So back in the day they just didn't need the profit? I understand there's more engineering, but even adjusted for inflation new cars rarely exceeded $30k in today's money back in the day. High ups in the auto industry pocket way more of what the company makes than they used to.
@@frankrizzo2724 it was easier to make profit on cars back in the day due to less parts needed to assemble them. I work in car headlights factory... old lamps from 80is had around 9-15 components Do you know how many components does lamp have nowadays? More than 150. A d what are the most expensive parts? PCBs (printed circuit boards) which werent even exist in old lamps I hope you get my point here
Actually I know for a fact for my car, had a plastic thermostat housing but funny thing is that the newer model had it in metal which is interesting so I just swap them
Modern cars have too many ecu's. Not because electronics are unreliable. But because the 2nd hand market now gets vehicles no one can fix, with parts they no longer make.
Spot on , swap your spanner for a scanner , I hate limp mode , I hate my electronic parking brake , I would love to run an old car but they aren't as safe are they.
KISS - Keep it simple stupid - However I don't blame the auto companies 100 %. Onerous regulations put on by countries have driven the auto companies to come up with drastic solutions to keep the cars inside the specifications as set out. Diesel engine cars have been driven off the market. The technology involved in making sure the engines comply to emission specifications has made them unreliable.
My first car was a 1978 Volvo, I sold it to a guy who's still driving it and constantly reminds me he's never had to repair it beyond annual servicing. Over 600,000 km, no critical failure. It still stings.
@@thomaseriksson6256960 is also great, idk where you live but in europe you can get 940/960 in full option good condition for 5-8k$. They are much less popular than mercedes and volvo guys generally take care of their cars so in my opinion is much better pick especially if you consider that diesel fell out of favor and volvo gasoline engine are as good if not better than mercedes legendary diesels.
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
I bought a 10 year old Ford Sierra (UK) in 1999 for £30 and ran it for 16 years,not that there was much of the original car left at the end.When I took it for MOT the mechanics would look under the bonnet and wistfully say 'It has a carburettor'.
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
@@watema3381 This is why I just want a leader who will stand up to corporate bullshit. How is a capitalist economy better than a planned economy if in both I end up with dog water products products just for different reasons?
@@Michael-uc2pnit is actually funny in sadistic way. As the guy who works in automotive we do have planned obsolescence, but it is not evil intentional design. If the part is designed to have a life time of 10 years it is ok.
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.
I'm designing electronics for LED lights (home and outdoor lighting). Often times we need to decrease the (theoretical) life span of the product from like 6 years down to 2 years just because "we" "need" to save 0.5 of a cent on a single component. This is so ridiculous and I can't understand it. However, I'm told to do so, otherwise I can search for a new job. Really hurts to do this crap to a perfectly fine product.
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.
@@DeeGamingVolt_TGV I don't know, he did not want to name names. I think he was just trying to warn us that not all employers are out to make the world a better place, which I think most of us did. Some are quite the opposite.
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! : When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more! When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
Er, well what you are saying is actually different, because reducing lifespan as a deliberate objective is not the same as reducing *cost* subject to a lifespan constraint. Are you really an engineer?
Well, there's less points of failure in an older car...so yeah, higher chance of reliability, in general. Incidentally I had a TV that died 1 day after its year long warranty...literally the day after the warranty expired. Creepy.
Well, that's where the Right to Repair talk comes in but for home electronics, it already somewhat exists for the automotive industry I wouldn't be surprised if it's just one fuse or capacitor that blew, the cost to repair would be small but good luck finding the parts, as the manufacturer probably told the factory not to sell those separately. But a day after seems like you got unlucky, they can be accurate for planning it's demise, but not that precise. Or it was planned to be close and just cut their losses on the ones that broke before the warranty's expiration. I also noticed a few replies talking about their LG devices. That's interesting, maybe we're somewhat lucky, but we've owned Fridges, TV's, Washing machines... basically all of our appliances were LG, all never had an issue, except for our microwave, which just stopped heating the food as quickly, I'm talking throwing the popcorn in for 5 minutes or some bs just to get half of them popped. It's unfortunate because that was a damn good microwave, but guess what? Suddenly "died" not long after the warranty expired. The appliance industry really needs some improvement with Right to Repair. Not everyone can shill out a couple thousand bucks for a fridge and washer every couple of years. Shameful.
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.
Got a 69 Bug because I know I could fix it if I ever need to. Its 1500cc air cooled engine is very simple, and so is its electrical system. Plus, old vehicles are better looking.
I drove my 95 K1500 until the cab literally fell onto the driveshaft. Then, I put wood blocks under it and drove it for a couple more years - until it happened again. 😂
I own a car parts store and we had a appointment with a big company that manufactures car parts and they told us that newer model cars have a shortened life span so they break easier, and seeing the build quality and problems of new cars the answer for this video is a big YES.
This is true of Ford, GM, and Chrysler, but this is because they're being absolutely thrashed by Honda and Toyota and are cutting corners out of necessity, not because it is profitable. The fact that the quality brands are beating the crap out of the value brands kinda proves that cheapness results in its own rejection the moment it goes too far.
@@Carskinify The unions certainly aren't helping with that, but if you watch teardown videos of failed engines, you notice almost all of them are American brands, and hardly any are Asian brands, and almost all of the latter are because the owner didn't ever change the oil, or some maintenance guy accidentally left a loose bolt somewhere inside the oil system or something.
@@theredscourge I bought a new "89 Dodge Dakota and parked it along a street and a young guy walked by and said"You couldn't give me a damn Dodge." and the rear end (differential) failed not long after. American companies don't care. They depend on people's short memory. I've worked in union shops and all they do is cause trouble. They don't deserve a job esp. one that pays like they do.
The use of plastics throughout the engine compartment results in failures of parts that may cost a few dollars to manufacture, but often cost thousands of dollars in labor to replace. Worse yet, many plastics gets brittle with age, so when servicing engines, stuff that wasn’t broken often gets cracked during the disassembly process.
Let's not forget that there is a very long list of metal parts in the engine compartment that fail as well. Coolant systems, especially poorly-maintained ones, are hell on metals, like aluminum alloy. Material selection is a constant battle for automotive engineers, with the tradeoffs of cost/weight/longevity (choose two).
@@imeakdo7 3% of a billion is still enough to retire on cars do not cost alot to make (since most are made in china or cheaper place) just look at tesla profit and tell me again how narrow the profit margin is
@@mabisfab77paintball Tesla is known in the car industry for having absurdly wide profit margins, they have the widest margins in the entire industry far more than any other manufacturer, most big car manufacturers only have margins of 3%
Also - 'If you can't afford a new BMW - you Definitely can't afford to own a used one...' Today is a throw-away society - so, unless we develop a secondary market for the new EV's that makes sense to 'repower' and resell them (unlike today's inflated used car prices) we will definitely be wasting more resources at an even faster rate than we are now.
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.
Totally agree with you regarding improvements with oil, and is much more important than people realise. I agree to disagree with electric cars though if you know how to repurpose a used battery they can make a lot of sense if they have not been degraded by more then 50%. My battery is 10 years old and has lost 6.1% of its total capacity (and could be put back into an EV), in contrast my Renault diesel 1,5DCI of 2005 is complete scrap, engine blew at 110K miles and will cost more to fix than the car is worth! ICE no thanks!
Oh, God, yes. I remember peeling valve covers off in the old days and there would be a perfect mold imprint of the rockers made out of sludge on the inside. 😂 Then, one day, I realized, _"I haven't had to scrape a cover in a long time."_ That's when I realized there was a jump in oil quality.
@@BennyHolden-ls7sj My main point was just that by running out and buying a new car of any type, you are not doing the environment any favors at all. Cars are made up of thousands of components coming from several hundred different suppliers. Take something like an oil cap for example. Simple part, not much to it but Ford does not make them. They don't make most of the parts, they come from suppliers. I'm from Detroit originally and worked briefly in manufacturing of auto parts so I'm familiar with this. At one point I assembled dash boards for the 88 and 89 Chrysler minivans, and at another point I was assembling rubber and metal components for motor mounts. So anyway, an oil cap is made from plastic, a rubber gasket, a piece of metal in most cases, printing on the top of the part, and so on. So this 1 part is made in its raw form, someone else makes the gasket or O ring, it's sent somewhere else to have the emblem inked on, sent someplace else to be assembled, then sent to the factory where it might be further divided and sent around the factory. How many times did that part move before it finally made it in a vehicle? And that's just 1 part. How much environmental damage does the movement of all these parts create? Now multiply by thousands of parts and hundreds of suppliers. Never mind the "break even" point of an electric car. My main point was just pointing out how driving a 50 year old car made from a majority of metal and recyclable components already exists. I have rebuilt my engines to be a little less polluting but even with no emissions controls, buying a new car of any type contributes more pollution than my old cars ever will. I'm not saying don't buy a new car, I think you should be able to buy whatever you want whether it's ICE BEV Hydrogen, whatever. But if your main concern is the environment, your least polluting option is an old metal recyclable car that has existed for 50 years already. But the battery issue.... Have you seen what's involved mining elements for those EV batteries? What it does to the landscape and how much CO2 and NOX are emitted? Again... Not saying don't buy one, but as far as environmentally friendly I'll stick with my 66 Lemans and '70 Kingswood wagon.
