Products Today: Throw away after 5 years

[84porsche]

What is with technology today? It seems we are purchasing items to throw away. I go into Best Buy and the guy tells me the refrigerator is good for about 5 years and then things start to break. Most cars are made to crumble and fall-apart. I bought a laptop and it breaks after one year, right after the warranty expires. Whatever happened to the well-built cars that last 50-60 years or the refrigerator that last 15 years and all you need is paint-job and it still looks grand. What is the point of buying things if they don't last? It seems we are creating a world that we can throw away. Opinions!

[motion]

???? I'm of the opposite opinion. Things seem to really last these days, as far as I can tell. Just stay out of Walmart.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Look at construction. Every "new" building or home that goes up now is some cheapass piece of crap made with junk material. It is no longer about quality - even on "high end" residential. It is solely and exclusively about cost. If contractors can save twenty cents somewhere, by God they'll do it. Longevity and pride in craftsmanship be damned. I'm sure there are SOME exceptions out there, but I've yet to see 'em.

As an architect, it's frustrating as hell to live in this situation - every time you try to design something with quality / longevity in mind, it gets "Value Engineered" out, meaning "cheap-ified". We live in a society of ugly, fall-apart buildings with 15-year (if that) lifespans that look like cakes - all made of EIFS / pseudo-stucco crap. Incidentally, this stuff is non-biodegradeable as well.

Truly sad, but buildings have always been a reflection of a society's values. The pathetic built environment we surround ourselves with today is simply a reflection of our values - cheapness, quickness, and temporary-ness (if that's a word). People don't live in the same houses for two or three generations any more and largely view them only as an "investment property" rather than a home. Businesses are transplantable. It's not bad design, it's design driven by our own values.

[350HP930]

Designed in obsolecence is a key part of product manufacturing nowadays.

I can't even start to count the number of items I have attempted to repair something only to discover that the failure has been due to a carefully designed weakness that can only handle so many use cycles before it breaks.

[Moneyguy1]

Case in point..

Houses "back east" are brick, or at least 3/4 ply over 2 x 4 frame on 16" centers.

New houses in the southwest are 24" centers, 2" styrofoam, construction screening and, stucco, with half inch sheets ot oriented strandboard on the corners to reduce racking. I watched a telephone guy shove a long Phillips screwdriver through a wall, tape the phone line unto unto it and pull it through. The joke here is the amount of calk used by builders to repair defects during the warranty period. OTOH, the older homes are 9" solid brick, and last forever. Go figure. Most of the new ones will be junk before the mortgage is paid.

The refrigerator? I have been told, by more than one tech this is the case; 5 to 8 year lifetime. According to them, the "excuse" is the industry must adhere to new EPA guidelines. Go figure.

[tabs]

Price Point is the word.....

Quality costs money.....

In 1990 I spent 60K on my Living Room, Dining Room and Family Room fruniture...it was Kindel, and Baker...Quality

My infamous Expresso maker is a Salvatore...THE ONLY HAND BUILT MACHINE ON THE MARKET....sure it cost....but it's Quality.

The last BBQ I bought is a Big Green Egg..heavy duty ceramic...Quality


You get what you pay for.

My Refridgerator is now 14 years old, Dryer is 17 years old, Washing Machine is 8 years old,

of the 3 TV's I own the oldest is 18 years, then 15 years and 14 years old....

Now I recently had to replace my Vacume Cleaner it was 8 years old, and my Computer after 4 years mainly for obselence.

MY truck is now 6 years old....

BTW....I still have my Grand MA's vacume cleaner it is at least 44 years old...and still works fine....I use it for vacuming the cars out.....

[Moneyguy1]

My wife still has a Kirby vacuum she bought in the 70s. Needs a drive belt every so often, that's about it...

[bryanthompson]

Originally posted by tabs
BTW....I still have my Grand MA's vacume cleaner it is at least 44 years old...and still works fine....I use it for vacuming the cars out..... [/B]

I bet anything it's a Kirby. My grandpa used to sell Kirby's back in the day... They still use it.

[911pcars]

If manufacturers knew that consumers want quality products, they would make them. However, most consumers don't want to spend that much, thus we have what we have. There are still some US manufacturers who eschew cheapness for mass consumption; Apple Computer is one. No comparison between that and a Dell (I've got both). Of course the prices are different.

OTOH, manufacturers have also made expensive products that were of dubious quality (e.g. GM, Ford). The alternative were foreign products that had the same quality at a cheaper price (Toyota at first) or better quality at a cheaper price (Toyota later on) or better quality at a higher price (Toyota currently). People shift over. Who was at fault for that?

