinkpads, Asus gaming laptops and Macs respectively, still own throwaway PC laptops.
Someone forgot to tell Rotel this (the Hi Fi company). My amplifier and pre-amp from 1997 are still going strong this day today, 20 years later.
My Infinity Kappa 6.1 speakers are the same age; just had to refurbish/replace the cone surrounds a few years ago. If anything they sound better than when I bought them. :-)
So considering this: You're right, there's probably more money in the strategy of planned obsolescence.
Personally, I think there is a market for quality in appliances as well (certainly I'd look for quality over wiz bang Internet of Things crap); the appliance market just has a quasi-monopoly dominating sales, and they are currently over-focused on a race to the bottom.
In audio, it's possible to find products designed to last. My current amplifier is from Bryston, bought about 16 years ago. Their warranty for their analog products is 20 years. (http://bryston.com/pages/faq.html)
They are more serviceable at least, you can get the replacement parts pretty easily along with manuals. They're purposely made that way for hotels/laundromats/etc where you can't just swap it out.
I know a guy who did extensive research and bought a Speed Queen washer and dryer, simply because most of their business is in commercial units. They're built simply and made to last, but not easy to find at retail.
This rings true. I just fixed our 5-year old Kenmore fridge - a 15A glass fuse blew after a storm. Of course it is soldered into the power control board directly without a housing, and the manufacturer lists it as an unserviceable part. They'll only sell the control board as a whole unit for $200+.
Despite that, a few minutes with a soldering iron and a trip to home depot, it's fine now (and has a proper fuse holder to boot). I think people are going to have to learn to get more comfortable hacking their appliances moving forward.
I am sure that Miele builds outstanding washing machines. But, first, a Miele basically costs double what another branded machine would cost. And partly, they live on their old name and reputation. Same with Mercedes. I am sure a Mercedes is an outstanding peace of hardware. But I am also sure any Mercedes will never be as long lasting and as reliable, as a Mercedes build on the W123 platform.
The belief that "our cars used to last much longer, manufacturers are screwing us" is bullshit. I'm not sure if people are looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, or if there's severe selection bias (people only notice the 40 year old car, not recognizing that it only represents >1% of the vehicles produced at the time, and has received a fortune in repairs and maintenance costs), but the data is clear, our cars are better and last much longer than they do in the past. Just look at the average age of the vehicle fleet:
There are short-term blips in this data when new vehicle sales surge (or vice-versa), but the average age of vehicles hit a record high of almost 12 years last year, and the long-term trend is clear: our vehicles last much longer than they do in the past. There has also been a population surge in vehicles over 15 years of age, which has been a significant positive secular trend for numerous parts manufacturers and repair shops in the industry, and the increased complexity of the vehicle fleet (more parts that repair shops need quick access to), which has pushed numerous players in the automotive supply chain to invest more in their distribution infrastructure. Cars have become more complex, but the parts in the vehicles also fail much less frequently than they did in the past (though many now integrate more parts and cost more than they have in the past).
I did a bunch of research on the automotive sector for my last job, and it's striking how laymen's views are completely contrary to what is going on in the industry. I don't know much about the other appliance markets, but I wonder if there is a similar misperception issue in the other markets.
As for the short life-cycles in new technology like smartphones, is that really so terrible? My current smartphone is much better than the last one I bought in 2014, and miles better than the first smartphones that were in released in 2009-10. The short life-cycle reflects how quickly the products improved and evolved. That said, the improvement rate has slowed down, so hopefully, people will hold onto their smartphones longer instead of updating just for fashion reasons.
I would easily agree with you about cars, but do not agree regarding appliances. What the article states about appliances is absolutely true. If you look at most major appliances warranties, you will see evidence of this that is completely the opposite of what you see with cars. Cars are seeing warranties stretching to the 10-year, 100,000 mile mark, whereas warranties on refrigerators (compressor), for example, has been halved in the last 15 years, going from 10-year warranties in the early 2000s to 5-year warranties today.
Even appliances from the same factory going to different countries are vastly different in quality. Pretty much the same model too. There is a huge washing machine assembly operation inmy town, my friends work there, they warn anyone that would listen.
You don't need a conspiracy theory to explain cheap laptops and smartphones. Those devices get way better every couple years. It doesn't make sense to build a smartphone that'll last 5 years, if it'll feel like a crappy phone for years 3-5. Even though there are plenty of people who don't care about the difference, enough people do care to make the market.
I used to sell these about fifteen years ago and maybe they have changed but they were no different than any other fridge brand and their washing machines... they were one of the first brands to have led control panels which used to always break after five years. But that's a while back now.
I own two fridges, an oven and a dual dishwasher from them. The fridges are beautiful to look at but the pump is rather noisy. The oven is the best oven I've ever had in my life. The dishwasher broke down more times than I care to say and caused water damage in my house.
I'm a New Zealander who has owned Fisher and Paykel appliances, and was interested to see if they were still independent, as they weren't mentioned in this article.
Since 2012, they've been 90% owned by Haier, one of the "big four" he lists.
They're one of the first pancake motor users in appliances and because of the extremely short unsupported section of shaft are next to indestructible if not abused.
I've seen people scouring dumps for those for some hobby project or other (windmill, hometrainer, electric go-cart...).
It's really weird seeing F&P as an appliance maker, they also make (or did, the design keeps getting sold off to various companies) the CPAP mask I wear every night.
If these observations are correct, it seems like all the other issues are just fallout from the first, "not enough competition."
Because everything else -- the push for higher efficiency, more bells and whistles, a proliferation of models that change all the time, lighter metal parts -- applies to automobiles too, and today's automobiles are significantly more durable and low-maintenance than those of my parents' and grandparents' generations.
I’ve bought and sold refrigerators and freezers from the 1950’s that still work perfectly fine. I’ve come across washers and dryers from the 1960’s and 1970’s that were still working like the day they were made.
Isn't there an element of survivorship bias to these statements? What about all the 1950's fridges that didn't last until today?
I think survivorship bias could very well be a part of it, but very rarely is there a "root cause" to something like this.
I tend to be a more optimistic person (feel free to call it naive!). While i'm sure there are brands/companies out there plotting to make a dishwasher that breaks 6 months outside the warranty, I have a feeling its much more likely that it's due to other reasons.
As someone else in this thread brought up, quality costs money. People are getting used to paying less up-front for their appliances, and in order to stay competitive these companies need to also drop their prices, which means cutting corners in some areas. If they make it look nicer "at purchase time" (like with fancy exteriors, easier install due to lighter weight, more features, etc...) and skimp on the reliability, they will sell more now and stay competitive (with a possibly intended, but also possibly unintended side effect of causing more to be sold in the long run due to failures).
Elsewhere in this thread, people are comparing prices of 1950's appliances to todays, and I'm noticing that in the 1950's they cost around 4x more than they do today about across the board! That right there could account for a fairly significant amount of the difference in quality.
> Isn't there an element of survivorship bias to these statements? What about all the 1950's fridges that didn't last until today?
Right. If fridges made in the 50s routinely lasted 50 years I should have seen lots of 50s style models growing up. I didn't. Anecdotal, so take it FWIW.
He may have good points about declining quality, but I suspect it is demonstrably true that such appliances didn't typically last 50 years. In fact, it is the rarity of seeing such old appliances that make people really pay attention when they see one.
