Topic: Grumblings about modern technology

[Terry in Australia]

It's a damned conspiracy! Actually, I don't have a problem with anything I've bought in recent years except my fcuking hot water system, and only because as the buyer, I was caught between the installer and the manufacturer who blamed each other, so fcuk 'em both, I fixed it myself.

I had to laugh though when I read the first post, the two cars cited (Jeeps and Audi's) have a terrible reputation here in Oz for shoddy workmanship (Jeep) and premature failure (both) and anyone here with half a brain stays away from both brands. It's only the posers (Audi) and those enamoured with the huge "He bought a Jeep" advertising campaign that keep sales going on this side of the pond.

I always question the "Planned Obsolescence" theory, until recently I've never owned a new car, and have bought plenty of cars that are well past their "Planned Obsolescence" life (7 years, I was once told) by two or even three times, with high mileage and poor maintenance, and I've generally been delighted with their continued reliability and longevity. I obviously don't include Audi's and Jeeps in this, I'd have no doubt they are designed to fail out of the box............

 

[FunJimmy]

That YouTube video is awesome. Buying a Jeep might have been the best thing for his carrier. LOL

[Terry in Australia]

Ha ha, yeah mate, apart from being out $60K, of course....

[FunJimmy]

Ha ha, yeah mate, apart from being out $60K, of course....

With a video like that he's made his 60K back and then some.

[Terry in Australia]

I hope so, he certainly didn't get any joy out of Chrysler/Jeep...........

[brewsky]

My leaf blower is designed for 50 hours?....Says so right on the label!

[Stev-o]

My leaf blower is designed for 50 hours?....Says so right on the label!

We now live in a disposable world.  And we've brought it on ourselves by wanting to buy the absolute cheapest items available.  The quality suffers....

[Steve F]

I have a 2003 Chevy pickup.  It's now 13 years old with 123,000 miles and running fine, but checking the hour meter, it's just around 450 hours.  That's all.  Imagine if you had an industrial machine that the manufacturer said that you can't expect any more than 500 hours and you'll have to get a new one.  We'd go ballistic.  Consumer products aren't made to industrial quality.  Some machines at my work are $300k and up, and they're made extremely well.   When you bang out thousands of vehicles a year, quality suffers.

[RevDoc]

As FunJimmy pointed out, "Bingo! Supply contracts are typically based on a tender process in which the lowest bidder gets the contract.", consider that when you are traveling. I have a demented friend who use to take great, diabolical glee when he was making a trip by plane. He would look out the window at the wing and say to the person sitting next to him, " Did you ever consider that the company that built this plane was the lowest bidder?" 

[DH]

It's a damned conspiracy! Actually, I don't have a problem with anything I've bought in recent years except my fcuking hot water system, and only because as the buyer, I was caught between the installer and the manufacturer who blamed each other, so fcuk 'em both, I fixed it myself.

I had to laugh though when I read the first post, the two cars cited (Jeeps and Audi's) have a terrible reputation here in Oz for shoddy workmanship (Jeep) and premature failure (both) and anyone here with half a brain stays away from both brands. It's only the posers (Audi) and those enamoured with the huge "He bought a Jeep" advertising campaign that keep sales going on this side of the pond.

I always question the "Planned Obsolescence" theory, until recently I've never owned a new car, and have bought plenty of cars that are well past their "Planned Obsolescence" life (7 years, I was once told) by two or even three times, with high mileage and poor maintenance, and I've generally been delighted with their continued reliability and longevity. I obviously don't include Audi's and Jeeps in this, I'd have no doubt they are designed to fail out of the box............

 

Hey Terry, over here, you could include BMW (the ultimate driving machine) and Volkswagon to that list as well.
Lots of brittle plastic parts/assemblies, and oil leaks o'plenty. And just in time, as the warranty expires.
You could get rich manufacturing window regulators and door lock actuators for volkswagons alone.
And speaking of door lock actuators... another brain fart of modern technology. Opening and closing your door
and locking it has now become a major clusterfcku that is doomed to fail.

[70CB750]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

[754]

 Lowest bidder always ..IMO..is BS.. it may be most of the time...but not all the time..

[Steve F]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

That's because they don't make 'em like they used to.  Now days they're cramming too much high-tech trying to dazzle the consumer, and it's my opinion that they don't realize how fragile this technology is.  A tiny piece of dust...a little moisture because of high humidity a little salt spray residue and a good smack on the device could render it useless.  And without the devices to plug into the computer, you can't fix it. 

[70CB750]

My biased opinion is that if it has an airbag, it's no longer jeep. 

But I retrofitted 4.3 Chevy engine TBI unit to it, it made a night and day difference.

[dusterdude]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

Mine is 20 yrs old,265 thousand miles and still kickin

[Stev-o]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

Mine is 20 yrs old,265 thousand miles and still kickin

I wouldnt call these Jeeps "modern technology"

[70CB750]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

Mine is 20 yrs old,265 thousand miles and still kickin

I wouldnt call these Jeeps "modern technology"

You got that right 

[HondaMan]

My Fairmont station wagon is about to roll over 400,000 miles...it's like my SOHC4!

