Are OLD CARS more RELIABLE? Planned obsolescence and SUSTAINABILITY in the AUTO INDUSTRY
1,268,961
2021-06-06に共有
“They don’t make them like they used to!” I’m sure you heard someone say this when talking about cars, or maybe it’s something you think too. But is it really true? Are older cars more reliable, easier to maintain and capable of longer lifespans? Are car manufacturers using planned obsolescence to make sure their cars don’t last much past the warranty period so we’re forced into buying new ones? Today we’re going to answer all of these questions
Let’s start from the basics. What do car manufacturers do? Obviously they make cars. Why do they make cars? So they could sell them for a profit. Car manufacture is a manufacturing business like any other. Making pots and pans, computers, shoes, etc. You manufacture things and sell them for a profit. If there’s no profit you go bankrupt and the company ceases to exist. So profit for car companies is like air for humans, without it we die.
To ensure their cars sell well car manufacturers have to meet the needs and expectations of the consumers and at the same time they also have to abide by various government regulations. Both the expectations of the consumers and the standards of government regulations are constantly on the rise. Consumers want ever better, faster, safer, and more attractive cars while governments want the cars to have ever lower emissions and environmental impact.
Obviously to meet all of these demands car manufacturers must make the cars more complex. The more complex they are the more parts they have, the more parts there are the higher the chances of failure right? On top all of this cars must be competitively priced so car manufacturers must somehow cut costs while at the same time increasing the number of parts. So this explains the plastic thermostat housing? It was made from plastic not because car manufacturers are evil but because they had to cut cost somewhere to keep the car competitively priced while meeting government regulations and consumer expectations. It’s the rapidly changing world that forced them to make plastic thermostat housings as well as plastic valve covers, water pumps, intake manifolds and more.
Well yes, cars have become a lot more complex over the years and as such they obviously require a lot more engineering and more parts and this does to an extent increase the possibility of failure. But there’s also an illusion that many of us have when it comes to the reliability of old cars. Many modern cars can easily do 150.000 miles without any major servicing or overhauls. In fact there’s a number of them that manage to do 500.000 miles and more. Back in the 60s and 70s a car that did more than 100.000 miles was considered “over the hill”, I mean they had 5 digit odometers that would roll over to zero when the car hit 100.000 miles. But by the 80s and throughout the 90s technology and quality control had become so good that factories gave birth to some truly memorable machines that seem to refuse to die. Even today, 30-40 years later there’s a high number of these cars still going strong on the road and racking up miles. But we also mustn’t forget that many of these cars are on the road because they’re exceptionally well taken care of and constantly maintained. Whether it is vehicle value, rarity, emotional attachment or something else, owners are willing to go to great lengths to keep certain old cars alive. For example the amount of money I had to spend to make and keep my 1987 Toyota MR2 roadworthy would be more than unacceptable for a newer car.
But here’s the elephant in the room, the Government regulations that only concern themselves with emissions and safety while the car is on the road. There are absolutely no laws and rules that tell manufacturers how long a car’s lifespan should be or how repairable or easy to maintain a vehicle should be. This means that manufacturers are completely free to make things like alternators and other components that cost a small fortune but aren’t serviceable. Or they can make components that are comprised of multiple parts fused into one. Of course when only a small part fails you have to replace the entire thing. Often the cost of these components can be as high as a third or even half the value of a 5 year old car. Of course all of this can easily be justified because it contributes to a 0.5% reduction in emissions and that’s all government regulations at this point care about.
A special thank you to my patrons:
Daniel
Peter Della Flora
Daniel Morgan
William
Richard Caldwell
Pepe
Brian Durning
Brian Alvarez
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コメント (21)
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I think car design peaked in the 90's when it was just tech enough to be efficient but simple enough to be fixed in your backyard!!
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My first car was a 1978 Volvo, I sold it to a guy who's still driving it and constantly reminds me he's never had to repair it beyond annual servicing. Over 600,000 km, no critical failure. It still stings.