Perhaps also of interest, Consumer Reports regularly reports that modern cars are much MORE reliable than cars of old. (They have lots of data on the issue.) This despite being much more complicated machines than they used to be.
Another anecdote. Watching an 80s TV show with my not-yet-tween daughter, we came upon a part where a character hopped in a car and found it turned over but wouldn't start. My daughter asked me why it wouldn't start. She has to this point in life never seen a car not start! That was a weird thought to me, someone growing up in the 80s. (My daughter has heard of dead batteries possibly being a problem with cars from time to time).
Fridges have come a long way in efficiency. I cannot believe that operating a fridge from the 80s or before is not a ridiculous waste of money, no matter how inexpensive your electricity is.
They don't make [foo] like they used to. Lamentations like these have been going around in western culture since at least the time of iron age Greece, which people felt was a regression from the bronze age.
The observations from the article can be explained by simple attrition. Old fridges that were crap have been thrown away. Old buildings that were crap have been demolished. Old cars that were crap have been scrapped. What you're left with is the tiny percentage of buildings, appliances and cars that were designed and built a little better and cared for a little bette than the rest, making it look like old things are of a higher quality than new things.
Half a century from now, there will be people who, looking at the few surviving buildings, cars and appliances from today, will lament that they don't build things like they used to in the early 21st century.
I think but owning a washing machine can be indeed a good approach.
The other one is knowing which appliances you have and how long they last.
With smart power outlets the aggregated data across many households comes available. That means that consumer protection programs get a lot of ammunition to hold manufacturers accoutable.
I have a theory that this is also being done with cars sold specifically in the United States. I spent some time abroad in South America a few years ago and I'm convinced our crappy cars wouldn't hold up a year driving on the unpaved roads and rocky desert terrain the resident's down there are used to. Meanwhile, my Argentine friend's 1980s Peugeot, missing electric windows and cd player had been on the road there for DECADES. This got me so intersted I looked up the most popular vehicle I saw thinking that would be my next car here. Well guess what? The Toyota Hilux isn't available here. They claim the Tacoma is the same truck just engineered for American emission's standards. I'm not buying it.
A US car manufactured to withstand south american unpaved roads would be largely wasted. 99% of people won't ever use them in that manner. So money is spent on things they will use (like infotainment systems and more "creature comfort" stuff).
In an area where unpaved roads are more common, the suspension might be beefed up, thicker steel used, an overall hardened vehicle, but the interior will be a shell of what the US car would be.
> The Toyota Hilux isn't available here. They claim the Tacoma is the same truck just engineered for American emission's standards. I'm not buying it.
The Tacoma is a pretty sturdy truck, you see lots of older ones running around along with legions of Taco fans. They aren't available with a diesel engine like the Hilux, but the Hilux diesel wouldn't work in the US because of emissions and not being for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.
Miele is here, but they're known for vacuums and dishwashers, mainly. The Miele laundry appliances have tiny capacities compared to everything else sold in the US. My assumption is that Europeans wash clothes more frequently, in smaller batches.
Years ago, I bought a Miele dishwasher with cutlery rack; it was incredibly good. Other people have had mixed experiences. Service is difficult to find for Miele.
Miele is available, though not at more commodity stores like Best Buy. We replaced our awful 3-year-old waste of a dishwasher for a Miele and have been happy. In terms of cost, the original (Electrolux?) was like $800 and the Miele was maybe $1100. But the Miele has less capacity and is louder. Which I'm OK with in exchange for reliability and sound construction, but if we hadn't gotten such a lemon before I might have had a harder time justifying it to myself. When my fridge finally dies, I'm sure before its 10th birthday, I'll probably replace it with a Miele.
FWIW, all Siemens appliances are manufactured by Bosch Siemens Haushaltsgeräte (now BSH Hausgeräte)[1]. Siemens sold all of their shares to Bosch in 2014.
Miele has a rock solid reputation in Germany when it comes to washing machines. As the old folks say "Miele, Miele, sprach die Tante, die alle Waschmaschinen kannte", which means something like "Miele, Miele, said the aunt, who knew all washing machines".
Not sure about other appliances from Miele. My Miele dryer lasted only 10 years (with a broken drum, beyond repair), which is far less than what you would expect from Miele.
Look for a brand called "Speed Queen". They generally make commercial washers, but have a few home units they sell as well. They're all built like tanks, and some still have old mechanical controls. I have a mechanical set, and love it.
Yep. Bought the washer and dryer and they are nice. Went with the electronic controls though. And also top loading washer to avoid moisture/mold issues if door left closed.
One thing that shouldn't be discounted is survivorship bias. The machines from the 1960s that broke early on aren't around anymore. The only machines from the 1960s that are left are those which last a long time.
As I understand it, aluminum wound transformers are more reliable than copper under surge conditions because aluminum has a much higher specific heat than copper - providing more of a thermal buffer prior to damage.
Motors aren't transformers, but I'm having a hard time seeing how this same effect wouldn't be in play.
My source for the explanation of motors in household appliances wearing out, is from people who are in the commodity metals recycling industry (i.e. metals like steel/copper/alu sold for scrap and recycled). So it is based on what they are seeing - there might be some bias, as obviously they are only seeing those units that have been sent off for scrap.
What might be the case, is that as copper increased in price, manufacturers quickly switched to aluminum but did not allow/adjust properly either for the greater expansion of aluminum when heated, or, did not have their anti-oxidation finishes that coat both the wire and the terminals, perfectly adjusted.
If so, current "second generation" motors should be failing at a much lower frequency - but we might not see that as an effect yet due to that group being newer overall.
Aluminum conducts electricity much better than aluminum oxide, which forms almost immediately if aluminum is scratched or otherwise exposed to air, thus the anti-oxidation finish.
My 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.
One of the reasons for the limited life would be the longevity of the actual heat exchanger - they will eventually corrode due to the corrosive nature of the exhaust gases passing through them.
Additionally, the manufacturer probably doesn't want to have to stock parts for 16+ year old models.
An analog would be software; nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work, but good luck getting support.
Corrosion is unlikely to cause any problem with the heat exchanger unless it is really severe, as there are no moving parts in it.
> nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work
My older machines of that era have all failed due (most likely) to failed capacitors. The disk drives fail most likely due to lubrication issues. The semiconductors fail because all semiconductors fail due to the migration of the doping that occurs when they get warm.
None of my 80's machines will power up anymore. I'm not too surprised, they were only built to last a couple years, and it only takes one failure in those enormously complex machines to do the whole thing in.
I try to keep my XP machines running because those were the last to support DOS programs and I still support Digital Mars C++ generating DOS programs.
Are you sure about that? I did some research on this on the internet, and the house air in the exchanger is at a higher pressure than the exhaust gas, and so house air goes into the exhaust if there's a crack, not the other way around.
Possibly not the heat exchanger as a most likely cause, when all is functioning well (having just performed my own brief online research).
However, the original question concerned the longevity of gas furnaces, and possible limiting factors on their lifespan.
As such, you might care to contemplate:
* What are origins of CO?
* What are such possible origins within a house?
* What are the likely mechanisms for transit of CO from normal exhaust systems to interior space?