@@NarwahlGaming It sure has made a difference. I remember taking the valve cover off my 77 firebird in high school and it was like a hard tar all over. But I haven't seen anything like that in years now. Can't remember the last time I actually had to scrape sludge off a valve train. 20 years maybe?
@@AlineaEuros And modern cars are filled to the gills with sensors. A mechanical fault will always be easier to diagnose/repair than an electrical fault. Especially on a vehicle where the wiring looks like a multi-colored pot of spaghetti. My 94 Ranger = super easy to work on, super easy to fix. My 00 Mustang = pretty easy to work on, pretty easy to fix. My 05 Focus ZX5 = a bitch to work on, a bitch to fix.
if The new Cars were driven on the Gravel roads that the old cars were constantly driven on they wouldn't last a year, the new cars are all pavement queens! I have seen many new pickups that are trashed after 1 year of Gravel roads !
The Real problem I have with the new technical cars is. If Dealers Computer can't tell them what is wrong, there chances of fixing it is slim to none! i am fed up with taking My Car to the dealer 5 times for the same problem and it is still not fixed !
@@sixstanger00 used to own 2001 focus (eudm), it was pretty simple to work on, but You have different engines in US in those cars (not counting SVT/ST170)
As Japan's minimal computerisation and standardisation of cars revolutionised Economy, reliability and manufacture. Cars, around 1996 were as good as they were ever going to get and have steadily grown colossally worse since then. The Honda Accord (triumph Acclaim, Rover 214i etc.) being the apex platform that spanned nearly a decade, repackaged by everyone and selling 100's of millions of mechanically identical cars into every market on earth. Cars were complete, with only future fuel sources offering any real need to alter this 'perfect' closed-loop of repair, to recycle, to drive. Buy a 1990's accord and you need never buy a new car again. . ...Real Design, for once in well over a century. Resulted in a product that people actually Needed and therefore sold itself. The primary reason Honda still exist as a company at all, when nearly all of Japan's other multi-nations have failed. An impressive feat given that both Electric and External combustion (steam) have always been superior options, probably why an entire world of auto industry wasted so much time with the worse power unit. The Internal Combustion Engine.
/and dealerships yeah. they intentionally engineer stuff to take longer to service so they can charge more labor. Example, how in the world does the book call for 2 hours to change a light bulb? a smart engineer would probably think "Lets make this simple to get to since it indeed will need to be serviced" (some) Parts are absolutely designed to fail after a certain period of time.
i am a machinist technologist, engineering student, and aspire to continue to become an automotive mechanic afterwards too! In my opinion, there are consumer grade products, and there are commercial grade products. Those are engineered VERY differently.
@@eonreeves4324 That´s mostly because car designers don´t cooperate with engineers. Instead, engineers are provided with the result of designer´s work and have to figure out things "on the fly". Also, designers are paid to make designs, not to think in any way about practicality. That´s why most of the furniture sux as well.
@Darren dorion allmost all 90's European cars were made like that. The Japanese were more sane and just kept doing what they always did, build quality at a good price.
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.".
"Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." - It's sorta a complex idea. Engineers are very good at their job now, much better than in the past due to having more knowledge, but they are all designing for a specific number, which is either in years or miles. There are significant advantages to selecting a specific number, and designing all your parts to just barely last to that number- you get weight and cost savings, which "should" ideally pass on to the consumer. Now, I wish they would overbuild things to a bigger number, or publish/warranty their design number (minus X percent), but I understand that being able to sell a car for 20k instead of 22k is advantageous, as well as that car getting 30mpg instead of 25mpg, and it having 10% less emissions. Is it worth all of that for a car to last half as long? That's a consumer decision.. and unfortunately, consumers decided "yes".
My best car was a 1978 Mercedes 300D. That car was a tank. A comfortable tank. It was not very quick, but it got 28mpg in all situations. At that time, diesel fuel was about $.50/gal. It required very little maintenance but when it did have to go to the shop it was expensive. It was my first Mercedes, and I put quite a few miles on it, and it could have gone many more, but California decided to deoxygenate diesel fuel. They didn't research it, and it washed down the cylinder walls, causing the motor to lose compression. It never started again. The state offered a $500 settlement to replace a $12,000 motor. I've had several Mercedes since then but that one was the best
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.
Which is funny, since people will always be put off by a car being too fragile, sending them directly to a competitor with a reputation that notes "high reliability".
@@DoodlezMusic You would have to reiterate that argument with an example, to make it a true argument. As per example, of socio-economic factors. For example, people suffering from medically induced mrna vaccination regret are largely unaffected by socio economic factors, but by education levels, same will apply to cars as well. Old cars really rock, new cars can sock dry squeezed hemmoroids suffering from fat american digitalized soyass
it starts with your toaster and ends with you car. my mom got the same washingmashine for twenty years. i got fuckin five of this new ones in ten years. and new toaster evry year. they are rly forcing us to buy new stuff.
@@HighTenner I exclusivly use old stuff, I like the new stuff, like global mass injection of unverifiable cooling conditions of gene prophylaxis. At least the war on drugs is going strong and we are healthily max boosted with 4 shots yearly including bivalent boosters for your regular updates. Finally EV vehicles and high taxes will save us from the weather change and stop le volcano and le quake 2
As an owner of that old Mercedes (80s 300D) used in this video's comparison (along with many other cars from different manufacturers) I can assure you they are the most well built, reliable and useful cars ever constructed. I still drive mine daily happily communting to work, hauling kids around and towing a loaded trailer all while nearing 400k miles with a completely orginal drive train...
This. Another funny thing with the old Mercs (at least in Germany, don't know if they also do this in other countries) is that you can just walk into your local dealership and buy basically every part that should break brand new so no need to scour scrapyards for used stuff that's been abused for decades or cheap Chinese crap that doesn't fit right
@@carhawara3394 depends on where you live - luckily for me they don't salt the roads here so it doesn't have rust.. but other parts of the country / world - yes, that's def an issue.
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.
I know for a fact, that in the 90s Mercedes Benz decided that being THE original builder of every 30 year-old mega-mile taxi in the middle east and Africa was not the brand image they wanted. BMW didn't like young boy-racers were driving around in pimped up 20 year old 3 series either., You and I may have thought that having a long lived car proves the marque's build quality. They thought it devalues the brand image if any old Joe can afford to own one. Planned obsolescence ensures brand exclusivity. So now, built like a Mercedes means quite a different thing to what it did in the 90s.
@@DanA-fk6tl Agree! That is why the Mercedes-Benz that I truly desired are from the 1970's and 1980's. Especially the W123 300D, love how it is incredibly reliable, and very mechanical. A time when Mercedes-Benz truly justifies the tag line, "The best or nothing".
@@DanA-fk6tl Well you also have to think that Mercedes ceased to be Mercedes in 1996 when Chrysler bought them out. Funny story.... women came into my job with a entitled attitude bitching about the price of changing a battery in her remote... than she points to her "New Mercedes" and tells me, "that is why I drive a Mercedes what do you drive?" I just point to my mint 1983 240d and say... "that is a real Mercedes, you actually have a rebranded Chrysler."
Toyota is still making Reliable cars. In India there is Model named Innova a SUV.The cost of maintenance is so damn cheap. Most of tge Taxi operators buy that. Even the cramped 3rd row is awesomely comfortable.Recently traveled 600kms sitting on the 3rd row. Never felt any jolt and was not tired at all at the end of the journey.
no, I do the same, it is absolutely more cost effective to repair an old car than to buy new or used, considering that vehicles are upwards of 30k and you have to carry full coverage insurance if you have a note, no, that math doesn't add up, people are stupid, the depreciation alone is more than what I spend in a full restoration project
I learn from my dad, we drive a vehicle and keep fixing it till it rots or the motor blows up. And even then we try to motor swap it, bought a f150 brand new and drove it till the motor flew apart at 370,000 and 70,000 of that was with leaking injectors
I've been a mechanic for twenty years. Newer cars have way more problems then the older ones. Nearly every job is heaps harder then it used to be and major repairs are extremely common. Just this year I have already changed engines or had to do head gaskets on more then two dozen cars that are less then 15 years old. My ute is 20 years old and nothing ever goes wrong with it. Except your usual wear like tyres and brakes.
