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#1 | ||
Regular Member
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Adelaide
Posts: 222
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http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/...products-fail/
Its a faily long article but it goes into Ford and Microsoft's quailty and warrantiy claims and what they do to minimise part failure |
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#2 | ||
Rob
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: VN Capital
Posts: 1,584
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"why things fail" because our monetary system is a joke. Our economy is based on consumption. The more we consume the "better" our economy is doing. Things are not built to last. Things are built to fail after the manufacture covers themselves (warranty).
A question in an economics exam was something like this. What is better for our economy? (a) Buying a used car (b) An Increase in tax (c) Helping a friend build a shed (d) A car accident I actually couldn't believe that was a question. (The answer is D) We live in a wasteful society. As our GDP increases, so does our wastage. While the quality of goods decreases. We will never have things built to last anymore, rather built to eventually fail. So people can sit there and rub their hands together, saying look how good our economy is doing!
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99 liquid silver AU Classic -Sold
Supercharged Nissan 350z 280rwkw Blueprint series 3 AU V8 manual |
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#3 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 1,137
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#4 | |||
Regular Member
Join Date: Nov 2011
Posts: 169
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Rob
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: VN Capital
Posts: 1,584
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99 liquid silver AU Classic -Sold
Supercharged Nissan 350z 280rwkw Blueprint series 3 AU V8 manual |
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#6 | ||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 2,125
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A car accident keeps many people "busy" or employed.
Police officers, ambulance crew, tow truck drivers, repair shops, street cleaners, etc etc etc. the bill for repair or replacement of car is probably footed by a foreign owned insurance company too. |
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#7 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 5,048
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#8 | ||
FPV GTR
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: South Island High Country
Posts: 2,355
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Mobile phones are the worst. Electrics in general seem to fail with ease.
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- FPV GT RSpec - - Chill SZ Territory Titanium -
The Family Bus - Veridian Green PJ Ranger XLT - The Work Truck |
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#9 | |||
Regular Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 176
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Quote:
Even cars, how anyone can think a modern car is less reliable then one built decades back is beyond me. Higher service intervals, manufactures backing up the product with higher warranties and all the "fail-safe" options they have. I rarely see a modern car on the side of the road because of a mechanical fault. The other point of interest, "built to fail", come on! If your refering to value engineering then yes, they are built according to that principal. Not specifically to fail but to work reliabily to a certain period of time, and value engineering dates back quite some time. |
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#10 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Sun City, North Australis
Posts: 4,274
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Quote:
SBS re-ran that doco last week on how there was a shift in companies in the 50s and 60s to deliberately design products so that they had a limited life so that the consumer would keep having to buy them. There is NO PROFIT to be made if a product lasts forever... because no one goes out to buy a new one. Sadly also we have become conditioned to buy the "latest" electronic product through all the hype, as an example the iPod, iPhone, etc... wow its 1mm thinner!!!!! wow... its 1cm bigger screen!!! WOW!!! lets line up like sheep for 24hrs outside a shop so i can be FIRST to own one and ill throw my perfectly good phone in the bin. We are the most wasteful society to date... Most modern consumer goods are either non-repairable or cost more then a new one to repair. So we are forced to throw it out and buy a new one. Ill give examples of items (which i have given before) which shows how great modern items are when compared to when stuff was made to last. My mums old NEC TV lasted nearly 25yrs... repaired only 3 times. The new one i got her... lasted 3 months... Her old GE fridge lasted 25yrs.. repaired twice from memory... her new one failed after 23months. Her old chest freezer (westinghouse) was 39yrs old when i threw it in the tip, it was still working.. repaired ONCE. due to being flooded. My Compaq laptop... lasted 3 months, the screen died. then 3 months later the fan died.... soon after that i needed a new battery. The very first fluro globe i bought to replace those "old fashioned" filament globe which are deemed illegal to sell... lasted 2 weeks!!!! Yet these things carry dangerous heavy metals and are deemed "greener". Bought a Sanyo DVD player... lasted 9 months before the panel buttons stopped working... (had to use remote)