* What might be the long-term consequences of thermal stress, oxidation, cycling, etc., on manifolds of such spaces.
If you choose to focus myopically on heat exchangers and heat exchangers alone, that's your call. I'd suggest keeping the batteries up to date in your CO monitors, however.
Cradle 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.
I 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.
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!
Along the same lines, probably the easiest way to get quality in almost every type of product is to buy the commercial version. The people using these products are very familiar with them, so nobody sells garbage.
Businesses are also generally more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers.
I personally started doing this a few years ago. I even have a throwaway LLC that sounds nebulously like a contractor so I can sign up for "industry only" marketplaces. Since I can usually get wholesale prices doing this, I pay only maybe 30% more than for crap consumer level throwaway stuff.
The major downside is the time it takes, but the upside is that none of my stuff ever breaks.
Perhaps, but they'll be available at all, and the device will be repairable.
I don't even mind that modern appliances break so often; it's the fiddly plastic bits and lack of parts that are the problem. Give us something made of metal with some screws and the damn thing can probably be fixed.
(re: the article topic, this is another thing that's kept me away from automobiles for the past twenty years)
I'd love to see a store that sells buy-it-for-life style products that are probably more expensive up front but also built to last, all with robust warranties so you know the claims are backed up. A place you could go into and know everything in there was good. If you wanted the cheapest you'd go somewhere else but man, I'd shop there.
They could do appliances (stuff like SpeedQueen washers), hand and garden tools, kitchen stuff like pots and pans and knives... just anything that's solid and lasts and doesn't require ridiculous maintenance to make it so.
Sometimes now I'd be willing pay more but either I can't even find the stuff that isn't cheap junk, or I just can't tell what's going to break and what isn't.
You're describing Sears, no? Sarcasm doesn't read so well on the internet but yeah my parents still have a washing machine from probably 1970 in their house. The matching dryer finally gave up on them about 5 years back... that thing was still to this day the best dryer I ever used. Run it 30 minutes, even the heaviest towels were crispy dry and almost too hot to handle when you took them out.
I think having high quality appliances is partially why Sears tanked... First they didn't sell as many (due to having to compete on price with lower quality / cheaper products), then when they found a way to compete (having Samsung make Kenmore appliances, for example), they lost the quality and the last reason anyone would opt to go there over Costco or Amazon or Home Depot.
I bought a matching Washer / Dryer set from Costco. Then the next year I bought a Fridge and Dishwasher from LG there too. For the first three years or so it was fine, but about 5 years in I think they all have issues. My house is about 20 years old, and the Dishwasher I replaced was the original... so it lasted 15 years. I can say that the new (and fairly top of the line) Dishwasher has more issues at 5 than the old builder-grade one had at 15. I really regret not getting a Bosch...
But even up into the 80s and 90s Sears / Maytag were known for selling top quality goods that didn't break. Here's a cute commercial.
Heh, our house is 20 years old too but the appliances they put in are terrible! Got a cheap warped Westinghouse oven that we have to prop closed with a guitar stand.
Some of the blame for appliance quality rot (though certainly not all of it) can be laid at the feet of the government. With new efficiency and safety regulations it becomes impossible to legally sell a dryer that can get your towels crispy dry in 30 minutes.
Sears is a lost cause. The only thing keeping them afloat is the value tied up in their real estate holdings.
> With new efficiency and safety regulations it becomes impossible to legally sell a dryer that can get your towels crispy dry in 30 minutes.
I hadn't even thought about this.
Funny... my parents have a very low energy bill compared to mine... even using these "old" appliances. I think it has more to do with the fact that they have a smaller house, and still prefer to wash dishes by hand, and don't leave any computers on or have an air conditioning system. Makes me wonder how much "efficiency" at the appliance-level matters. No doubt the EPA isn't a bad investment, but I don't think they are regulating the things that really matter. Homes built in the 1950s were tiny... like 1,200 - 1,500 sqft. Average house today is 2,700 sqft. And there are a lot more bells and whistles going into it.
This is why in a lot of European countries you can only get condenser dryers now, rather than vented dryers. I guess there's a fire safety aspect too (i.e. vents blocked up with highly flammable lint, static electricity and heat), but I think it's mainly because of energy efficiency.
It's a bit ironic though, because there is a lot more stuff that can and will go wrong in a £600 heat-pump condenser dryer vs a £150 vented dryer. If they are both equally designed to be 'disposable' which is really better for the environment?
My house is about 70 years old. When I bough it in 2008, there were several old appliances (probably on the order of 25-30 years old) and they worked like champs, until the washing machine failed. I replaced it with a used old washing machine.
Eventually the dryer stopped working and I started looking for replacements. I stopped at a local used appliance place and described the problem, the guy who worked there suggested that since it was one of the old sturdy types, it might be a simple repair. I had him come out and he took a looks. It was a bad fuse. $40 later, I was back in business.
I dread the day when I can no longer have them repaired and have to replace them with disposable appliances.
I'd pay a monthly payment for having a washer that I can always expect to work and get serviced if it doesn't, along with regular service.
I know I can lease washers, but the price makes is such that I might as well buy and replace every so often. 2 years amount to buying the machine, and most machines last longer than that. But pay to lease a commercial grade washer would be great.
When appliances are out of date in ten years because new electronics provide better features, why should customers or makers spend extra to get them to last longer?
Depends on the device. Both our fridge and washing machine are 20 years old, and still going strong. New models offer nothing that we value - I don't want to attach either of them to the internet.
Anytime I do anything around appliance shopping, the ability to get information about what is actually quality is near zero. It's SEO'd, spammed, paid-reviewed, and marketed into the ground.
Mattresses are similar, but fortunately, there is https://www.themattressunderground.com/ , which is a high quality site. I bought a Tuft and Needle mattress based on my learning there and it has been spectacular.
> appliance shopping, the ability to get information about what is actually quality is near zero
Do you know about Consumer Reports?[1]
It's a non-profit organization which puts out a magazine (and website) which does unbiased product testing, has zero advertising, pays for all the products they test, never takes sample products, buys all their products anonymously (so they can't be given better samples for testing purposes), and has extensive laboratories, procedures, scientist/technicians for testing (a private track for testing cars, for example).
I never heard of anyone saying that Consumer Reports was fraudulent or paid-reviewed. Appliances are things that they definitely review all the time.
The downsides of Consumer Reports are as follows:
- it's U.S. based, so it's focused on products available in the U.S.
- for appliances, say a washing machine, they are going to pick only 10-20 models to review, even though there may be hundreds of models on the market
- there are a million things they'll never review because they are not an ordinary, common, consumer purchases; you'll never see reviews of oscilloscopes :-)
> The downsides of Consumer Reports are as follows:
Another downside, as the article pointed out, is the intentional smokescreen of multiple product names and slightly differing versions that make comparison shopping and meaningful reviews virtually impossible, and why I don't get as much value from my Consumer Reports subscription as I used to.
This is particularly prevalent in the mattress industry.
Part of it is brand reputation stripping. If a brand gets a good reputation, some big conglomerate buys it and starts using it to make trash, and it takes time for consumers to learn it through the grapevine. This happens far too often to be mere coincidence.
It's not a coincidence. But that doesn't mean it's a global conspiracy.