Not true. New cars just have different sets of problems. However, main reason for those problems are 2. The manufacturer AND the customer. Unless the engine has been broken by manufacturer during its manufacturing, there should be nothing major wrong with it. But if it gets broken, it´s not intentional. Maybe some worker dropped a sensor before installing it. Or nobody checked the new shipment of parts. These things happen, when you shift from specialized workers to cheaper workforce. It´s often the customer, who keeps driving around with "Check engine" light, ignoring potentially severe repair, simply because "it still works". Until it stops and then only the manufacturer is to blame, because facing our own part of guilt is hard. Also often caused by NOT READING THROUGH THE USER MANUAL - you know, that thick book, customer gets with his car? However, in the end, it´s all luck-based, as with any other consumer goods. You may be lucky and only pour oil and fuel into it for many years, or you may be unlucky and know every mechanic in the vicinity. Sometimes, it´s the mechanic´s fault. Not every one of you is straight and honest and people often have hard time figuring it out - especially when they know nothing about cars. And at last - i had my own share of issues with an old car - it would turn 21 this year. 1000 little things, that kept piling up at constant rate. People just have to remember, that mechanical parts wear (thus have to be changed regularly) and electronics may work for many years until sudden death occurs. However, as car ages, more problems will arise, until you hit a treshold, when maintenance cost will become unsustainable.
sounds like you own a diesel Hilux and are Australian. Am I right? Anyway Australia lagged a bit with the diesel emissions craziness and plus 20 year old utes were designed with that CAD sweet spot he described- enough to help manufacturing tolerances and efficient design, not enough to perfect planned obsolescence
@@Morpheus-pt3wq you day there should be nothing wrong with a new car. You are correct, there shouldn't be. Problem is, there are hundreds of problems in new cars. I have a successful business because so many cars 10 years and younger have countless issue's. The fix is always more time consuming and the parts are increasing in price every day. Look at a thermostat as an example. You used to be able to but just the thermo and change it. Cost under $100 for the entire job. Now you need to buy an entire housing that costs over $300 and takes hours to replace. Now a thermostat will cost on average more then $500.
I love old cars. Something about being able to fix your metal machine with your own hands without getting lost in 100 electrical components and sensors. They really did make em different, we'll never see those times again.
I bought a gorgeous Orange Mazda MX5 NB, I call her Clementine (because orange). She's got 100000 miles on it, and both an engineer and 3 mechanics said her engine is in an amazing condition for a 22 year old car with 9 previous owners. I drive by so many broken down cars (15 years or younger) and I keep thinking when will it be my turn, but this video made me feel better. All she had replaced so far was the drive assist belt and the original 22 year old alternator. I love Clementine, I never want to get rid of her, she's a perfect image of Japanese 90's design, when engineers used to made cars, not marketing departments.
I hope you and Clementine do another 100k miles together. Even if she breaks down, it's likely an easy fix supported by a gigantic market. Remember the mx5 is the world's best selling roadster
"As a civilization we are still in the stage where we believe that the material things someone owns can increase their status in society and their value as a human being." Well said.
Sadly true. That said, I will never buy a brand new car. The cost of turning that key for the first time...It's an idiot tax. 20% of the value (at least) gone in one second. My best car? 2002 BMW e46. less than £1k when I bought it. 5 years and less than £1K in replacement parts later it still starts, stops, looks great, and is comfortable. I could easily afford a more expensive car. But why waste money that I could be spending on a holiday?
@@DanA-fk6tl Same for me. My 1997 Volvo cost me 2000€+1700€ for the LPG system, and since then I had only minor issues and wear part to change (tires, brakes and belts). Even the AC system was never touched and after 25years it is running like new (with 35°C outside gives me air at something like 8~10°C in a minute).
Men value their mate's girlfriends ( or boyfriends) by evolutionary design . Darwin was onto something from the start . There's the stage ... Those are our human limitations set by evolution over million of years ;) Evolution is cleverer than we are, Leslie Orgle .
This. That's how we got FWD BMW (just to mention one glaring example). And the system is rigged to keep people dumb. It's very complicated to get unbiased reliability statistics. Car magazines are paid by car makers and only focus on new cars, downplaying defects and poor design choices. Finally, too many adults can't stand peer pressure, and the herd goes and buys what the alpha man decided to.
Well, in no corporation i've worked at single human was allowed to make purhase. Usually they have special departament, equipped with specialists of minimum 5y of experience. So everything , from components actually used in production to things like ballpoint pens or safety shoes goes thru this departament, wchich checks every little detail, negotiated warranty, even analyses broken items to estimate MTBF contributing factors. All this using computers and knowledge base systems, and basically scientist-grade educated personell. It would be silly to even suggest single person could be somehow comptetent to buy sth as simple as piece of plastic. Machine like lathe? Laugh 😅 Then out of sudden for buying sth with thousands of moving parts, software, fluids, hydraulic systems, design strategies, financing plans, related to global market of fuels, taxes, insurances and without premium technical support... you send single layperson, and let him/her being manipulated by emotion-driven marketing. Result must be Fail, and it's facepalm grade fail. I know only a few people who did research like hiring 20y+ experience master mechanic as advisory, before buying a car. And even then they did it wrong - not paying right amount for time and experience required, not actually hiring someone who can properly communicate with such an expert but talking to mechanic in person instead, and finally not creating consylium, gathering data and doing proper statistical analysis. All this when investing over 50 000e of cash! If you wasted so much cash doing risky purhase even in quite crappy corporation, You would get fired with totally bad reference of breaching trust and mismanagement of investiment funds, if not outright arrested if the company was anyhow related to public money, probably ending up on the streets or doing physical worl for rest of your life. But wrecking budget of Your family? Depriving your kids of education and spending cash on car repairs ? Not showing up on charity meetings for next 10y after You made bad decision to buy designer's clunker? no problem.
@@richmondvand147 Not me personally but how different manuals back in the day were vs now. It's like an analogy as well for how stupid people can be these days. Like common sense should tell already not to drink the fluids.
Great Video: As an engineer I can confirm that Planned obsolescence is '' fact'' in most manufacturing and in particular in the automotive industry. I have a Mercedes W123 1984 . Easy to work on not that much goes wrong. High quality materials used with longevity at design. My modern Mercedes is a minefield of hightech component failures! Same manufacturer but change in design strategy/ philosophy ! Certainly don't make them like they used to.
Something I think people don't realize about those old Mercedes is how expensive they were new. A lower trim W123 in 1985 started at $35k in the US which is about $95k in 2022. The maintenance should have occurred 2-3x as often. You get what you pay for and most people aren't paying $95k for a slow, bare bones car unless it's a 70 series Toyota Landcruiser with some upgrades or a military truck and both of those are reliable and fairly easy to service.
The rot set in with the W220 S-Class. They dazzle you with so much amazing tech in the hopes you won't notice that everything feels that little bit more flimsy.
That's why I only drive pickup trucks even modern ones cuz atleast the planned obsolescence is a bit longer cuz they are built tougher to be a work horse and can expect to drive longer miles for expected hauling. Can't say the same about sedans and SUVs but that is where Toyota steps in.
@@ben501st I own two lancia, Kappa and Thema, Thema was 91,000$ in 1993 and Kappa was 93,000$ in 1998. For that time, both were full luxury, with two zoned automatic airconditioners, electric leather Poltrona Frau seats , electric windows, child lock for rear doors, electric mirrors with 3 electric motors and mirror heaters, smart suspension, excellent turning, FWD, ASR, ABS, electric headlight adjusting, and all of that back then was very expensive. Those cars still run, and everything inside and around engine is made of steel or high quality aluminum alloys. Clutch set was replaced on kappa after 340,000km.
Excellent video - I agree with all of this. Not only are modern cars now made from cheap unsuitable materials like the Mini's thermostat housing but the proliferation of electronics in them is also a blatant form of inbuilt obsolescence. I have heard of countless instances where car electronics have failed suddenly and inexplicably and no one seems to be able to fix them - especially the dealers who just don't seem to be trained to cope. So many cars with perfect bodies, mechanics and interiors then go to the scrap yard. As you say, it's no good trying to claim that they are then sustainably recycled; it still takes a huge amount of energy to re-use materials, especially metals, so the most environmentally sound solution is to keep existing cars going as long as possible. Not something the manufacturers want to hear of course. They should be changing their business models to restore and update existing cars rather than build new ones. I believe Renault is beginning to think this way. However, you are so right about the silly snobbery about having a new(er) car - remember the nonsense in the UK over the annual change in year letter on the number plate?
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! : When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more! When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an id iot who dont understand !
Man, I can't believe they put plastic crap on such key parts. A premium brand like BMW going cheap on a thermostat housing or cooling parts, what the fuck.
@@madjoemak As a BMW owner, my 15 year old E90 330XD with 310 000km's does not piss itself with either either oil or coolant. I understand that there are legitimate complaints to be made about BMW's excessive use of plastic and rubber for engine parts... But... You don't brag about your car pissing coolant everywhere you go. Coolant tastes sweet and animals will drink it. AFAIK OEM coolant for BMW's is ethylene glycol based. And it will happen regardless what car you have. I've seen Audi's also do it after the gaskets age and need replacement. Time and thermal cycling are not kind masters and no seal will last forever. Diagnose where the leak is and fix it. In my case, on the M57, I know two parts will fail for sure - the thermostat return pipe gasket from the EGR cooler (it's both a plastic ring and a o-ring seal) and a plastic connector from the engine block for coolant return hose back to the reservoir.
