Repairable and reliable is often counter to efficiency. The tradeoff is very hard. A car that is less efficient is much more convenient than an efficient car that regularly gets maintened.
this post was submitted on 01 Jul 2025
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There are very efficient and reliable cars out there too. A good reason why most taxis for about 15 years now are hybrids is because of how reliable they are.
I mean the lack of reliability in modern refrigerators isn't because the better refrigerants and insulators and electronics are less reliable than electro-mechanical systems, it's because they use the absolute cheapest shit in the control boards, position them where they are exposed to humidity, and then duplicate that 4+ times to have different cooling zones.
There's a reason chest freezers last forever and are much cheaper than the refrigerator you put in your kitchen.
I talked about engines.
A 2003 Honda Accord has a more fuel efficient and reliable engine than many newer vehicles.
Not accurate.
My 2006 Scion XA is still trucking along. I had to replace the alternator once and the catalytic converter needed to be replaced at around 130k miles to pass smog. Other than that it has only had a few minor wear and tear issues I fixed myself. I intend to keep that car until it is completely non repairable.
Remember the Nokia phones
I can confirm that 'u' is not accurately a word if you're over 10.
It’s okay, we’ve all been gotten by this too. It’s easy to look at an older piece of technology that has survived, and ascribe that to ‘things used to be better’ while ignoring the materials advances or better engineering that doesn’t require massive buttresses to stop building falling over, or why using MIM instead of forging is better for 95% of use cases, or how wastefully overbuilt things were in the past because they didn’t know how to build efficiently.
There is a flipside of planned obsolescence and value engineering something to death where the wrong material/spec is decided for profit reasons… but that is not a new phenomenon
This is mostly value engineering and added complexity, not survivorship bias.
People learn a single concept and think it's the one and only. Suddenly robustness and complexity don't exist.
So you’re saying that survivorship bias also applies to survivorship bias?
You can't compare the longevity of a sports car to a honda accord. They are built for two completely different purposes.
The sports car will always require extra maintenance and cost to upkeep. This is what you bought it for and what you're paying for. You're trading your reliability and low maintenance cost for performance on the road.
Conversely, the Accord is heavily indexed on reliability, affordability, and safety, not performance.
My 70s freezer came with the house. Still going strong dispite being patrtally underwater at some point. I just had to loan out some space because my parents freezer died.
On the other hand the 1970s car was a giant hunk of shit that went to the crusher decades ago and the 2020s appliance is using 1/4th the electricity and 1/2 the water of something built in the 2000s.
I'm old enough to remember the 1970s cars and with some exceptions they sucked.; they were slow, heavy, smelly, and dangerous. I also have a 2 year old combo laundry machine (Washer + Dryer) with a built in heat pump that is freaking amazing.
Both nostalgia and survivorship biases are real.
I managed to buy a '90s Toyota with the one engine they made that actually isn't good (a 3VZE).
Then there's the 2000's terrible engine, the 1zz
...my 2ZZ-GE has been great; this is the first time i've read a complaint about the 1ZZ...
2zz is awesome.
1zz is a cat eating oil sucking lazy pos of an engine
1993 Camry: Hold my beer
Not really in my experience. Modern car electrics, as complex as they are, have been way more reliable than the nightmares in older vehicles I have dealt with. Engines too are a lot more predictable nowadays, and won't have the random weird quirks older engines do. They obviously develop faults too, but they are usually easier to deal with rather than strange faults on older vehicles. However, I do think serviceability has sometimes taken a step back, as there's a concerning number of cars that need you to take out the engine for certain servicing tasks that you are expected to do over the life of the car.
Yeah if you talk about normal cars but there are expensive luxury sports car brands that aren’t know for their reliability, like McLaren.
I'd have to agree, the quality of electrical components has gone way up since the 1980s, and almost every shitty part has been replaced with reliable electronics over time: ignition went from points to distributors to statically timed electronic boxes, carburettors have been replaced by very smart EFI with basically no wear items if you keep up with maintenance. All my old cars have had insanely shitty connectors, stupid wiring and finicky tuning.
Hybrids don't even need alternators.
Most of my cars are from deceased people.
Kingswood - aunt who died of cancer 25 years ago
Magna - friend's late father, old age
Commodore - late partner, cancer 12 years ago.
Kia - late radio presenter - parkinsons
Bluebird - same aunt as Kingswood.
Verada - my old man, but he's still alive.
We can fix cars. We can't always fix people.
Mercedes 300te? Well, that one's debatable.
Laughs in 1999 Civic...
1970s refrigerator: I will use four times as much electricity
We are swimming in renewable electricity. Who cares? Making the appliance consumes resources and energy.
What kind of argument is this lol
Until renewables hit continually provide 100% of your needs...everyone should care
Ping me on lemmy when we're done burning fossil fuels for good and I'll buy a 1970s fridge the same day
Even once they do we should care. Devices that run continuously consume a lot of energy over their lifetime. Keep your 70s drill, but a freezer should, even with cheap renewable energy, pay for itself after a year or two.
1970s refrigerator: I will emit a gas that will give you dementia
"they don't make em like they used to!"
Good. "They" used asbestos for insulation and put lead in gasoline
2003 is "brand new"
Yeah we got a Audi etron, electro motor has just been replaced for the second time. Total 80k km. Many other issues hat to be fixed as well. With just normal use and dealer maintained.
Haha in French "étron" means a big shit.
7th gen accord do be sturdy though, as long as you get the oil leak fixed and take care of the oil change(and using good engine oil), it should last forever. I have a customer that using it since new, it's not top notch for sure, but it still run pretty well, and it indeed transporting his children's children daily.
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