You stated the entire cause->effect very succinctly yourself: "If a brand gets a good reputation, some big conglomerate buys it and starts using it to make trash, and it takes time for consumers to learn it through the grapevine"
It is an extremely straightforward way for a company to make quick money.
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 $50 cheaper appliance even if it lasts 40 years less. What I mean to suggest is that price sensitivity at time of purchase often trumps long term gains - which is why you often see things like payday loans being used. When a person is paycheck-to-paycheck they probably aren't thinking about their financial position in 50 years, simply out of necessity.
Another reason might be that the Nokia 3310's of the world have been basically prototypical products - they are overdesigned. When the user has a perception that a phone is fragile, what's the threshold? We might not need a phone that can be run over by a truck to think a phone is tough. If the split of material cost -> price point and consumer perception is optimal at a certain point - companies will try and design to that point.
Completely agree. There are niches were quality is paid for, where appliances no not self-destroy after a couple of years. Cases in point: Kitchenette, Thermomix.
But outside these niches, it is a race to the bottom.
part of the issue, and I'm surprised the author didnt mention it, is that in the last 10 years most devices have switched from mechanical to electronic.
when i bought my speed queen washer and dryer, the person selling it said they only had mechanical, which some consider an advantage. I tend to agree.
Why's mechanical better? Mechanics stick, break, become worn out. A circuit generally doesn't, does it? I know capacitors burst but they're easy enough to change. Do components like ICs ever just stop working? I would have thought solid-state would be better for endurance.
touch pads have high failure rates. if they don't go, the control board does. and if neither, the connection between them.
as for easy to change, replacing the mother board on my refrigerator would cost 600$ without installation fees. guess who bought a new refrigerator? :(
I know it happens, but how does a mother board just die? I mean it's a piece of plastic with durable metal channels on it. The channels don't wear or burn out. Everything's just inert. I know some components like capacitors do die, but they can be tested and replaced. How can a mother board just stop working?
some kind of short? kitchens are damp places, the door is opened and closed many times a day, huge power fluctuations, etc. I dont know why for certain, its not my field. I do know that it happens a lot, as I started googling what could be wrong with my fridge when it went haywire.
1. Corrosion 2. Electrolytic caps. 3. Vibration. 4. Flexing due to thermal cycling. 5. Electronic designs operating near their limits, resulting in increased failure rates.
It used to be everything in a hostile environment (hot/wet/corrosive) was potted (dipped in epoxy) and in an enclosure. Now they have bare boards. Electronically controlled motors and very limited protection circuitry for the ICs. Just not built to last. No commonality in circuit boards so parts are very expensive (possibly by design; they only need parts for warranty repairs, after that they don't care about cost/availability).
Yes, ICs age. Fissures in the subtrate expand with each thermal cycle. Delamination is a similar effect. That's how manufacturers prematurely age their parts -- by endless cycles in the oven.
The biggest culprit is flash memory. It's in almost everything, and has a much shorter life than the 10 years most manufacturers claim.
For some functions, such as simple timers, one advantage mechanical might have is that it might be easier or cheaper to obtain repair parts.
A mechanical timer is likely to be a commodity part used by many different manufacturers in a variety of products.
An electronic timer is more likely to be a custom board designed by the manufacturer of the appliance you are trying to repair, possibly designed specifically for that model. There might be only one source for replacements, and they may be restricted to "authorized" service companies.
Around 40%[1] of the population rents, which means 40% doesn't make the purchasing decision for many appliances. We can sanity-check your argument with this: That reasoning should predict no change in the quality of commercial appliances used in apartment complexes and laundromats, since these customers are used to making spreadsheets with a capital expenditures budget that they pay into for 30 years.
My perceptions in most coin-op laundries has been that they use different brands to consumers!
Additionally, at least in Australia, my perception has been that most renters are required to bring or purchase their own washing machines and refrigerators.
Here in Australia, my apartment came with a dryer (required by law), a dishwasher and an oven. We had to buy the washing machine and the fridge, though.
A dryer is required by law!? I almost never use dryers in NZ. I couldn't imagine using one in Australia - even Melbourne is an arid desert wasteland by my standards.
I don't have a source other than to say this is what my real estate agent mentioned to me if I recall correctly, but at least in the ACT in an apartment block it's a requirement to provide a dryer if you don't provide a proper area for a clothesline.
This is the big difference between "luxury" apartments and "lower income" apartments. The Luxury buildings slap in high end appliances and some granite countertenors and BAM it costs 500 dollars more a month.
I rented a "luxury" apartment for a while and despite the faux-granite countertops the appliances were still pretty low-end. They were newer but still about the cheapest models you could get of everything.
Yeah, somewhat related when we purchased our first tractor we were shocked that a 30hp tractor can go well north of $30,000. A large part of the reason is they will run for 50 years with minimal maintenance. We ended up picking up a '81 29hp tractor that was still ~6k.
Sure there's planned obsolescence but there's also the cost factor as well.
If consumers are price-sensitive, then companies locked in a race to the bottom will end up producing utter crap, that honestly shouldn't even exist in the civilized society. I don't think we can keep blaming consumers; the goal here is to ensure a minimum quality standard.
I don't really intend to blame consumers more than I want to blame a society where people are forced to make compromises to survive to the next paycheck!
I 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.
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[ 0.19 ms ] story [ 386 ms ] threadOtherwise we would have plenty of other devices based on the same technology fail.
I would be happier with something the manufacturer was confident was serviceable. Control boards that approach the cost of a high end smartphone are unreasonable, but also common.
I wonder, truly, if this would be successful. I have no way of even wrapping my head around how to get something like that off the ground.
I think if someone designed and shipped a car, for instance, that was completely serviceable by the owner and designed with that in mind first and for most, you could easily disrupt the car market for a very broad amount of people today.
In the last 15 years, I can only recall one time a car went into a shop for a reason other than the above and that was an independent shop where I was too busy to deal with the job. That's across a Mercedes, a Jeep, a Honda CR-V, and Alfa Romeo, and some classic Mustangs.
There are a few marques that are DIY-unfriendly (hello, BMW), but most cars can be effectively DIY maintained. A DIY-friendly car would not be as disruptive as perhaps you think.
Combine that with trying to keep parts compatible over years and you would develop a following.
I don't want a good warranty, I want a well working equipment.
I think if I have learned anything from Silicon Valley though its this: Never assume that these assumptions are categorically true, or that they were undertaken with due diligence.
Perhaps it is true, and there is not enough interest in this to justify it happening. What if, though, they didn't do the market research properly? Or steadfastly, it actually didn't happen at all?
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=329&year1=1952...
That household refrigerator that was $329 in 1952? $3024 in 2017 dollars.
http://www.aei.org/publication/appliance-shopping-1959-vs-20...
From that page, it looks like the price of the washer, adjusted for inflation to 2016, is $1756.12. A comparable washer today, from Sears, appears to be somewhere in the $400 - $600 range, or about 30% as much as it used to cost.
Data for today's washers: http://www.sears.com/appliances-washers-top-load-washers/b-1...
According to http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html a washer and dryer set cost around 500 USD (in 1953 USD) which according to http://www.usinflationcalculator.com would be around 4500 USD in 2017 USD.