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You've seen it, you've heard it and your still asking questions?? Don't write off the Goose until you see the box going into the hole.... |
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#11 | |||
Regular Member
Join Date: Mar 2012
Posts: 176
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Quote:
![]() Don't get me started on Sanyo, try perhaps a Sony player next time? Not a $70 one but an upper market one and come back to me. Value Engineering IS NOT about having a product fail early. It is about making the best value product, for example. The market I will target with my TV is lower class and can only spend $700max on there 50". Now I will pick materials that meet the standard 1 year warranty, but why would I use a panel that lasts 100 years when the electronics will only last 3. I pick materials that meet the life expectancy but do not go over budget. If it lasts longer than 1 year, great! If not, well I expected that to be the case. Now my upper class reference TV will cost $4,500 for a beautiful 70". It will be backed by a 5 year warranty, like nearly all LG LCDs. Now the materials will last a minium of 5 years but most likely more as I can budget in the cost factor of the customer not buying another TV for 7 years. But because of there income they most likely will, as I will continue to make better products. |
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#12 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 12,077
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Quote:
There were sanyos etc. 15 years ago, they were just as good as the current ones. Quality lasts, cheap rubbish does not........ |
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#13 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Sun City, North Australis
Posts: 4,274
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Quote:
Funny... the LG fridge wasnt cheap and lasted 22months. The Toshiba TV a "good name brand" and comparable in price with all the other name brands at the time i bought it, lasted 3 months. How stupid of me... i shoulda bought the most expensive one, because price means itll last the longest! And how extremly stupid of me to expect a product to last its warranty period of 12months!
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You've seen it, you've heard it and your still asking questions?? Don't write off the Goose until you see the box going into the hole.... |
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#14 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,373
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#15 | |||
nou
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 634
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Had 3 of em, screens died in all, same point of failure.. (2007-2008 era DV2000) Still got an old Dell D600 which is doing great, on it's third HDD due to dropping, survived falls of bunk beds, screen works perfectly and it actually still goes okay for an almost 10yo 1.3ghz single core. Dell D630s also seem similarly unkillable, HDDs tend to crap out often, sometimes dedicated graphics but meh, expected. Desktops, IMO there is not really such a thing as an unreliable desktop, they have loads of room inside so there aren't many cooling issues, nothing can really break, 3.5" HDDs are very dependable nowadays. Low end graphics cards seem to have trouble, been through 3x GT220s in a Dell Desktop.. but any "gaming" PC with a mid-high end card should see years. The Nvidia 8800GT, released October 2007, I still see people now posting about how it just died on them and they need a new card etc, runs at 70-80deg C it's entire life and still lasts 5 years.. Technology is getting more advanced, things can now be built to tighter tolerances. With more and more things being implemented in every day products sure some of them will have standard failure rates, but I hardly think there is much in the way of planned obsolescences. (Except for Apple making each revision of iOS slower ![]() |
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#16 | ||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Adelaide SA
Posts: 1,255
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Seen many a top shelf item and brand fail miserably well within its warranty period, yes you can always expect a dud here and there but by no means will i believe you always get what you pay for. Just like all the 5-6 year old name brand air cons that i get asked to replace due to compressor failures, it far out weights the 15 year old battlers i come across still going fine
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#17 | ||
I.B.S is a pain in d'***
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Central Coast NSW
Posts: 1,431
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Just read the whole article, good read.
Got to say, if Ford are engineering vehicle parts with the goal that they last 10 years, then you got to admit that pretty good considering the poor life of all other consumables in our lives!