@@D3humaniz3d I recently replaced my entire cooling system because it kept breaking and now it's been fine for the past few thousand kilometres. However now it's failed inspection because of rust. Fml
@@illegalopinions4082 They want everyone living in cities and using public transit. How dare some of us living away from BLM, mask mandates, and terrorist attacks.
“Electric cars will do nothing for sustainabilty.” Few people seem to understand this and I'm glad you pointed it out. Apart from your ability to explain engineering concepts very well, you are also spot on with your observation about societal, political and enviromental issues. I really like your work. Keep it coming!
They are 50 per cent heavier so require 50 per cent more energy to move, so depending on how the electricity that charges them is produced ,they actually can be worse for the environment
@@irish-thinker4429 Not so, an electric motor is generally 90+% efficient Vs ICE at a max of around 35%. EVs are potentially way more easily repairable than ICE. Tesla,s 4680 cells and BYD's blade cells can last potentially for a car's life (Even then they're replaceable). Heck even the early Nissan Leafs can still have 90%+ battery capacity now and that's after 10+ years.
@@daviddunmore8415 ev uses electric power from the typical fossil fuel power plants. Its just changing co2 load from vehicles to powerstations. Its not going to change anything.
@@bouzouSG Actually it changes quite a lot. You no longer have to extract crude oil, refine it and ship it halfway round the world, then offload it into tankers and transport it (Burning oil all the while and polluting the air) just to burn it in cars which are no more than around 35% efficient. Even charging your 90+% efficient EV with 'dirty' electricity will have a much lower environmental (CO2 and NOx) footprint than continuing to burn petrol and diesel to move your vehicles around. Anyway with the rapid growth in Solar PV and wind, plus tidal/wave and (eventually) Thorium modular nuclear generation the case for oil will be over (Even if it's not quite there yet).
unfortunatly old cars have a problem called rust, unless you are in very specific regions. Also older cars, although simple, are kinda divas that require very regular maintenance to stay reliable. Late 90ies early 2000 is the sweat spot: though enough to have simplified maintenance, still old school electronics, extensive use of galvanised steel.
My 66 Chevy looks better than my dad’s 95 F150. It does require more maintenance. But hell even an engine swap can be done in an afternoon for 300 dollars.
@@tinatpasselepoivre Actually, cars only have problem with rust in very specific locations. If you don't use salt and chemicals to melt snow, or live right next to an ocean, rust is not a problem.
@@gizzyguzzi sorry to disagree. Some (most) old cars have by design water & crud accumalation spots were water will enevitably pool and make rust appear no matter the conditions. They also suffer from poor rust protection (no galvanizing,...) W124 drainage under the battery and rear rolling gear mounts 2cv rear bump stop mount, pedal box, wind shield emplacement Traction avant from chassis arm (the so called '' ham '') Old school Mini in general Old school defe defender also Ect, ect... Unless you litteraly never drive under rain or in a region were rain is rare
@@gizzyguzzi on the 2cv, Traction and mini exemples those are un-maintable aera unfortunately. They are not the only one... And good for you rust is a a btich
@@soulextracter but more than that, everything made today is integrated with computers that require a copyrighted piece of company software to reactivate which requires 200$ just for the privilege of having them gaze at the car you reassembled yourself.
If I do not have immediate access to head bulbs I choose another car thank you. Even changing wiper motor can be a hassle, if it's over 30 min job time to change cars again to one that one can actually do diy fixes..
Car makers have been at it for years, look carefully at the bolts etc in your car. A lot of them will be torx or other silliness which makes working on things that extra bit harder.
@@Negativvv My GM Opel has some kind of reverse torx bolts, bigger sizes do fit to ordinary millimetre size sockets but the smaller ones do not. If I buy another Opel it's gonna be pre 1997 again lol..
My 2001 LeSabre has 333,000 miles on it and i don't plan on getting rid of her, she's one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned and I've only ever owned American vehicles in my 40 plus years of driving.
Man, I hope my 07 Ford mustang can last that long but I doubt it, lol. It's at 166400ish miles with 3 previous owners. I only had it since late May this year and I already love the damn thing to death compared to my fragile ass Impala that left me stranded more times than I could count. 😂
Government initiatives to remove "old clunkers" from the road on the basis of "efficiency" always piss me off. The energy costs of forming and machining the complex hunk of metal never seems to enter the equation at all. It would be great to be able to compare the amount of CO2 produced during the construction of a car, versus the amount that the car itself would produce during its lifetime.
Check out the Engineering Explained video on this, he actually does the math. Long story short is that if you do an average American commute the total emissions savings are definitely worth it switching to a new EV. If you aren't doing a lot of miles it isn't.
That's one of the stupidest things governments did. I Still can't believe that Germany gave people money to have their old cars crushed and have them buy new cars. WTF was that?
@@wiegraf9009 Americans already own multiple vehicles so getting a small and affordable EV with 100 mile range or so for daily commutes would definitely be possible.
@@wiegraf9009 But EVs currently in America don't make any economical sense, even with these insane gas prices. Corolla Hybrid AWD is just unbeatable as a commuter.
@@tobyvision they can't police a personal car to that extent. Often aftermarket replacement parts are sub-standard to be cheap, this would be a great idea.
@@jmbpinto73 Just wait. They are already doing it with a few of the critical components in cars, and at large in farm machines. More and more car components will be internet of things networked and age locked. This will be backed by safety legislation mandated by the extreme reliability requirements for self-driving car networks.
Look another twit that thinks "plastic = weak" pro-tip it's not and it's not even more durable in many cases if for no other reason then being almost impervious to corrosion in most cases. People go "OMFG it's PLASTIC" totally ignoring that "plastic" covers such a wide range of products with such vastly different material properties that the term is so vague as to be meaningless. This also amuses me because the people that spout it are often irrational and inconsistent in how it's applied. Since anything besides metal is apparently super bad shouldn't you guys also hate like rubber hoses for example? If metal is so damn great shouldn't you want EVERY line carrying fluid in a car to be metal hydraulic fittings?
Yes, absolutely car manufacturers are making the cars so that they will break after guarantee finishes. I was visiting Mercedes Benz factory in Germany, Bremen it was part of my university partnership program, and the Representative of Mercedes who was giving us the tour told us himself that they almost bankrupted due to the cars not breaking down so they had to reduce the quality of production for everything except S class (I don't remember maybe E as well) and after the recovery period the main change they made is the testing process from testing parts to last at least 5 years to testing so that they will breake after 5 years. So yeah that's why you should avoid cars which are 4-6 years old because it is the highest risk period.
The thing that makes manufacturers evil is how they design and control 3rd party production of the plastic assemblies in a way that prevents most of the parts from being bought from any other vendor. Then when they stop supporting said product nobody else can either. This is what right to repair bills aims to correct.
@@uroskostic8570 I am not sure if plastic can even be made to last long term (5-15 years or 120-150,000+ miles) in an engine bay for a critical engine part. Abs, which is the hard plastic commonly used in the engine bay parts, melts at about 400°F (~200°C) and softens at about 105°C or 221°F. It can get up to about 500°F in some spots of the engine bay with the hood closed. Like next to the exhaust manifold or a turbo for example. The average overall engine operates at just below 200°F or ~100°C. So best case, you are running the plastic part right next to the point where it begins to soften and lose structural integrity all the time. It would be analogous to expecting a sealing part like the intake manifold or the engine block to not warp and maintain its seals while repeatedly heat cycling to just below red hot during operation. That is not even taking into account the fact that plastic gets brittle as it ages, and sunlight (uv light specifically) slowly breaks down plastics. That's why all the little plastic bits on a 10+ year old car break off even when you try to undue them properly and why the plastic dashes on older cars are commonly cracked.
@@jimgordon3206 but i dout it and one good bang from bad settings or poor quality fuel ⛽️/leaks or antilag would crack the carbon or tungsten ceramic parts from the shock waves and heat spike. 🤷♂️ maybe im wrong but probably not as i looked in to doing 💻 stepper motor controled twin-cam-perhead and geared rotary sleeve valves mostly so i didn't need to hone it 👌 V-twin/X-4 test engine ( 4.5inx5in stroke and didn't finish it 😒 ) ( it was going to be a experience and experimenting for a X20 liquid cooled engine ( a Allison X4520 and liberty 24 / German/uk knockoff/hot rod ) and still would like to build it but courant life situation isn't allowing it to happen and have a use for it as i was go to use it in a full size 🇺🇸 truck ) in 2009 as a 20's something year old and if it did work im game for a set for a 440/hemi 108mm/4.25 piston's 13:1 aka max dome mopar or at least some people with a v8 might be interest in a set or 2
I love how much you try to stick to science and facts, rather than to please the people that watch the videos, that is how information should be presented and I'm happy that I can find that here, even if I don't particularly like what I have to hear at times. Keep up the good work, UA-cam and social media needs more of this.