Since I'm not from the US I don't know what's popular there, but if I look at http://www.homedepot.com/b/Featured-Products-Popular-Laundry... it seems like they go between 500 and 1000 USD. So between 4.5 to 9 times cheaper than in 1953.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GZND6U
Your observation is spot-on.
Personally I usually perfer the least features possible mainly because more features = more stuff to break.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence
> It’s either incompetence or more likely, planned obsolescence.
I bought a GE refrigerator last year. Just a few weeks after having it, I woke up one morning to the thing not getting cold. GE insisted they come to look at it, while I insisted they replace the refrigerator. Repair guy comes on the first visit 2 weeks later, tries some different parts, tells me, "I'll be back next Friday.", which was 7 days away. He comes back the next Friday and determines the refrigerator is unrepairable. It had heated up and completely warped the inside. The repair guy had to take photos and video for corporate. That means a brand new refrigerator went straight to the dump. It's upsetting. And note how much time it took before this poor guy could get to me. He was booked with appointments.
This was a month long fiasco. I had spent time researching and purchasing the refrigerator before hand, which was even more frustrating. During the month without a refrigerator my only option as I saw it was to bite the bullet and buy another refrigerator. That refrigerator has been great, albeit my standards for a 'great' refrigerator have lowered.
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 manufacturers come close, period.
Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey.
Same design, but it seems they use lower quality electronics and metals, as the most common failures are with the motors, control boards and bearings.
> Interestingly, the high-end machines from Bosch/Siemens made in Germany are higher quality than the ones made in Poland, China, Spain or Turkey.
What's the price difference for a made in Germany Bosch/Siemens v.s. a wherever-it-comes-from Whirlpool? Does it justify shelling out the extra $$$ for it v.s. the expected life to replace the latter when it dies? (presumably sooner than the German one)
But that's partly because they only make the top end models in Germany, with mid-range models being made in Spain or Poland, and cheaper models in China.
They should last longer, be quieter and have all the extra features, but I'm not sure if it's worth double the price.
I always use last generation high end stuff (refurb or used), and fix it myself.
[1] https://m.miele.de/haushalt/waschmaschine-1566.htm?mat=07082...
Because "Made in Germany" is a badge of honor and the German giants take care to not damage both their own brands as well as the "Made in Germany".
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 a constantly filling drum that wouldn't be emptied. Que the film style comedy of water vomiting forth from the soap dispenser tray all over the kitchen.
The warranty is only 2 years standard (thanks for that at least EU) but anything more is paid. No 10 year guarantee anymore!
And mine wasn't the only newer Miele I've seen with expensive early failures as other friends have been caught too.
General consensus of the repair technicians I spoke with was all to get the cheapest non-condensing dryer (white-knight was mentioned as reliable but super cheap to repair if needed) you can and an LG washing machine for the sealed direct drive motor which comes with a 10 year [EDIT - seems they've dropped it to 5 years only now] guarantee.
Bosch dishwasher I'll concede is still going strong after 7 years. And It's really been abused (no filter cleaning for first 5 years!) so I take you point on that.
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.
Don't know how reliable they are.
>no filter cleaning for first 5 years!
That's pretty disgusting for something you use to eat.
Reading about this stuff also makes me sad that the rest of the world have such weak consumer protections. In Norway, sellers are obligated to provide 5 years of warranty by law, and the consumer has certain rights such as the right to get a replacement if the product cannot be fully repaired after a certain number of attempts at resolving a problem.
Now I don't care if they fail in 2 or 3 years because they're the same cost as the repair of an expensive model. And like you say, all appliances fail at some point, so I'll keep fueling this horrible new world we've built for ourselves and let the manufacturers fight it out over price.
It's literally the law in the UK that such goods have a method of being 'taken back' so they don't end up in landfill.
I can't actually put any such goods in landfill if I tried, save for fly tipping. Even then the item would end up through the recycling chain.
I should add that getting rid of big items can be especially difficult, but most appliance delivery includes taking away the old one to .. wherever they go.
And because recycling it is one of the most pointless things you can do. It's sand, we have unlimited quantities of it, the planet is made of it.
I thought the glass process was basically melting sand and adding some trace additives, rather than forcing any chemical reactions uphill. Recycled glass also needs melted (if it doesn't, that's called a reusable bottle, not recycling).
I'm not saying that's the sole cause, but it surely doesn't help when filters aren't cleaned, things aren't replaced at their regular intervals, and other standard maintenance isn't done.
I'm comfortable with buying a used car given the maintenance paperwork and/or maintenance-related receipts are provided. But that's about it.
I'll probably never buy any used household appliance related to hygiene or food consumption -- washing machines, dishwashers, or even a microwave.
Also, do you guys even dishwasher? You clean them by using a wash pack like this[1]. You don't need to physically remove the filter save for a blockage as you just wash it in place.
So yeah, I exaggerated, what a dastardly scallywag!
[1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=25945475...
My parents installed Miele appliances in a kitchen remodel about 6 years back. The fancy expensive oven must've broken down 5 times in the first year. I think it eventually settled down though.
Maybe it's different depending on EU country but it should be 2 year manufacturer warranty followed by 4 years covered by the retailer.
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 washer/dryer set cost $495 in 1953, which is ~$4500 in today's buying power. You can buy a cheap washer/dryer set these days for $500 on sale, which is pretty incredible. 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.
James May (unusually) made a very good point that the "good old days" is an illusion created by survivorship bias, nostalgia, and failure to understand economics. The survivorship bias especially should be obvious:
Lots of cheap crap was made throughout the years, but it didn't survive. We only have examples of the stuff that managed to survive, or was notable in some way. The $50 Smartphone equivalent of the 50's was no more notable than today's version, and no more long-lasting.
The difference between a top 1% appliance and an average appliance is probably less than $10 of materials and $5 in labor.
Once you work in manufacturing you realize that components are actually very expensive, not a $10 joke.
Then of course, you have Beatz headphones, which really are the next best thing to a scam.
In the case of a refrigerator, the manufacturer undersized the motor, probably to meet some efficiency standard. The previous years model had an adequate motor, which worked much better.
I've also seen cases (Whirlpool refrigerators) where they included a rubber nipple that was too narrow, and would either freeze up and clog with biofilm. End result was icing of the condenser and evaporator. (Here's a description of the problem: https://partsdr.com/blog/w10619951-updated-drain-tube-fix-ki... )
Meanwhile my cheap apartment-scale fridge was made with chewing gum and hope.
http://aceee.org/blog/2014/09/how-your-refrigerator-has-kept...
For refrigerators at least, it doesn't make sense to make them robust enough to last more than 10-15 years since it's worth it to replace them over that time period. My understanding is the vast majority of refrigerators are then recycled. All those metals are valuable.
And all those refrigerants need to be collected to prevent release to the atmosphere.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18176916/ns/business-consumer_news...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=james+may+reass...
I also strongly recommend the mini-motorcycle episode.
https://youtu.be/XnYPOkzy-oI
"Therefore medieval England must have been full of cathedrals. It must have been amazing!"
Even Lego is looking to cut mfg costs (or has, was an older article) by switching to cheaper plastic, and removing some of the supports.
What kind of world are we living in where we need cheaper plastic?