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My friend worked as a mechanic at Audi dealership, once a year engineers from Germany would come and brief them about next years models, they also told them what is going to break and how to fix it
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I've been working on cars for 40 years. The single biggest improvement that took cars from being junk at 100k and lasting well over 200k is the improvement in motor oil. Oil is refined so well now and so many contaminants are removed that sludging is no longer a major issue. I drive cars that are over 50 years old, and as long as you rebuild the engine with improvements to the valves so they can run on unleaded gas, the old engines can last far longer than 100k. The other thing is expense. Fixing my old cars is fairly easy with inexpensive parts. Newer cars with several computers have a ton of sensors that all fail frequently and can cost a fortune to replace. Safety is certainly better with newer cars. One of mine was manufactured without seatbelts as they were not required at the time. It all depends what you want. As far as sustainability, my cars do emit more pollutants, but just the manufacturing process to make a new car produces more pollutants than mine will emit over the lifespan of that new car. If you're interested in sustainability, buy and drive an old car. They are already here and almost all of it is recyclable. New cars are half non recyclable plastic. Electric cars are the worst. It's cheaper to buy a new battery than it is to recycle the old one. And none of those elements are removed from the earth cleanly.
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From working in the industry my entire adult life, planned obsolescence is a real thing. They don't even build them good enough to survive the warranty period anymore.
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As a person who served an apprenticeship in a general car garage, I was a lot happier when old cars pulled in and I could leave my laptop and sanity in the top drawer
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Every time I meet a mechanical-automotive engineer I ask them about electric cars, and every time the reply is "if you want to be sustainable, buy a second hand petrol or diesel".
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Modern plastics can be better than metal for some applications, making cars lighter and more efficient. The problem is when they start using them where they're not supposed to. My car's emission system was failing because a mechanical link made of plastic wore down and would become loose and fall. For a few years, there was no replacement for this part so you would have to hold the thing using your ingenuity and maybe some wire to keep it in place otherwise you would need to change the whole intake manifold at a minimum cost of $1500. The aftermarket now sells an upgraded version of this part for $15. What kind of engineer would approve plastic for applications subjected to friction in a car?! and why in the world the car maker wouldn't offer a replacement when it was so obvious that the thing would fail sooner than later?
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"Who would make a thermostat housing out of plastic..?" An ACCOUNTANT, that who....
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Old cars are not necessarily more reliable, but they are easier to fix when they break down.
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Not only did you give the only correct answer to the questions, you even pointed out many of the biggest problems that are going on in the world. You started so many different arguments but a single video about car companies not enough to finish all of them. We need more people like you in this society.
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Still driving my 1989 GMC Sierra Truck...I just rebuilt the transmission on the picnic table for $240. Borg Warner parts. Boring Farm truck but keeps on running and saving me money. $98,000. for a new truck. The old trucks are simple to fix.
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Caption should read 'built to be owned' vs 'built to be leased'
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Planned obsolescence is NOT (necessarily) cutting manufacturing costs by using cheap parts. It is an ARTIFICIAL and DELIBERATE shortening of a lifespan of a product to FORCE people to purchase a replacement. Planned obsolescence often does not reduce manufacturing costs at all.
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My father was a mechanical engineer for GE. He retired in the mid '80's. He designed locomotives and giant mine trucks. The engineers were constantly at odds with the bean counters for designing it too well. They then would be told to "fix it.".
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You need to understand that before engineers did NOT have the tools and simulators they have today, so most if not all cars were basically over-engineered. Nowadays, we can simulate wear down to the hour, so when a cost-cut is searched for, wear is in the shortlist. Yes, it is planned.
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As an engineer, machinist and automotive technician I can tell you with absolute certainty car manufacturers are evil!!!!😾
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This is not new, just more pervasive and precise. 25 years ago, one of my engineering school professors told us a story: as a fresh engineering graduate (perhaps 50 years ago at this point), he applied for a job with a US auto manufacturer "whose name we would recognize". During the interview, they handed him a drawing for an engine coolant pump. They asked him how he would change the design to preserve functionality, but reduce lifespan. He decided that he did not want to work for the automotive industry.
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I recently had my daily drive, a 1976 Bmw E21, rear ended: rear metal bumper bent. Car body shop guy ordered a new bumper and was left flattened when found out that it would cost about 1/4 of the amount he has to pay for those new plastic bumpers, and bear in mind that the first is a bar of pressed and chromed steel, the latter is a piece of plastic. More generally, my old car has really very few parts that could break (timing: double chain, no AC, no power steering, no electric windows, no sensor etc etc etc) so, given its annual servicing, it's pretty unbreakable.