@@Skyliner04s In the video he mentioned the 10 year lifespan of Lion batteries under average driving conditions. A reliable ICE vehicle can easily go 3 to 4 times that lifespan. We have the technology right now to build ICE vehicles that could last that long, we don't have the technology for EV to do that yet. Of course this would require everyone to change their mindset about vehicles, and needing a new one every couple years, either that or massive regulation.
@@Skyliner04s First off, I must say, that comment was a bit lame; two lines where one of them is a link to another video. And you don't actually state anything concrete in your other line. It would be alright if that other video was on the same exact topic as this one, but it isn't. Matter of fact, the "different story" covered in that other video (incidentally on a very good channel I'm subscribed to as well) addresses, at best, only a PART of what is covered in this one, and a secondary part at that. The current video is focused on alleged superior reliability of cars produced in another time Vs alleged "planned obsolescence" of currently produced automobiles (regardless of their power source). The only part where the two videos are related to each other is on the subject of battery electric vehicles impact on the environment (in a broad sense). The video from Engineering Explained addresses the environmental impact of production and use of BEVs vs ICE vehicles, and barely touches the end of life (or post end of life) of said vehicles. And this, the end of life of BEVs is exactly (pretty much) the only thing the current video addresses regarding the environmental impact of BEVs - it also does so, exactly to emphasize that governments are NOT considering the end of life of BEVs, and why they should. On the end of life of BEVs, Engineering Explained made only one passing point: that "end of life emissions, relative to both electric and gasoline-powered vehicles, is relatively low, very low in comparison, to usage and production, so we're not going to be looking at end of life emmisions in this video". So, there is basically one line on that other video that relates to a secondary point on this video. Now, on this video, it is mentioned that only 5% of vehicle batteries are currently being recycled. What is done to the other 95%? What emissions are produced by presumably just dumping those batteries somewhere? Were those accounted for in the Yale study mentioned in Engineering Explained's video, or just the recycling?... Also, what are, other than emissions, the environmental impacts of dumping said used batteries wherever they may be being dumped? This sounds a bit to me like the environmental problem of Plastics. It's an issued debated on other circles, but that never seems to be approached on the automotive industry. Plastics are, first off, produced from the same raw material as carbon fuels. And the long term inability to recycle so much of them are really very loooooooooong. And the politics (and economics) invovled in it are, well, frightening. And yet, they seem to hardly ever be considered on current regulations on vehicles. TL,DR: All in all, this current video addresses a current question related to car manufacture, car buying and car maintenance, in a very clear and reasonable manner. The video you suggested hardly touches on the same subjects as this one, and furthermore does not present any evidence that "the numbers tell a different story" (than the one presented on the video or on the OP's comment), as you claim.
@@jeanackle First of all: I didn´t intend to offend anyone. Oh boy, what can of worms did I open here? In your original comment you stated D4A was sticking to science and fact. I guess that kinda rubbed me the wrong way. He does not have one single source linked. Engeneering Explained does. Where does the 5% figure come from? nobody knows. A new battery will be expensive. A new ICE for your 90s sport car will be expensive, too. The Covid19 outbreak example as well. How much is dramatically reduced traffic? How much air pollution is not that much at all. The mobile phone market as well: a few numbers, no source. I could be persuated to say 80s and 90s cars have fewer points of failure and engines that, if maintained properly, last a very long time. At the same time: put a MkIV Supra head to a MkIV Supra. Stock at that. Which one has more power, more comfort, more safety, better fuel economy? All these things come at a price. And in addition: nobody is keeping you from maintaining a new car like a 90s car. If there is knowledge of a weakpoint of a new car, most likely there´s an aftermarket solution for that. I like my japanese sportscar as well as the next guy. I love my GT86 screaming at me at 7500rpm! But Engeneering Explained shows that an EV would be better for the environment in most cases. With numbers and sources. This is science.
I think people more so tend to replace their cars early first because their needs change but then secondly because they expect it to develop some catastrophic problem and an expensive repair bill. Phone manufacturers actually do actively sabotage user's older model phones by designing parts that can't be replaced (like the battery in your phone), adding software updates that intentionally slow your phone down, and then fighting 3rd party repair and "right-to-repair" laws.
I've owned about 15 cars and I can confirm, the newer the car the more problems you have, the costlier the parts, the more time consuming the replacing process. I ended up with a small 1998 BMW as a daily driver and a 1962 Cadillac for the weekend and now I'm happy.
94 BMW here. Fantastic cars with some very basic mods. When set up correctly it drives miles better then anything from BMW now. New BMW'S feel like old Honda civics. 🤢
@@strangelove9608 Mk. 5 Fiestas were like that cos they stacked the airbox on top of the engine like a cover. They were an inline 4 engine so you had to do this for all the plugs.
I own a diesel Mercedes from over three decades ago. They were built to last during that era. Reliable. No unnecessary tech. No black-box spying on you. No clumsy infotainment. Smog Exempt. These are far better cars than today’s trash
@@LOTPOR0402 actually if you get a good body with a reliable engine the 90s cars are the best probably. I'm telling that of my own experience: I owned rusty Passat B4 1,8 with a very reliable engine (it was driving great even with very low oil pressure after 400000km) and now I own B4 VR6 with a few surface rust spots but a bit overengineered engine (nothing critical fails but still it fails sometimes), so it's very possible to find such a car from 90 which would be in a good shape and still reliable even in my country where snow-melting chemicals are being spayed onto the road for around 4-5 months in a year. The question is that you probably gonna have to service it yourself as not many people know how to do it properly nowadays; features in these cars and most importantly safety are questionable also but a lot of people including me are ok with that I guess.
let's also consider how this trend of ''putting more stuff but that is less reliable to maintain the cost low'' is probably affecting the technological research for future innovative solutions: I think no cars manufacturers will have interest in investing in something that would ultimately make the product less complex and more efficient (also more expensive), but they'll rather direct the money onto re-creating what is already available, they'll push the old design to the limits, just to stay cost effective and within emission requirements, while also sacrifying durability, which, as you explained, is a benefit for them, pushing you to buy the new parts and new cars more often
I wonder how much survivorship bias also plays a role. I imagine most old cars that broke down all the time had their over the hill moment a long while ago and got scrapped 'cause it cost too much to drive. And cheep bad cars that broke down all the time where less likely to become cherished classics that got kept even when it wasn't economical anymore.
Surely it does. That's a large part of the reason older notoriously unreliable cars from Mercedes Benz, BMW, Cadillac, etc are still reasonably common compared to older cars from Chevy, Dodge, Ford, Hyundai, etc. Not because they are more reliable, but because their owners tend to care about them more since they cost more and are seen as more valuable, so they tend to be preserved instead of scrapped and replaced. Where I live I see way more late 90's-mid 2000's BMWs and Cadillacs than Hondas or Toyotas from that era. Do you think that's because BMW and Cadillac sold more cars or because they are inherently more reliable? No way.
@@averyalexander2303 funny story... In Canada, there are almost zero pre-1985 Japanese cars, because while American cars can handle the cold very well, the Japanese cars have rusted to death. So surprisingly, American cars last longer in this country
People talk a lot about survivorship bias when people say things from the cold war era lasted longer but a lot of people forget that many things back then were supposed to be more easily repaired rather than thrown away so it's not even necessarily that the original product with all it's original parts lasting but just the fact that every time it broke it was easier to replace a part rather than the entire unit.
@@P7777-u7r I agree. For this reason, old cars are often much cheaper to fix as well. One of many examples of how newer cars are designed to be disposible is filters. Back in the 90's, nearly every car sold had easily replaceable fuel filters. Nowadays, the fuel filter is part of the fuel pump assembly in the gas tank and often can't even be purchased from the dealer seperately and is a pain to change. These days, transmission fluid isn't even designed to be easily checked let alone changed. And don't even get me started on those POS plastic headlights. As far as we've come, it can't be denied that in a lot of ways, modern cars aren't built to last or be repairable like older cars were.
@@kimjongoof5000 Supposedly early Japanese cars had problems with shipping across the salty ocean with incomplete paint coverage. They fare better now that they're mostly assembled in the US and have better paint. In any case, in Wisconsin in the 90s and early 00s, the only old cars I saw with body panels not rusting were Saturns that used plastic.
Our 1972 model Volvo 145 station wagon - and its engine, drove well for more than 496 000 kilometers - we had it from 1980-1987. It worked flawlessly and we sold it on to a guy who drove it close to an additional 100 000 kilometers or more.
Two new Saabs in the family. A 900 from 1985. Clocked up 620.000 km with no problems from the engine and gearbox,... and a 9000 which clocked up 670.000,........ Salty roads in Denmark got it uneconomical in the end. To weld them.