These product comparisons all fail because today, we can make so much cheaper products than we could back then. And we are now comparing the cheapest crap (even a 100$ keyboard is cheap in comparison to the Model M) with MUCH more expensive products from the past. (Lego might be an exception here, as that product is the same)
Being both non-American and non-public, LEGO are less susceptible to the MBA bean-counting that is at the root of most of the problems described in this thread.
https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/25...
Experience tells us that the simplest explanation for manufacturer's behavior is the kind of malice called "maximizing profit, all else be damned".
That's Occam's Razor in use right there -- we would need to get out of our way to invent morally good businesses, incompetent engineers who can't get things to last, and modern conveniences that have short lifespans as necessary engineering tradeoffs to explain that away.
I was going to suggest that a lengthy warranty would be a good guide, but gcb0 below says their LG came with a 10 year warranty which was worthless because it didn't cover one part.
Are customers even offered the option?
And why would "50 year appliances" have to be more expensive? The simple parts, and more basic processes used to manufacture them don't sound like costing more. And they could drop most of the electronics, IoT crap, and fancy features. If the average household could buy a fridge in 1970, why wouldn't they be able to afford one today?
Miele sells dishwashers.
And better made things cost more money for lots of reasons -- better materials ($$), more coats of paint (time, materials), heavier duty metals or plastic (time, materials, shipping expense), more careful manufacture, tighter tolerances, and marketing.
the paint, drum, motor, finish, everything looks like new. But, the controller board burned.
I know my way around electronics, mind you, I can see exactly what is wrong (burned transformer), but the whole board is covered in some gelatin that makes any repair impossible.
the power input board is also water proofed with the usual epoxy that you can chip away and do your repair. but the controller board gelatin thing makes it impossible!
oh, and that board not only is NOT covered by the ten year warranty (only the drum and motor) but not a single place carry it. even LG cannot provide me that part for any money in the world. discontinued they say. after 4 years.
if anyone want to pick it up and drive the pristine electronics with an Arduino, msg me. machine is in socal though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potting_(electronics)
I don't know what the rationale is for the board being covered in a half inch of rubber potting. A smaller coating would have provided a water seal, and this rubber is a heat insulator. Seems counterintuitive to me.
You will have to replace the board if the transformer has an open winding, because all these transformers are application specific. The silicone was burnt around some of the transformer terminals on my board, which scared me, but I didn't find any open windings. The other special part on this board is the cpu, everything else on the board is commodity and it is a real shame that LG decide to use this rubber potting AND screw up the supply of replacement parts.
I think it's a real flaw to integrate switchmode power supplies into control boards.
http://www.aei.org/publication/appliance-shopping-1959-vs-20...
200$ in 1959 for a washer = 1600$ today inflation adjusted. So yes I can go on Best Buy's website and pick a mid range washing machine for 1/2 the price. And yes there are plenty of cheaper examples, but the mid range cost in no way justifies 1/5 the the lifespan.
Also, a sidenote - that Hotpoint washer comes with a free 10 year parts warranty - you have to pay for the engineer to come and install it, but Hotpoint will replace any part of the washer for free, or give you a new one if they can't fix it.
And people complain the average machine does not last 10 years. So, unless you found the cheapest washing machine from 1950's it's not exactly a direct comparison.
Take jackets. I guarantee you that a modern windbreaker is in every way better than an old school leather jacket. Lighter, cheaper, requires no maintenance, and lasts longer. But polyester is not as cool as leather and doesn't feel as sustatial so we have the sense that things used to be better. No way. It's just that synthetics like that didn't exist 100 years ago and leather was the best you could get.
I used to buy a nice looking faux-leather jacket from Zara three years ago. The faux leather layer started discoloring making it look like shit after a year and completely peeling off after a year. Worst shit ever. I learned that I have very little need for fancy clothes, and I don't care about styles. But I learned to buy leather jackets after that. A good (not nice) leather jacket is very much worth the money I paid for. Same for shoes, shoes that are built to last are very valuable to me.
> New fridges aren't just a little more efficient, they're incredibly more efficient. A 1986-era 18 c.f. fridge uses 1400 kWh a year, while a modern energy-efficient model uses only 350 kWh — a whopping 75% reduction. At 15¢ kWh, trading in a pre-1986 fridge for a new efficient one would save about $158 a year in electricity costs. And some older fridges are even worse than the average. One reader estimates her savings to be $238 per year for trading in her 1979 fridge for a 2004 model.
There's not some great conspiracy of appliance manufacturers. All those difficult-to-repair parts have been added to make the appliances cheaper, or more energy efficient, or quieter, or speedier and more effective (compare how dishwashers and washing machines and dryers from a few decades ago work to how they do now).
http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/refrigerators.html
See -- no conspiracy theories required, just general greed and irresponsibility. :)
It's not that people 'want' to buy cheap stuff.
That's the mistake PC laptop makers made for 20 years, collective racing to the bottom until they figured out ways to produce $300 laptop. But they eventually learned that a large consumer base had no problem paying $1200 for a MacBook. It turns out, people were willing to pay substantially more for a better product. Now, PC makers are dishing out laptops that are comparable to Apple's.
In my view, main problem is this; when you make washing machine ranging from $500-$2000, inevitably they will share significant number of parts. And the weakest link will most likely be the shared parts engineered to cost, so that they can be profitable in the $500 model.
So why use not bespoke, higher quality parts for the $2000 one? Because it will end up costing more like $4,000-$5,000.
Overall reliability of appliance would shoot up, if a company stopped making their cheapest model so dirt cheap.
I'm pretty sure they do. In that price range you're looking at entry level commercial / heavy duty cycle equipment.
> Overall reliability of appliance would shoot up, if a company stopped making their cheapest model so dirt cheap.
They have to be dirt cheap to compete with decades of used appliances available.
This is not just a VW thing. For the longest time Honda did the same thing: European Accord were sold in the US as Acuras while the US got it's own special Accord.
This is probably due more to the high vehicle taxes and lower volumes of Europe than it is an inherent "cheapness" with Americans.
Anecdata: Most people I know outside of my circles of engineers, gamers and well-off college students who disproportionately own Thinkpads, Asus gaming laptops and Macs respectively, still own throwaway PC laptops.
My Infinity Kappa 6.1 speakers are the same age; just had to refurbish/replace the cone surrounds a few years ago. If anything they sound better than when I bought them. :-)
So considering this: You're right, there's probably more money in the strategy of planned obsolescence.
In audio, it's possible to find products designed to last. My current amplifier is from Bryston, bought about 16 years ago. Their warranty for their analog products is 20 years. (http://bryston.com/pages/faq.html)
Despite that, a few minutes with a soldering iron and a trip to home depot, it's fine now (and has a proper fuse holder to boot). I think people are going to have to learn to get more comfortable hacking their appliances moving forward.
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/line3.htm
https://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/pu...
There are short-term blips in this data when new vehicle sales surge (or vice-versa), but the average age of vehicles hit a record high of almost 12 years last year, and the long-term trend is clear: our vehicles last much longer than they do in the past. There has also been a population surge in vehicles over 15 years of age, which has been a significant positive secular trend for numerous parts manufacturers and repair shops in the industry, and the increased complexity of the vehicle fleet (more parts that repair shops need quick access to), which has pushed numerous players in the automotive supply chain to invest more in their distribution infrastructure. Cars have become more complex, but the parts in the vehicles also fail much less frequently than they did in the past (though many now integrate more parts and cost more than they have in the past).
