Optomistic or what

[PeterN]

Looking at the front grill it will be a 2.1 12 valve, very good engines I ran them for 15 years in XMs, smoother than an Hdi but not quite as economical although better than the 1.9. Do suffer more with head gasket problems though until they have been replaced with laminated ones.

Peter

[Welly]

Nothing's made to last any more, especially not cars, but that's the (ahem) price we pay for stuff being cheap.

Cars aint cheap though?

Examples of our housely 'white goods' from memory in the last 15 years:

Microwaves:
A good 2003 model = 10 yrs
A 2013 model = 2 yrs
A 'good' 2015 model = 2 yrs, just blown main circuit internal 15A ceramic fuse - working now but fingers crossed.

Washing Machines:
3 years max before catastrophic failure of uneconomical to replace/flimsy parts

Fan-assisted Ovens:
About 8 yrs but parts required to keep going

Dishwashers:
5 to 8 yrs (see washing machines)

Pull-cord light switches:
1 to 2 years in our house.

Televisions:
5 years? then no worky and no replaceable parts.

Domestic Hoovers:
Excluding the faithfull Henry all the other VAX/Hoover*/Electrofux all crap themselves after 4 years.

Irons:
See Hoovers.

Toilet Cistern ball valves and Syphons:
3 to 5 years in our house.

Modern condensing Boilers (bastards):
13 years MAX before horrid things happen and after maybe the last 5 years of TLC and coaxing along on a wing and a prayer.

I have just replaced ours with a lovely new Glow Worm Energy (a Vaillant boiler for all intents) the previous hateful Potterton Shitmax got a royal send off to the local recycling* centre after someone* attacked it with a large hammer on the driveway

Fridges & Freezers:
Absolutely no faults, although I bet you can't say that about those 'dispensing' fridges.

[GingerMagic]

I had to go and replace the fridge in the flat I rent out as it's finally failed - I'm gutted as i bought it new in 1994...
Meanwhile the Mum in law's freezer has decided to defrost itself again, for the 3rd time in a year, and it's only* 4 years old*....

[steve_earwig]

Nothing's made to last any more, especially not cars, but that's the (ahem) price we pay for stuff being cheap.

Cars aint cheap though?

Build one out of parts! ISTR the toupe club priced up how much it would cost to make a coupe using Service Box and it came out at 6 figures, think how much engineering goes into them, how much design, how much electronics, all the research. It all has to be paid for as part of the price of the car.

A 'good' 2015 model = 2 yrs, just blown main circuit internal 15A ceramic fuse - working now but fingers crossed.

I had this on my first microwave, it had 3 switches that had to trip in order when the door was closed, one of them was worn so it was a little late and shorted the main fuse with mains - POP! I changed the order of the switches and it was fine until I left it behind.

If it's any consolation the Victorians said exactly the same thing, nothing's built to last any more. The trouble is we all want stuff cheap so only the cheap stuff sells, however the manufacturers now have cheap all worked out, things are designed and engineered to fail just as the warranty expires.

[Welly]

That's funny as I was looking at (fiddling with) 3 x contact switches as part of the door release mechanism and marveled at how complex (and fragile) it all seemed. I guess the underlying risk is having your face/brain microwaved and manufacturers could really do without that hassle

[PeterN]

I replace most of my major appliances with second hand ones, but of course they are getting newer, the only new ones I have bought in about the last 10 years or so have been the Bosch washing machine, which failed after about 10 years but it only needed new brushes and has since done another two or three years of Stirling service and a cheap Beko freezer which has been going for quite a number of years without fault, apart from when a mouse chewed through the mains lead

I tend to buy the simplest and most basic appliances that I can, non auto defrosting fridges and freezers for instance because its the defrosting part that usually goes wrong rendering the rest of it inoperative and they are usually repairable if they do go wrong.

My best buy I think was a Worcester oil fired boiler that I bought from ebay some years ago for about a tenner, the case had been damaged removing it from the kitchen that was being refurbished. We have had Rayburn cookers for about 45 years, the last one being a pressure jet oil fired which was very noisy and inefficient. the boiler sat in my garage for about 6 or 7 years but a couple of years ago I cleared all the nesting material from it and fired it up, went first time and its been providing heat and hot water for us since, using about half the fuel that the Rayburn did and its much quieter.

We had to go to Telford for the boiler but it was an excuse for a trip away and we went round Ironbridge while we were there - but we do things like that being retired.

Peter