I have a (very) old paperback from the early fifties that talks about planned obsolescence, and it's role in generating repeat sales. It was very straightforward that the target lifespan for an American automobile, was 100,000 miles. In the sixties & seventies people were so fed up with cars that were intended to be junk from their manufacturing. That's when foreign auto manufacturers started shipping to the U. S., people dumped the "Big Three" and bought foreign. The big three had to start building better cars to compete, or sooner or later they would go out of business. Competition is a beautiful thing.
That's interesting: I have many publications and consumer guides from the fifties, all of which mention planned obsolescence, this of course being solely regarding technological features, specifications and aesthetics. Planned obsolescence of mechanical durability is of course, a complete myth. Unplanned appeared in the fifties of course due to the atrocious quality of US built cars from the mid fifties onwards, where the manufacturers just threw the cars together to get them out the door. Ironic: warranty in the mid fifties was 30 days, now its 7 years...
Planned obsolescence in the automotive industry is well documented even as far back as the 1920's. Gat really drove it home as the industry standard was the Great Depression and massive boom of post WWII. An additional side of that is maintenance. A part designed to be maintained can generally last longer because it can be, well, maintained. The risk is lack of proper maintenance can result in early failure. Thus, manufacturers go the non user serviceable route for better predictability on lifespan. Plus the added bonus that most people don't want to do anything to their cars other than drive it. Which makes it really interesting for me using an unmodified 90 year old car as my primary transportation, heh.
Great depression opened the eyes of manufacturers to the fact that costumers didn't need their cars to be built like tanks. They need them only to last their ownership time. Also so called "planned obsolescence" started with the invention of model years - manufacturer added some minor features, tweaked the looks, and suddenly a perfectly good car started to look dated. So people wanted to buy a new one. Since original owners kept their cars for less time there was no need to keep them super solid. On the other hand even the newest super "unreliable" cars are miles ahead of those from the 70's not even to mention 20s. In fact they're only less reliable than 90s and early 2000s cars. Things are more or less back to normal.
Estimated by The Car Care Nut that only 20% of ppl do regular service maintenance. I get it now; why build a car that lasts longer when most ppl don't take care of them anyway.
If you do not make your car last your entire lifetime. Or at least half your life. Is so very wasteful. As …. We should be considered lucky to get one car. Ppl believe their car is worthless from hail dents. 3rd world country person would love their machine despite dents. That alone shows the horrible mental problems us ‘modern ppl’ are
@@fastinradfordable people are suckers for image first; it's New so it has to be good! We are wired to respond to appearance and language. Now I don't respond to either because 99% of the time it isn't a life or death situation---it's drama.
I saw a video titled "how much sawdust can you put in a cookie before you notice" that kinda sums up planned obsolescence. Just how far can you push things before people start to notice. I get that people want to buy the best product and the one that will last the longest etc. but the problem comes when people don't know they are being ripped off. I think companies just need to be honest about expected lifespans of parts. Also what you mentioned in the video, people need to stop consuming so much like a new phone every year, I doubt it will bode well for the future
I think the answer to: "how much sawdust can you put in a cookie before you notice?" - is : U can push things until they start falling apart under warranty so fast and so much that consumer is annoyed by dealer visits even if it is under warranty, because these visits are time consuming and inconvenient.
Yeah, reliability reports always come with time lag. Taking stuff like hard drives for example - there are reports of drive reliability on the web, but all they tell you is that Model A made by company B C years ago was really reliable and model D made by company E at the same time was crap. So? Maybe company E managed to fix whatever problem that caused their drives to fail too soon or maybe company B screwed something up? This applies to everything else as well. I at least try to not expect the thing I buy to last very long, so I would rather buy something that I can easily repair. Even if the manufacturer saved 1 cent by using low quality capacitors, as long as I can replace them easily when they fail it's good enough for me.
@@andyxox4168 no, it holds it together and is cheaper than flower. Read for “cellulose” in ingredients. That’s saw dust. I don’t really eat cookies so haven’t looked, but it’s definitely an ingredient of shredded cheese.
On the other hand, Scotty Kilmer yells from the rooftops how BMWs and Audis aren't made to last, yet people buy them anyway. Indeed, a lot of those buyers (doctors, lawyers etc, non-car-people) think BMWs and Audis are the most reliable, best made cars -- they think they are safer, stronger etc.
The sweet spot is about 1995 to 2010. They got the good stuff right like fuel injection, ABS, traction control, airbags, rust is a non-issue almost, a 5 or 6 speed automatic transmission, but didn’t have touch screens and no satellite tracking you.
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?
Exactly this. People who believe just because it's plastic that it's worse quality (or less suitable for purpose) than a metal part know nothing about material science (which would be 99.99% of people).
@@jamesmay1322 You're not wrong at all. I hate plastic more than most people do but even I have to acknowledge that in some cases its not really a big deal. That being said I've worked on volkswagens where pretty much everything (even the fucking oil filter cartridge and the housing) is made of crappy thermoplastic and it cracks if you look at it wrong. Really pisses me off it could've just been cast aluminum.
I like plastic for certain applications too. It's a relatively durable material. Ductile, doesn't corrode, and lightweight. As long as it doesn't experience extreme temperatures, friction, or intense sun exposure, it's great.
@@jamesmay1322 They know that it fails prematurely compared to the metal part. That is enough to tell that it is worse quality. You don't need a medical science degree to tell that Dr. Fauci is a scumbag, either. 🤔
I would not brag about a BMW be it old or new, they have always been overrated cars, specially in regards to reliability. rather have a 70´s/80´s Mercedes than any BMW.
@@MehdiS-music they must be nice for the first owner though (Motorplan etc.). I must confess, I quite liked my '87 316i, but then I sold it at 118k kms in '92. I would hate to see what it would look like now, it was already rusting at the top of the rear doors (condensation) back then, despite being in a warm, dry garage.
I think another point is the discrepancy between what a new car buyer wants and what a used car buyer wants. All a new car buyer cares about is that it will last for the 5 years they plan to keep it and has a good resale value. Those of us who are perfectly happy to drive an older and reliable car are so far disconnected from the manufacturer and the original buyer that it doesn't really influence engineering or marketing decisions.
I commissioned a research project on this in the past. Literally EVERY single manufacturer now uses 3D-injection-molded plastic components for auxiliary parts such as water pumps, thermostat housings, valve covers, etc. Everything that is not the engine or transmission. Subaru, Honda, BMW, Toyota, EVERYONE. The best thing you can do is accept it and plan to refresh these plastic bits at 80k - 100k miles. These companies are not going back to metal components. The days of driving your car 200,000 miles with only oil changes is over. it comes down to cost-savings, emissions (very big deal), and regulatory restrictions (very big deal). Planned obsolescence isn't completely the only explanation.
@@xavier1964 That's a variable but economics always ends up being the primary motivator, with environmental regulations being the second. Those Corporations who meet regulations are able to do business for cheaper in the markets they operate in.
I dont even think it comes from emissions targets. Even if emission standards were what they were in the 50s, then companies would still make terrible cars because they're still cheaper. And the car market today is way more consolidated than it was in the 1950s, further encouraging companies to not compete on quality.
Oh Yes, Toyota's the way to go these days. I had the old square shape Mercedes 7 seater estate for years, which was amazingly reliable and well built, but my current Celica, which is almost 20 years old now, has thoroughly eclipsed that. As long as you change the oil regularly and observe a sensible service regime, they can almost last forever.
The ultimate recycling recipe: when you tired of your car or your phone - sell it. Then a person who couldn't buy new would use it. Then another one and another one. I'm a 13th owner of Moskvich Svyatogor (2L, 115 hp, direct injection) and it still runs good and only needs a floor repair. Which I almost done. Things doesn't need to be recycled until they obsolete.
Auto wipers, lane assist Auto headlights parking censor, Auto parking. If you need all that you should not be driving. Its just more stuff to break and make bad drivers.
I just have to say, I've been watching quite a few videos from you and your analysis on engines as well as ethics like in this video are incredible. Very well analyzed, broken down, and explained.
As a mechanic for thirty odd years I would say today's cars are like a phone or a fridge or washing machine they are throw away goods with lots of built in obsolescence I drive an old van and it's basic so less to fail and being old it's fix able.
That won't work for most people. It works for you because you know how to take care of the old van. But the days when people were wrenching on their own cars are over. Unfortunately.
@@johnnyblue4799 very sad but true the dealers and manufacturers have tied people in to leasing so every three or five you walk in and drive out a new lease car so they have no reason to build quality anymore just to stack them high and sell and then they talk about the green issues.