I did a bunch of research on the automotive sector for my last job, and it's striking how laymen's views are completely contrary to what is going on in the industry. I don't know much about the other appliance markets, but I wonder if there is a similar misperception issue in the other markets.
As for the short life-cycles in new technology like smartphones, is that really so terrible? My current smartphone is much better than the last one I bought in 2014, and miles better than the first smartphones that were in released in 2009-10. The short life-cycle reflects how quickly the products improved and evolved. That said, the improvement rate has slowed down, so hopefully, people will hold onto their smartphones longer instead of updating just for fashion reasons.
My experience, as well as facts, don't support that. Cars are lasting longer than ever. The average age of a car on the road is highest it's ever been.... http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/07/29/new-car-sales...
I remember when I was a kid, as a rule of thumb, people would say to expect a car last for 100,000 miles. Now I'd expect closer to double that.
I'm actually pretty amazed at the quality of modern cars.
I've had the lot for 4 years now.
Since 2012, they've been 90% owned by Haier, one of the "big four" he lists.
They're one of the first pancake motor users in appliances and because of the extremely short unsupported section of shaft are next to indestructible if not abused.
I've seen people scouring dumps for those for some hobby project or other (windmill, hometrainer, electric go-cart...).
I lived in Hawaii for 7 years. Everything rusts.
Because everything else -- the push for higher efficiency, more bells and whistles, a proliferation of models that change all the time, lighter metal parts -- applies to automobiles too, and today's automobiles are significantly more durable and low-maintenance than those of my parents' and grandparents' generations.
Isn't there an element of survivorship bias to these statements? What about all the 1950's fridges that didn't last until today?
I tend to be a more optimistic person (feel free to call it naive!). While i'm sure there are brands/companies out there plotting to make a dishwasher that breaks 6 months outside the warranty, I have a feeling its much more likely that it's due to other reasons.
As someone else in this thread brought up, quality costs money. People are getting used to paying less up-front for their appliances, and in order to stay competitive these companies need to also drop their prices, which means cutting corners in some areas. If they make it look nicer "at purchase time" (like with fancy exteriors, easier install due to lighter weight, more features, etc...) and skimp on the reliability, they will sell more now and stay competitive (with a possibly intended, but also possibly unintended side effect of causing more to be sold in the long run due to failures).
Elsewhere in this thread, people are comparing prices of 1950's appliances to todays, and I'm noticing that in the 1950's they cost around 4x more than they do today about across the board! That right there could account for a fairly significant amount of the difference in quality.
Right. If fridges made in the 50s routinely lasted 50 years I should have seen lots of 50s style models growing up. I didn't. Anecdotal, so take it FWIW.
He may have good points about declining quality, but I suspect it is demonstrably true that such appliances didn't typically last 50 years. In fact, it is the rarity of seeing such old appliances that make people really pay attention when they see one.
Perhaps also of interest, Consumer Reports regularly reports that modern cars are much MORE reliable than cars of old. (They have lots of data on the issue.) This despite being much more complicated machines than they used to be.
Another anecdote. Watching an 80s TV show with my not-yet-tween daughter, we came upon a part where a character hopped in a car and found it turned over but wouldn't start. My daughter asked me why it wouldn't start. She has to this point in life never seen a car not start! That was a weird thought to me, someone growing up in the 80s. (My daughter has heard of dead batteries possibly being a problem with cars from time to time).
The observations from the article can be explained by simple attrition. Old fridges that were crap have been thrown away. Old buildings that were crap have been demolished. Old cars that were crap have been scrapped. What you're left with is the tiny percentage of buildings, appliances and cars that were designed and built a little better and cared for a little bette than the rest, making it look like old things are of a higher quality than new things.
Half a century from now, there will be people who, looking at the few surviving buildings, cars and appliances from today, will lament that they don't build things like they used to in the early 21st century.
Just in Amsterdam, I know of two [1], so undoubtly there are more out there?
[1] https://www.bundles.nl/ and https://www.peerby.com/
The other one is knowing which appliances you have and how long they last.
With smart power outlets the aggregated data across many households comes available. That means that consumer protection programs get a lot of ammunition to hold manufacturers accoutable.
A US car manufactured to withstand south american unpaved roads would be largely wasted. 99% of people won't ever use them in that manner. So money is spent on things they will use (like infotainment systems and more "creature comfort" stuff).
In an area where unpaved roads are more common, the suspension might be beefed up, thicker steel used, an overall hardened vehicle, but the interior will be a shell of what the US car would be.
The Tacoma is a pretty sturdy truck, you see lots of older ones running around along with legions of Taco fans. They aren't available with a diesel engine like the Hilux, but the Hilux diesel wouldn't work in the US because of emissions and not being for ultra-low-sulfur diesel.
Miele machines are expensive but indestructible. Siemens ones are very strong and not much dearer than other brands.
Are those not available in the US?
Years ago, I bought a Miele dishwasher with cutlery rack; it was incredibly good. Other people have had mixed experiences. Service is difficult to find for Miele.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSH_Hausger%C3%A4te
https://youtu.be/O8L9PIjYngk
You could say 'tortoises! they don't make them like they used to' for example.
Now they use aluminum wire, which works perfectly fine, until there is a power surge in which case the aluminum overheats and the motor is now dead.
As I understand it, aluminum wound transformers are more reliable than copper under surge conditions because aluminum has a much higher specific heat than copper - providing more of a thermal buffer prior to damage.
Motors aren't transformers, but I'm having a hard time seeing how this same effect wouldn't be in play.
Aluminum wiring in houses, has some known problems, such as metal fatigue and differences in thermal expansion between copper and aluminum: http://www.alwirerepair.com/aluminum-wiring-whats-the-proble...
What might be the case, is that as copper increased in price, manufacturers quickly switched to aluminum but did not allow/adjust properly either for the greater expansion of aluminum when heated, or, did not have their anti-oxidation finishes that coat both the wire and the terminals, perfectly adjusted.
If so, current "second generation" motors should be failing at a much lower frequency - but we might not see that as an effect yet due to that group being newer overall.
Aluminum conducts electricity much better than aluminum oxide, which forms almost immediately if aluminum is scratched or otherwise exposed to air, thus the anti-oxidation finish.
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.
Additionally, the manufacturer probably doesn't want to have to stock parts for 16+ year old models.
An analog would be software; nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work, but good luck getting support.
Corrosion is unlikely to cause any problem with the heat exchanger unless it is really severe, as there are no moving parts in it.
> nothing stops a circa-1994 Windows NT machine from continuing to work
My older machines of that era have all failed due (most likely) to failed capacitors. The disk drives fail most likely due to lubrication issues. The semiconductors fail because all semiconductors fail due to the migration of the doping that occurs when they get warm.
None of my 80's machines will power up anymore. I'm not too surprised, they were only built to last a couple years, and it only takes one failure in those enormously complex machines to do the whole thing in.
I try to keep my XP machines running because those were the last to support DOS programs and I still support Digital Mars C++ generating DOS programs.
However, the original question concerned the longevity of gas furnaces, and possible limiting factors on their lifespan.
As such, you might care to contemplate:
* What are origins of CO?
* What are such possible origins within a house?