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I DONT BELIEVE IN NOS.............but if its given to you free at the hospital well then ![]() |
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#18 | ||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Melb north
Posts: 12,025
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agreed, cars are pretty good these days i reckon, look at the staggering complexity of the modern car compared to a car of the 70`s, the modern car keeps itself tuned up as rule, the maintenance of a modern car is minuscule compared to an oldie.
looking at my near on 12 year old falcon , it`s never had a tune up, it has no grease nipples and yet has all the original suspension except shockers at 210,000 k`s, all it takes to maintain it is general service items, it`s Never been on the side of the road for a break down(probably just mozzed myself ![]() |
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#19 | |||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 5,048
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#20 | ||
Shockwave
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Seaford SA
Posts: 783
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Thoroughly enjoyed that article, thanx pmacc.
That last part, Vextec modelling is amazing. Cheers, |
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#21 | ||
XD Sundowner
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: moranbah
Posts: 1,078
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A lot of it comes down to repair costs really. My last ge washing machine broke a knob after 8 years of solid use , but to buy said switch was half the price of a new one .
Fact you buy cheap - you get cheap , it ain't gunna last .I buy mid range just for this reason knowing it will get me five good years and hopefully 10 .just looking around my house and I must say I really don't have any junk nor anything that hasn't gone near ten years ... To be honest I don't think anything has changed , I just bought an xc one owner falcon 500 , it is exactly in the same condition as my au in the driveway with the same kilometers ...anything mechanical has some shelf life expectancy . Pay more get more .
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something old something blue |
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#22 | ||
XD Sundowner
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: moranbah
Posts: 1,078
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And one person having a half dozen dodgy electrical items is not a true representation of good or bad product ...lemons happen if its made by man it will break ...buying higher in the price rangewill just increase your odds ...
That's how people generally end up with brand bias ...one good run and you shout from mountain tops ...and one bad one you will never touch em again ...money doesn't always buy reliability but it certainly helps
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something old something blue |
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#23 | ||
FF.Com.Au Hardcore
Join Date: Dec 2004
Posts: 12,077
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LG is by far the best marketing to hit this country in decades.
LG does not stand for Life's Good, it stands for Lucky Goldstar as in the company formed when the Lucky and Goldstar merged some years ago. The best motor industry equivaled I can think of is Holden rebranding Daewoo........ |
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#24 | ||
Starter Motor
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 21
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In the begining, before the turbo, before the quad cam, possibly even before the MPEFI... and perhaps, just perhaps before the wheel... No longer were we content with living in caves with our women, a man had to prove his love with building things like houses and gardens and plowing fields, because suddenly nature wasnt good enough. His love wanted more and the more that a guy spent time trying to make his work easier, then the more his love figured that he could produce.
So men began to devote their time soley to inventing machines and devices so as to make their lives and the lives of other easier. And thus the class system began to emerge. No longer was working enough for his love. She wanted a man who paid someone else to work for him while he thought up labour saving devices which she would promptly flaunt in front of the other wives in showing off her husband. Which then used to cause fights between the men down at the pub. So intead of fighting over women, men went to fighting over the women bragging about them. It was around this time, that the queen, wife of the king, (the first king was the guy to win the most fights in a year down at the pub) decided that because these other men were making machines and labour saving devices to sell and also paying other men to work for them, that these men should contribute some of their hard earned money to the king and queen for looking after them. In reality the queen just wanted more money so that at the next meeting of kings she could say that her husband was richer than anyone else and start a fight between the kings which we all know turns into a war. So no we have the king taking people from the fields and labour- saving device making jobs to fight for him, but the queen still wants her regular amount of money so they have to work harder to not only make the labour-saving-devices, but also to compensate for the lack of men who are away fighting. So they begin making devices which help them make the labour saving devices. Which now means that someone has to look after the devices that help make the labour-saving devices which means that instead of working he has to learn how the devices work, so he can fix them when they dont work, which means he is working, but only when the devices aren't.
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"... don't mind me, I'm just diagonally parked in a parallel universe..." Mine: BF XR8 6 sp manual ute in Shockwave GT rims, 3 piece hard lid, leather interior Growler CAI, X-Force 2.5in cat back & baby seat... its soo good... i bought it twice... ![]() Hers: SY Territory Ghia AWD, arctic white 7 seats, leather interior added duct to the standard airbox (thanks Ford Forums) baby seat & pram ![]() |
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#25 | ||
Fixing Ford's **** ups
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: In a house
Posts: 4,759
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Next thread will be about how many poor people are out of work, because places closed down, due to lack of sales of their products.
