Survivorship bias. All the ones that broke aren’t around anymore.
They were way more repairable though. We had a gas dryer that lasted 40 years and was only replaced because we moved somewhere without gas.
It was basically a big egg timer with an electric motor and a gas burner. You could fix anything on it with a crescent wrench, screwdriver, and off-the-shelf components from the hardware store for about 9 bucks.
The replacement dryer has had to have $1000+ circuit boards replaced more than once.
The WTF here is not necessarily that some component on the circuit board failed, but that the manufacturer charges $400-$1000 for it with a straight face and gets away with it when they undoubtedly have that board made in China for about $4 per unit.
The big thing you and a lot of posters are missing is what happens when those parts aren’t made anymore. With a standard motor that uses a start capacitor, you can get that cap or motor as a generic part or from another manufacturer, if your modern appliance eats its vfd board now, you can replace it for $$$. If it dies in 8 years, its probably already been discontinued and you are sol even if you wanted to pay for it.
Also imprecise engineering tended to overbuild things.
Thanks to better manufacturing techniques, engineering analysis, and the fine humans in management, we have gotten really good at barely building a machine that lasts just long enough to be out of warranty.
Not necessarily. Less parts, less complex mechanisms = lower probability of something breaking down.
Also there was a time where companies actually cared. They would send the engineers for the next model out with service techs servicing current models to help them find the common failure points and help make things more servicable.
Also there was a time where companies actually cared.
:-/
Planned Obselence was pioneered nearly a century ago. You might have individual service reps or salesman with a soul. But no company has ever carried about more than profits.
The ‘modern’ stuff breaks down faster due to 1) the fact that engineering has improved so much that obsolescence can be planned without compromising functionality. 2) ‘Modern’ stuff tries to cram in multiple features which are not necessary for its basic function. For this I blame the lack of diligence from buyers. The increased complexity means more parts that can fail. I bring up the example of SystemD (no offense to anyone, user’s choice).
Which is fine. You’d think they’d just refine those further. Today we’d have ultra efficient tanks that take little water, little energy, and never break.
Everything breaks eventually. Entropy always increases.
I’m assuming CFC might have been a better coolant, that’s why those old fridges are so good
^as said by somebody who never had to replace the motor on their washer, or the burned on their range, or the belt on their dryer, or the elements in the water heater…
The reason they always worked forever was because your dad bought replacement parts from the appliance repair store and didn’t complain to you about it.
This is literally one of the top 3 good things about YouTube
have repaired my oven twice (15 years) and dryer three times (16 years). it’s amazing how many appliances can be repaired if people just take the time to dig into it.
unless it has a screen. fuck everything about that shit.
We tried to repair our washing machine but the fuckers designed it in such a way that the drum and bearing or something of the sort are inseparabale and thus you cannot just replace rhe bearing which was fucked in ours but you have to get the whole assembly. So instead of a probably 50-100€ worth of parts the repair would be in the 200-300€ range and at that point it made no sense spending that much money on a 6 year old machine.
ooof
Ah, the good old days when your “dumb” refrigerator would kill children playing hide and seek because the latch wouldn’t open from the inside. When it was lined with asbestos because that’s literally the best insulation that exists excepting aerogel. When the mercury thermostat would fail—leaking mercury on to your food (and aerosolizing some which would be breathed in as soon as you opened it)—and it would freeze everything inside, complete with an interior wall of snow that could take days to defrost. It used old school freon, destroying the ozone layer. Or before then, fun highly toxic gasses like methyl chloride!
Those were the days! When a breeze through the house on a day with wonderful weather could blow out the pilot light in your oven, slowly leaking gas into your house, exploding and destroying the entire home late at night while everyone is asleep.
Then the wonders of electricity came along to produce ovens that were hooked up to 220V lines without a grounding wire, and wiring that would slowly fail over time, eventually making contact with the metal frame, electrocuting anyone who touched the device—or anyone that touched the person touching it.
Ovens were built different “back in the day”! They didn’t have anti-tip brackets, resulting in loads of children sitting on the oven door, spilling boiling liquids down upon them.
The best were those old washing machines, though! You could lift up the lid and look inside to see your laundry spinning at high speeds! Just don’t reach your hand in, or you could find out what the term “degloving” means.
Ah yes, the good old days of appliances.
But they had more fun colours for appliances
if you design an appliance that kills someone you should be sentenced to death by the same appliance
- Hammurabi
They weren’t smart enough to maximize shareholder value :P
Yep. Have four of those type. Occasionally, once a decade or so, I have to maintain em. But otherwise I milk em. Like cows.
If you are thinking of how you milk a washing machine, Imma ask if you been thinkin hard enough
You can buy appliances without smart features still?
Best Buy has dozens, if not hundreds, of fridges without smart features. I can buy a 18cu top freezer fridge for $450 right now.
That same type of fridge back in the 1970s cost $300-$400. Adjusted for inflation that’s $2,000
So I don’t get this post. You can buy cheap fridges still and it’ll probably last a long time if you take care of it. Read repair reports or Google random problems for a fridge you’re looking to buy to see the most common failure points and see what the repair cost would be to factor in future costs.
Stupid post.
i have a new dumb washer and dryer set bought this year, and my previous dumb set bought in 2011 still working, the ex took them 😂
We also aren’t paying the same prices. The fridge from the 60s in your grandmas basement? She probably had a 10 year payment plan for it.
Age of an appliance is not an indicator of its quality. Quality is an indicator of quality, back then, there was as mush trash quality products as today, only difference is, they did not live long enough to be remembered.
Also, electrical appliances were way, WAY more expensive than today.
I wish companies understood that no, I don’t need my washing machine to be connected to WiFi
I wish I could find another chest freezer like the one we had in texas. Thing was 400lbs of insulation with a compressor that withstood 25+ years of texas garage heat. Never failed once.
I remember when I was in uni, living on-campus in a student dorm. Living conditions were not great, the rooms were small and they stuffed 3 or 4 guys in each room. We each had a bed, a chair, a tiny wardrobe, a shelf and half a desk. No fridge. Each fall, when we got back to school, there was an effervescent market for old used refrigerators. Everybody was buying and selling fridges for the first 1 or 2 weeks. One year we bought a 50 year old Zil fridge made in the USSR in the 60’s. We paid like €10 for it. It was heavy as hell and we had to carry it up the stairs to the 4th floor. The thing made a loud, continuous buzzing which helped drown out one of our colleague’s thunderous snoring. We loved it. I don’t remember what happened to it or who got to keep it after we disbanded, but I’m sure it still works.
Planned obsolescence. They want you to keep buying overpriced shit as well as to collect all your data. Win win for them.
this is simple. apart from legit improvements like efficiency (for example pwm motors in heat pumps), those markets will eventually saturate over a business region. but stocks must go up.
No I don’t. And I’ve never had a smart appliance either