@@paulyarlett1238 Very well said. The 'green' plagues is the gift that keeps on giving. The more we try to make the cars pollute less, the more complex they become and more prone to failure and less accessible for the average person to maintain. That is on top of the planned obsolescence. Switching to direct injection is the last thing in this direction. Not only the engines got more complex by adding high pressure fuel systems on them, but now you need to clean up the carbon deposits every 40-60k miles on the intakes. I changed the PCV system on my 2001 Volvo V70 with 300k km (187k miles). I have pictures of the intake valves. Sparkling clean. And for the DIYers like me it becomes cost prohibitive to maintain even a 20 years old car. You need expensive equipment if you want to properly diagnose a car like that. Gone are the days when with a pack of feeler gauges and a timing light you could tune up a car... And what bothers me the most is that the service data is not available unless you pay a subscription. To me is like they don't want you to service your own car. I like breathing clean air. A lot. But I feel like we're pushing this too far. And the story with the Diesel engines is even worse.
@@johnnyblue4799 in Britain at the moment there is a plague of catalytic converter thief's and diesel particulate filters being stolen we had a customer at work he is a delivery driver stop out side a shop he was inside a few minutes when he came out and started his Mercedes sprinter it had been got at we quoted the repair costs at thousands they cut the down pipe then ripped out the wiring loom with all the NOX and Lambda Sensors and cut the pressure sensors to an owner driver this is the difference between a roast at Christmas or cornflakes.
Same with old laptops, they were actually made to be fixed, seems after 2014 ish they made them throwaway and unfixable as possible. Before that you could easily disassemble, fix and upgrade whatever parts you liked. Companies convinced people that their laptops were slow because they were outdated, when in reality its from a faulty hardrive or old thermal paste. For everyday use it is pretty hard to tell the difference between a laptop made in 2011 thats running as it should and one made in 2020, cpu's have become more energy efficient but not that much more powerful in laptops the last 10 years.
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.
this video is some of the stupidest "invisible hand" + "you're actually at fault for manufacturers feeding you crap" + "vote with your wallet" bul|sht i've heard in at least a couple years
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! : When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more! When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
#1 reason why 70s/80s/90s cars seem to last longer is their engines were larger at a smaller power output (compared to today). If you have two engines with identical HP and torque, the larger one will last longer as it is less stressed for the same effort.
And to that point, which would you rather have? A turbo 2.0 4-cyl pushing around an 4000 lb SUV? Or a 3+ liter n/a V6? Sure the turbo 2.0 4-cyl may even make a little more power or torque than the V6, but barring design flaws on the V6, the V6 will likely last longer.
It's also survivorship bias. There were shady companies cutting corners 40 years ago. And those cars are no longer around. So the only ones that are left are the tough reliable ones. I guarantee you that in the 2060s people will be complaining that they don't make cars like they did in the 2020s. Because all they will have left are the handful of cars that were built to last.
@@ieuanhunt552 you definitely have a point there. Combination of both factors. Although I do feel most companies now have optimized exactly how long they expect the customer to hold onto the car thus the major parts don't last as long (with aid of greater computer modeling).
Had the same problem with my Glow Worm Boiler - Diverted valve was made from Plastic instead of Brass - they fail quite often - That's why I switched to an Intergas boiler which does not need or have a diverter valve ! My car is a 28 year old Volvo 940 which, with good maintennance, will run for ever !
@@Davidsladky135 Last time my phone failed in 2003 Motorola, since than I don't buy Chinese/American phones and I keep them until I lost them or they just get old. Outdated. Right now I'm using Galaxy Note9. No reason to get rid of it.
@@derp195 it is about wasting time with entertainment & planned obsolescence. Both are run by capitalism. Entertainment is used to divert people's attention away from reality, from the facts & truths so more crap can be sold to the public. Capitalists & all lying, thieving criminal governments.
Not many carriers are offering the "Fairphone" in their default lineups. Lots of people rely on in-store financing to buy, and are concerned about compatibility. Cell manufacturers like Samsung and Apple ABSOLUTELY make their phones hard to repair, and they work out deals with the carriers to keep competition to that model far away.
the real problem with Fairphone was that it used the technology from a few years back. I looked at it when it appeared, but its chipset, memory and storage made it obsolete right away. If you have ever used a mid-range Android phone after it was 2,5 years old, you know what it would feel like on a brand new Fairphone. Add to that that in theory, modular setup sounds awesome, but can you see it in front of you, that different camera manufacturers (like Leica or Zeiss) would create modular elements for such a nieche market? After all, you'd have ended up with thick, obsolete phone, that has no replacement parts to it despite of the manufacturer's promise and is also extremely inconvenient to use because of the slow system. The idea was great, but it was deemed an instant failure the moment it manifested the way it did.
@@peterkornis5377 there's also that the 3rd Fairphone lost the headphone port over some bullshit environmental reasons (really they wanted to sell their new unrepairable wireless headphones) right around the time the right to repair movement was getting popular
@@peterkornis5377and here's the part of why the whole thing with planned obsolescence works and corporation rule. The consumer, that is brainwashed by the marketing. "Obsolete" and "thick" - are his arguments against a cell phone that provides something that others don't, a fundamentally different angle. But hey, it's two millimeter thicker and has 16 RAM instead of 32 - so that's a no-no. Consumer doesn't want all that - it wants bigger digits because he has that idea planted by the corporate marketers: big digit = good. This guy wouldn't think that "thick" is a deal breaker in a million years if not for the fashion trend set by major manufacturers.
When lockdown kicked in the air quality in the UK improved massively. A number of towns and cities had air fit for humans to breathe for the first time in many years. Even climate/EV sceptics were talking about how much better the air smelled.
The reason vehicles began to achieve high mileage starting in the 80s was fuel injection. The cylinders no longer got washed down on every cold start or during heavy acceleration.
@@crazeguy26 exactly... carburetors rarely stayed in tune, and even when they were as good as they could be, they weren't anywhere near as precise as EFI systems. Also, Drivers want vehicles to perform the instant they are started, so manufacturers adjusted the carbs to add excess fuel to ensure the cylinder would fire when cold.
@@audvidgeek "manufacturers adjusted the carbs to add excess fuel to ensure the cylinder would fire when cold" You mean automatic choke? Which turns off automatically once the engine reaches temperature
It's honestly pretty funny, because people in the 2000s also have complained that cars are getting more unreliable. Yet you still see tdi passats driving around with half a million km on them over here in europe
We had a 5-digit odometer that rolled over 6 times in our old Plymouth Volare Station Wagon. Reason was it had a Chrysler Slant-6 engine which was designed as an aluminum block, but cast in Iron. The frame rusted while it was running fine. It was slow, heavy, didn't get good gas mileage, and the floor rusted out of it, but the drive train was bullet proof.
This video is a game changer for me . Its absolutely amazing how the explanation goes, and i totally agree with the arguments, we, the consumers, are the cause for planned obsolescence
When you think for a Moment: How much of the Cars that are build today are still on the Road in 30 years and the Cars from 30 years ago will be outliving the todays Cars
my car is a 25 year old opel astra if you are american you probably don't know kocsi-media.hu/5/opel-astra-f-sedan-1-4-gl-455076_226909_1xl.jpg like this one and still original paint with some rust and original engine with vey close to 300 000 km about 186 400 miles and i got it for like 600 bucks worth in our money :D
you could see that in the clip of the BMW recycling centre, was pretty disgusting to see E90's, F10's and i3's getting squashed and 'recycled' rather than refurbished and resold.
@@maszkalman3676 this Car Looks really good and i am from Germany i have a friend and His dad works as a salesman or Something and He had a BMW E39 with the 3liter turbo diesel and He bought the Car used when it was 3or4 years old with 40.000km now He has 560.000km on it and still works fine but i think it is mostly because the shortest routes He Drives are Like 400km.
Most old cars aren't on the road either. Any car will last with good preventive maintenance, but most people are not car enthusiasts or mechanics. Most are sometimes serviced when it's convenient to the owner and thrown away when major bill comes
I agree with almost everything you said. A couple counterpoints: When you say that we as collective buyers determine the lifespan and sustainability designs that car companies target, I think you overlook the power of marketing and psychological tricks that manufacturers use to manipulate us. We are not purely rational beasts like economists suppose, so we aren’t solely to blame here (though we do have a fair amount of culpability!) second, your example of the fair phone is illustrative to a different point. Before this video I had never heard of fair phone! That’s the power of marketing at work. I would have been very interested in such a device if I knew about it. Thus the general public has a knowledge imbalance that gives larger manufacturers the upper hand.
That's were being an informed consumer comes in especially in the digital age. If someone really wants to get the best and most sustainable options for the things they buy it's literally just a Google search away. I know that would be time consuming but if it's important to you that's what you would do.
I think you also simplify things. Yes, marketing is very important, but marketing is not global, like the same things are promoted allover the world, and in exactly the same manner. For instance, I'm European and I knew about fair phone. As the guy say, the subject is much too big and complicated, to be solved in a simple discussion or video.
Great thinking about sustainability. I got it too, lately. Figured out, we change things too much. So, I decided not to do it any more. Most proud on my Yamaha XJR 1300 18 years old, my Fiat 500 multijet 8 years old and my hifi amplifier Sony TA-F 808ES 30 years old, playing every day.