* What are the likely mechanisms for transit of CO from normal exhaust systems to interior space?
* What might be the long-term consequences of thermal stress, oxidation, cycling, etc., on manifolds of such spaces.
If you choose to focus myopically on heat exchangers and heat exchangers alone, that's your call. I'd suggest keeping the batteries up to date in your CO monitors, however.
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.
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!
Businesses are also generally more conservative in future projections and less price sensitive than consumers.
I personally started doing this a few years ago. I even have a throwaway LLC that sounds nebulously like a contractor so I can sign up for "industry only" marketplaces. Since I can usually get wholesale prices doing this, I pay only maybe 30% more than for crap consumer level throwaway stuff.
The major downside is the time it takes, but the upside is that none of my stuff ever breaks.
Which means that if you need some replacement part in the future it's going to cost even more.
I don't even mind that modern appliances break so often; it's the fiddly plastic bits and lack of parts that are the problem. Give us something made of metal with some screws and the damn thing can probably be fixed.
(re: the article topic, this is another thing that's kept me away from automobiles for the past twenty years)
They could do appliances (stuff like SpeedQueen washers), hand and garden tools, kitchen stuff like pots and pans and knives... just anything that's solid and lasts and doesn't require ridiculous maintenance to make it so.
Sometimes now I'd be willing pay more but either I can't even find the stuff that isn't cheap junk, or I just can't tell what's going to break and what isn't.
I think having high quality appliances is partially why Sears tanked... First they didn't sell as many (due to having to compete on price with lower quality / cheaper products), then when they found a way to compete (having Samsung make Kenmore appliances, for example), they lost the quality and the last reason anyone would opt to go there over Costco or Amazon or Home Depot.
I bought a matching Washer / Dryer set from Costco. Then the next year I bought a Fridge and Dishwasher from LG there too. For the first three years or so it was fine, but about 5 years in I think they all have issues. My house is about 20 years old, and the Dishwasher I replaced was the original... so it lasted 15 years. I can say that the new (and fairly top of the line) Dishwasher has more issues at 5 than the old builder-grade one had at 15. I really regret not getting a Bosch...
But even up into the 80s and 90s Sears / Maytag were known for selling top quality goods that didn't break. Here's a cute commercial.
* 1988 Maytag Repairman Commercial - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHsxPEAUOI
Sears is a lost cause. The only thing keeping them afloat is the value tied up in their real estate holdings.
I hadn't even thought about this.
Funny... my parents have a very low energy bill compared to mine... even using these "old" appliances. I think it has more to do with the fact that they have a smaller house, and still prefer to wash dishes by hand, and don't leave any computers on or have an air conditioning system. Makes me wonder how much "efficiency" at the appliance-level matters. No doubt the EPA isn't a bad investment, but I don't think they are regulating the things that really matter. Homes built in the 1950s were tiny... like 1,200 - 1,500 sqft. Average house today is 2,700 sqft. And there are a lot more bells and whistles going into it.
It's a bit ironic though, because there is a lot more stuff that can and will go wrong in a £600 heat-pump condenser dryer vs a £150 vented dryer. If they are both equally designed to be 'disposable' which is really better for the environment?
Eventually the dryer stopped working and I started looking for replacements. I stopped at a local used appliance place and described the problem, the guy who worked there suggested that since it was one of the old sturdy types, it might be a simple repair. I had him come out and he took a looks. It was a bad fuse. $40 later, I was back in business.
I dread the day when I can no longer have them repaired and have to replace them with disposable appliances.
I know I can lease washers, but the price makes is such that I might as well buy and replace every so often. 2 years amount to buying the machine, and most machines last longer than that. But pay to lease a commercial grade washer would be great.
Mattresses are similar, but fortunately, there is https://www.themattressunderground.com/ , which is a high quality site. I bought a Tuft and Needle mattress based on my learning there and it has been spectacular.
Similar needs to happen for appliances.
Do you know about Consumer Reports?[1]
It's a non-profit organization which puts out a magazine (and website) which does unbiased product testing, has zero advertising, pays for all the products they test, never takes sample products, buys all their products anonymously (so they can't be given better samples for testing purposes), and has extensive laboratories, procedures, scientist/technicians for testing (a private track for testing cars, for example).
I never heard of anyone saying that Consumer Reports was fraudulent or paid-reviewed. Appliances are things that they definitely review all the time.
The downsides of Consumer Reports are as follows:
- it's U.S. based, so it's focused on products available in the U.S.
- for appliances, say a washing machine, they are going to pick only 10-20 models to review, even though there may be hundreds of models on the market
- there are a million things they'll never review because they are not an ordinary, common, consumer purchases; you'll never see reviews of oscilloscopes :-)
[1] http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm
Another downside, as the article pointed out, is the intentional smokescreen of multiple product names and slightly differing versions that make comparison shopping and meaningful reviews virtually impossible, and why I don't get as much value from my Consumer Reports subscription as I used to.
This is particularly prevalent in the mattress industry.
You stated the entire cause->effect very succinctly yourself: "If a brand gets a good reputation, some big conglomerate buys it and starts using it to make trash, and it takes time for consumers to learn it through the grapevine"
It is an extremely straightforward way for a company to make quick money.
BS. It's my #1 criteria when buying something.
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 $50 cheaper appliance even if it lasts 40 years less. What I mean to suggest is that price sensitivity at time of purchase often trumps long term gains - which is why you often see things like payday loans being used. When a person is paycheck-to-paycheck they probably aren't thinking about their financial position in 50 years, simply out of necessity.
Another reason might be that the Nokia 3310's of the world have been basically prototypical products - they are overdesigned. When the user has a perception that a phone is fragile, what's the threshold? We might not need a phone that can be run over by a truck to think a phone is tough. If the split of material cost -> price point and consumer perception is optimal at a certain point - companies will try and design to that point.
But outside these niches, it is a race to the bottom.
when i bought my speed queen washer and dryer, the person selling it said they only had mechanical, which some consider an advantage. I tend to agree.
as for easy to change, replacing the mother board on my refrigerator would cost 600$ without installation fees. guess who bought a new refrigerator? :(
as for touch pads, contacts fail all the time.
It used to be everything in a hostile environment (hot/wet/corrosive) was potted (dipped in epoxy) and in an enclosure. Now they have bare boards. Electronically controlled motors and very limited protection circuitry for the ICs. Just not built to last. No commonality in circuit boards so parts are very expensive (possibly by design; they only need parts for warranty repairs, after that they don't care about cost/availability).
The biggest culprit is flash memory. It's in almost everything, and has a much shorter life than the 10 years most manufacturers claim.
A mechanical timer is likely to be a commodity part used by many different manufacturers in a variety of products.
An electronic timer is more likely to be a custom board designed by the manufacturer of the appliance you are trying to repair, possibly designed specifically for that model. There might be only one source for replacements, and they may be restricted to "authorized" service companies.
[1] http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/02/the-rise-of-renting-i...
Additionally, at least in Australia, my perception has been that most renters are required to bring or purchase their own washing machines and refrigerators.
Do all rental properties come with appliances in the US? Here in NZ that's the exception rather than the rule.
In Europe it varies by country. From the same, to having only a bare sink with a tube for the gaz.
Sure there's planned obsolescence but there's also the cost factor as well.