My SOHC4 looks a lot better, though.

The largest "problem" we have today in the industry is: electronics. The marketer who is trying to sell his product wants razzle-dazzle so he/she thinks it will sell better, so it gets lights. And sounds. And actuators of some sort that are neither needed, nor wanted, by the person who needs the 'function' provided by the 'product'. Cars/bikes/appliances/whatever, it has all become the same thing. (Do you really want an ultraviolet LED to set your glue? And when it quits, the glue won't set?)

If you have to use a voltmeter to diagnose it, or a computer to figure out what is wrong, chances are you will not take it coast-to-coast anytime soon. That's one good way to immobilize a population, which lends itself to conspiracy theorists...

I work in industry, making machines that make things that grow very large, very quickly (and usually make lots of noise doing it). Reliability is 100% of every single part we make for these machines. I'm happy to say, I learned how to do it from Ford (of old) and Honda (also of old), and SONY, long ago.

[Mantree]

I love my old vehicles just because they break less often and are easy to fix when they do

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[Terry in Australia]

My jeep is on the road for 30 years, just saying 

Mine is 20 yrs old,265 thousand miles and still kickin

I wouldnt call these Jeeps "modern technology"

I wouldn't even call them cars, ha ha! But as has been said previously, if an older car hasn't rusted in half by now there's not much that will go wrong with it. And I agree with DH about BMW's, Merc's, and all that other Euro-Trash, over here a new BMW might cost 100 grand, but by the time they're 10 years old, they can't give them away. Cheers, Terry.

[Stev-o]

And I agree with DH about BMW's, Merc's, and all that other Euro-Trash, over here a new BMW might cost 100 grand, but by the time they're 10 years old, they can't give them away. Cheers, Terry.

That's odd, my 2000 Merc (16 years old) has >517,000 on it and still runs like a scalded dog, gets exactly the same mileage as new, and until the snow smashed the roof onto it, was my daily driver. Best car I've ever owned, and it has outlasted (in mileage) more 70s, and 80s cars than you can shake a stick at. By the way, after a bit of bodywork, it will be back on the road to my son and continue its quest towards 1,000,000. I'd like to see you accomplish that. As for the ROI, at $80k brand new...

$80K for a Merc?

[madmtnmotors]

And I agree with DH about BMW's, Merc's, and all that other Euro-Trash, over here a new BMW might cost 100 grand, but by the time they're 10 years old, they can't give them away. Cheers, Terry.

That's odd, my 2000 Merc (16 years old) has >517,000 on it and still runs like a scalded dog, gets exactly the same mileage as new, and until the snow smashed the roof onto it, was my daily driver. Best car I've ever owned, and it has outlasted (in mileage) more 70s, and 80s cars than you can shake a stick at. By the way, after a bit of bodywork, it will be back on the road to my son and continue its quest towards 1,000,000. I'd like to see you accomplish that. As for the ROI, at $80k brand new...

$80K for a Merc?

LOL, that one made me do a double take too, until I re-read the recent discussion regarding MERCedes as opposed to MERCury... 

[DH]

And I agree with DH about BMW's, Merc's, and all that other Euro-Trash, over here a new BMW might cost 100 grand, but by the time they're 10 years old, they can't give them away. Cheers, Terry.

That's odd, my 2000 Merc (16 years old) has >517,000 on it and still runs like a scalded dog, gets exactly the same mileage as new, and until the snow smashed the roof onto it, was my daily driver. Best car I've ever owned, and it has outlasted (in mileage) more 70s, and 80s cars than you can shake a stick at. By the way, after a bit of bodywork, it will be back on the road to my son and continue its quest towards 1,000,000. I'd like to see you accomplish that. As for the ROI, at $80k brand new, divided by its current mileage, it cost me exactly, $0.15 per mile driven and is still reducing that cost to me. No to mention the reimbursement for business travel, and the damn thing has made me enough money to put my kid through college.

Your sweeping generalization is off-kilter and disproved, Terry.

When I was in the field, we used to ins;ect and prep vehicles for a used car lot that sold a lot of these
You are obviously doing something right to have that kind of mileage Cal. The average Merc I saw when I was in the field had
numerous microprocessors, full of trouble codes when they'd come in. if the ses light was off, we were instructed to just erase them. during our routine scan. Oil leaks were common, and difficult to trace in a lot of cases. these were not particularly high mileage cars.
When driven and maintained like the average car, they had just as many problems if not more than any other that we had to work on.
And the parts for them were astronomical, and in a lot of cases, dealer only. A coworker's father had an '05 with a ball joint that squeeked annoyingly. Very cheaply made, comparable to what everybody else is making nowadays. Our fix was to squirt wd40 inside the boot till he could afford a replacement, along with a much needed (burnt out) xenon(?) type headlight bulb, the one that is gas filled and ignited when turned on.....More modern technology....just my experience, noffense intended.

[Buckskin Bandit]

I love my old vehicles just because they break less often and are easy to fix when they do

Same here! Plus they look cool too! 

[Gene]

but people dont want to pay for better . . .

truth.