Sad fact of life....People need employment, so places make things that tend to fail quicker than the older days....Something to do with a bigger population these days, when compared to the older days
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A wheel alignment fixes everything, when it comes to front end issues. This includes any little noises. Please read the manual carefully, as the these manufacturers spent millions of dollars making sure it is perfect.....Now why are there so many problems with my car, when I follow the instructions to the letter?....Answer, majority rules round here Lock me up and throw away the key because I'm a hoon....I got caught doing 59 in a 60 zone |
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#26 | ||
Where to next??
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Sydney
Posts: 8,893
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I think a lot of things fail because of how they are treated. Not many people care to look after something, or go out of their way to repair it when all the cool people are buying the next model, be it cars, mobiles, computers etc.
Manufacturers know this, so why engineer something that is durable when most users will not care if it breaks in a year or 2 anyway? I always question why the iphone has a sealed battery. What would that last with average usage, 2-3 years? How long does the average iphone user own a specific model for? 1-2 years (generally speaking of course). I got 10 years out of the Festiva and it was no where near its used by date. I generally keep the same phone for 3-4 years and my last laptop got replaced after 5 years. I still keep the old phone as a back up, in fact a German friend is using it right now on a trip here and I still use the old laptop every now and again. Repairing stuff is not as economical as it used to be either. Who, in their right mind would want to be in the small appliance repair business, do lawn mower repair places still exist?? I remember seeing a few in my area growing up, now I think they are all gone. About the same time you could buy a new Chinese mower for about the same as 2hrs labour and the parts needed to repair your old one. Being wasteful has a lot to do with it as well. Such is life however.
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___________________________ I've been around the world a couple of times or maybe more....... |
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#27 | ||
Adapt or perish...
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Dip!@#$
Posts: 7,954
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I have an Acer ex-gov refurb laptop that would nearly be pushing 10 years of life and apart from slow startup cause the thing can't handle anymore than 1GB of RAM it still works like I bought it.
It does need to be replaced soon though as the netbook is not handling being the main PC of the house.
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Carless
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#28 | ||
Rob
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: VN Capital
Posts: 1,584
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the thing with laptops and the like are they go out of date so quickly. buy top of the line right now, and in 3 years it will be half as good as any new laptop and considerably a lot cheaper.
My first laptop was virtually top of the line, intel 2.2ghz duel processor, 4gb ram, nvidia 250mb (forget which type) graphics card etc etc. Cost me about $2400 with a voucher, was worth almost $3000. 3 years later... Now my new laptop. 8gb ram, intel i5 2.4ghz, 64 bit windows 7, USB 3.0, AMD Raedon graphics, for $750
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99 liquid silver AU Classic -Sold
Supercharged Nissan 350z 280rwkw Blueprint series 3 AU V8 manual |
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#29 | |||
Brad
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 5,827
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Quote:
Laptop developement will slow down just like the desktop did to an extent. You buy a good laptop now and I gaurentee you by the requirements on games and programs in 5 years times it will still have more than enough power. Im going to be building my own laptop or desktop soon, but nowadays a graphics card will drive 3 monitors at 1080p. Also anything over 8gb ram is really for show. Also just because they are producing something more powerful doesnt mean it will ever be used in the immediate future if ever. Just like 600Hz Tvs ![]() Last edited by 99AUXR; 26-10-2012 at 06:02 PM. |
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#30 | ||
Donating Member
![]() Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Morayfield
Posts: 27,927
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Compaq use to be a premium brand. I priced up a 386 once, cost over $8K which was a lot of $$$ back then. The quote came on beautiful embossed paper in a nice sleeve.
Then they were bought out ....
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I love Holdens.... |
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