Not sure if this is still true, but German consumers use to demand a higher quality level in their products. Products are expected to last many years. Many subassemblies in German products are rebuildable; can't say that about too many mass-produced products these days.

Nowadays, marketing has discovered there can be a lot of price points on various quality products. But it's still a matter of deciding what's the best value. It's not always the highest priced product. You can still buy a Kirby vacuum for $1600, but are you getting what you pay for?

Sherwood

[tabs]

Originally posted by tabs
Price Point is the word.....

Quality costs money.....

Hey 911P I used 8 words to get my point across...you used how many to make essentially the same point...

It's all in the Zen or sumthin....

an Grannies vacume is a Kenmore...Sears....

[tabs]

Yep there was no plastic in them days...The automobile was perfected in the 1950's....those cars were meant to last and last...however Detroit soon realized that lasting forever wasn't in their best interest so they started building in Obsolence. If you notice the first method that Detroit used was by changing body styles every year.

Have any of U boyz noticed how many 65/66 Mustangs are still on the road....thats a 40 year old car and still going.....now somebody did something right....quality wise

[RickM]

There are many facets to things lasting as long as they do. Sure planned obsolescence is one of them. But, as mentioned above, how long is a PC going to last? You wouldn't want to make it out of Titanium.
An eight year old refrigerator will be half as efficient as a new one.
Then there are products that are just plain designed like crap....or the lower end of an expensive product; redesign it so it's affordable for the Average Joe.

Regarding a 40 year old Mustang, I guess quality is in the eye of the beholder.....

[vash]

a new fridge is good for only 5-8 years?

[Moneyguy1]

I'll give you a modern example.

My wife has limited use of her hands, and cannot use a hand held mixer. Therefore, she requires a stand mixer.

KitchenAid is, or has been, one of the most honored name in small appliances. They were purchased by Whirlpool. My wife's 4 year old stand mixer began having problems. I disassembled it, and found that the worm gear is molded plastic and the teeth had sheared off. I wrote to Kitchenaid and was told

"We are disappointed"..meaning...What stupid thing did you do to break it?

"The gear is designed to fail to prevent more costly repairs"...

"All K5 models have the plastic gears".......

Signed by "Michelle"

I sent a picture of the gear and said that such a failure should not have happened if the gear had been properly designed. The first few years of my working career I designed gear trains......

A second letter from the same person:

"Although you comments were not positive in nature".....

and "Let me assure you the KitchenAid Stand Mixer model.....and all current 5 and 6 quart stand mixers ....have steel gears.."

So, although I had simply asked a question, their representative was insulting and contradicted herself. It further begs the question, what protects the unit from the serious repairs that the plastic gear was supposed to prevent?

Part of the problem is that companies do not take responsibility. And, by not responding to a request for assistance, KitchenAid/Whirlpool has lost a customer for life and as many others as I can inform of the facts.

Needless to say, we went out and purchased a Viking stand mixer which features "all steel gears".

BTW..the original design, when KitchenAid was an independent company was far more rugged and many of those old timers are still making cookies and bread. They may look the same externally, but buyer beware.

[Rot 911]

Originally posted by tabs
Have any of U boyz noticed how many 65/66 Mustangs are still on the road....thats a 40 year old car and still going.....now somebody did something right....quality wise

This is more a testament to the numbers produced and the collectability than the quality of the car.

[juanbenae]

i have taken to calling this the "laundry basket syndrom", thats where i 1st noticed this bound to fail product design. if they (and they can) make one that last forever they would be out of business.

[Chris_924s]

I like my Porsches from the 80's does that count?

It's called cyclical consumption.

It doesnt make sense to keep a 120 year old house like mine was. My kids were fooling around in a hall and the would hurt themselves.. Plaster wont move. and it will withstand most of what nature will throw at it.

But with metal studs and drywall it's all about speed to build, labor cost and ROI. It's cheaper to build and more profitable for the builder.

You can only make 8% on resale of an existing dwelling.

Raze it, and in 30 years raze and rebuild again. In Cali the wildfires take care of the "empty the land" part of that equation.

[RickM]

Originally posted by Moneyguy1


"The gear is designed to fail to prevent more costly repairs"...

Would this be like a shear bolt on a shaft driven piece of equipment such as a snowblower?

.....and all current 5 and 6 quart stand mixers ....have steel gears.."

Wouldn't plastic gears operate more quietly?

Just curious.

[/B]

[tabs]

Originally posted by Kurt V
This is more a testament to the numbers produced and the collectability than the quality of the car.

There has to be a reason why it was produced in such great numbers and is collectable today...

[RickM]

Originally posted by tabs
There has to be a reason why it was produced in such great numbers and is collectable today...

Marketing and memories.....