I had a car built in 1955. I had to disassemble it, put it back together and change all rubber parts. After that it did not fail even once for 25 years. All i did is changing oil. I stopped counting miles after odometer zeroed. My guess it was over 180000 when i finally sold the car in perfectly good condition. The same car manufacturer model 1999 could not even survive 5 years. It got rust, oil splashing out of everywhere. Half of the car was replaced by warranty. Because they had to make cheap parts in order to keep the car price down. No, they do not built them as good as before. Now you have to buy a 2020 Bugatti to get the Ford quality from 1950
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".
There are merits for both technologies, you should examine thoroughly the environmental impact on fossil fuel extraction, transportation and use of existing power structures that are used for refining storage and distribution and recurring extraction for the same car, as apposed to extraction of Lithium, comparable manufacturing processes between the two cars and then other exotic material that make up a battery powered car, not to mention all of the electronics both cars use including toxic materials that go into making those nice shiny LCD's in those vehicles. Power generation and the supply of power is one of the most polluting and toxic of all human activity on the planet. I know which I would choose.
@@rasoul786 The people I'm referring to are an engineering student, a designer of car lubricants in his late 20s, and an engineer from Jaguar's Formula-E division. Congratulations tiger, you exposed the "status quo".
Planned obsolescence is not only about cars, it involves everything, every consumer product. However even if it was not planned there had to be a way to force the consumers to replace the product they consume after certain amount of time. Because in order for technological advances to take place there must be an incentive for manufacturer to improve the quality and efficiency, safety, and cost, etc. But I hate that we no longer able to fix something that is still good, except a small stupid part of it that needs fixing. Great program as always!
I went out and bought an old Ford Crown Vic with a Police package. Its 25 years old (Its a 1999 model) has 152,000 miles and it still runs like a sewing machine. Nearly everything is easy to fix and what handful of issues can occur have been well documented and figured out. Sure, its bad on gas mileage and tricky to park in a few situations because of its large size, but it's bought and paid for. Most folks at my job have a pricey car note payment that I don't, so 9-15 MPG around town isn't as bad once you take that into account. It's also roomy in both the cabin and rear trunk/boot and has decent ground clearance because the police versions were made to be able to drive over curbs during pursuits, so it can be taken down a bumpy dirt road without much worry. Above all else, it's FUN to drive. It's not even that fast, but it cruise's amazingly nice on the road. I don't need to risk other drivers or a speeding ticket to get joy from driving it. Paid $2,500 cash for it on facebook marketplace.
Ah the Vic. Fun fact, ALL the crown vics that folks think of when they think of those old beasts were made in 1 plant. the Talbotville plant, near St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. Yep. They were made in my "backyard."
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! : When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more! When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
Your point on the mileage is spot on!!! People switch cars when they still have plenty of life left in them and then also want/complain for pretty good mileage forgetting the fact that they are paying the EMIs every month in addition to fuel. Its funny cause, paid off car that is still fun and good to drive is really economical no matter what the mileage is and also the "features" are a big gimmick. Like what really new do people want? More screens? Oh yeah i forgot they now have the ADAS so people can keep their eyes on the many touch screens and also pay a premium for all the tech. Humanity is moving towards stupidity year on year 😂
I did not either, I would much rather have that than the cheapest one from Wal-Mart. I feel like they screwed the pooch on marketing with the amount of people that are into customization
Never heard of it either. That is one thing he should of mentioned. The power of marketing. Samsung vs a start up....who do you think has more money to throw around in that regard?
Problem is, at least in Germany, they are really expensive for an lower-middle class android phone. Phones half the price have betters specs, especially Huawei/Xiaomi Phones. They are just not cost effective, slow, bad screen etc...
I've always worked in Automotive R&D and to me it feels like the industry has backed itself into a corner through regulation and their own marketing trends. Every 'mainstream' brand is so focused on chasing the exact same customer that they have to force them into buying a new car every couple of years, just to generate the kind of sales volume necessary to stay afloat.
Maybe for engineers that decision the chairman takes is bad but they have no other choice. If they let engineer build what they want, the company is going bust. Saab is the very example of this case, idealism can only get you so far in highly competitive market.
And it reflects in car styling, all chasing the same looks (specially SUV´s) and are plain ugly. Gone are the times when car designers had some pride and enthusiasm. But its the CEO/accountants that make the decision. Just look at that.... cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/NpNNM/s1/2021-hyundai-santa-fe.jpg
We failed due to environmental and safety laws. Trying to sqeeze 1 more mpg while being safer has resulted in... no spare tires, auto stop start, 9 air bags, and yes plastic engine parts.
I own '81 W123 Merc and the first thing that broke after I bought it was thermostat housing. It is metal (aluminium I guess), but it corroded until one day there was hole.
@@mullerandre95 actually one of the main reasons to buy it was how comfortable it is for me. But others indeed sometimes complain that seats are too low, lol.
I remember my Dad telling me how wonderful his new car was because it had a 7 year corrosion warranty. * Turns out this was an ANTI-PERFORATION warranty. * You had to PAY for an annual inspection at a MAIN DEALER. * If you didn't PAY the MAIN DEALER for any work they identified every year then the warranty was void. The car was a rot box, the warranty was a con.
@@henryokafor8512 Yep. We nursed it to 15 years but it was well beyond economical repair. It was full of welds. In contrast my 21 year old Skoda still hasn't reached that level of body rot.
Bought an 03 Volvo outright back in November and now it’s almost at 200,000 miles. Within that time I had to get a new Cat and now my heater core burst today but I still want to fix and keep it running forever if I can. It’s still really solid and I don’t want a car payment
This is why I love my 90s cars. I don't care what other people drive, I have had my Australian built 1995 Ford Falcon XR6 for 20 years and done 300,000km in that time. It has done 471,000km and still going strong. I also recently bought a 1991 SC400 as a project car. After watching your video on the 1UZ FE I knew I wanted to play with one. Thank you for all the amazing content
I already decided that I'll build my own car the way I want it. Cars used to be made for driving and now, like you said, there are so many additional parts, screens, buttons, all of this to make the trip more comfortable but it's not even useful most of the time.
I think I've heard that in the UK or Europe, it is typical for ppl to order their cars the way that they want it. In the US, that is usually not how it's done, and even pre-pandemic, ordering a-la carte could be a pain but it's definitely more expensive.
@@SayAhh I think you got it backwards. I recently purchased a made-to-order car in the US and it was less expensive than the same configuration but purchased from a dealer lot. The reason is that the dealer saves a ton of money if they do not have to keep the car on premises until a buyer is found -- they dont have to look after the car while in their possession, buy insurance or take a short-term loan to buy it from the mfr.
Thanks for bringing up the overall sustainability issue. It drives me mad to see the way governments obsess about running emissions while completely forgetting about the overall footprint from production to recycling---and waste!---and of course companies know it and that's where they cut corners. I worked at a company where they made us save money on stationary, hot beverages and year-end parties, while all the executives and partners constantly flew around the world first class staying at 5-star hotels for in-person "strategic" internal meetings of one or two hours, even though all of our offices had top of the line video conferencing rooms, which no-one ever used even though they also cost a fortune to set up and maintain. Also, while lecturing us on reducing our carbon footprint by saving on pens, paper and hot beverages, and by recycling our garbage (which meant multiplying the number of plastic garbage bins and bags by 4, never mind that), they remodeled the whole office, replaced all of the furniture, for more expensive, lower quality, less comfortable and less practical equipment, with less desk and storage space, when the previous furniture was totally fine, unanimously better overall, and could have lasted at least a decade longer without flinching or going out of style. All of this so that a certain manager, who was put in charge of Facilities because they had dissolved his previous department, could continue to justify their paycheck. And then just a year after the remodeling was finally over, they closed that office, fired all the non-executive and partner-level staff and merged the remaining few into another office in town! X'D (I was long gone by then). This feels the same to me. You're saving a few drops on one end while leaving the fire hose open at the other.
Uh… it’s because the government doesn’t want combustion engines to survive that long, that way they can roll out the EVs and limit how much and where you drive. All these new EVs have so much technology in them that they can ban you from driving just like they can ban you from Facebook for speaking against the mainstream. Going electric isn’t about climate, it’s just about control.
You really nailed this with the computer simulation allowing narrower margins to the car reaching the warranty period. I am a structural engineer and this is exactly the same with building design. As your design ability improves due to computing power you can slim down the structural elements closer to what is actually needed instead of over designing for safety.
Career automotive diagnostic tech here. In my opinion, automotive reliability peaked in the late 90s/early 2000s. Every time a manufacturer introduced low-tension piston rings, it was a harbinger of doom.
Once again the company is profit driven, if you let engineer let loose with the budget, take a look what happened to saab or volvo. One is gone bust and one is sold to chinese firm to save them from financial doom. If you're not profitable, you cease to exist. The only way for engineer can be free with their creation and not making company broke is to sold the car at extremely high prices like koenigsegg, pagani, bugatti etc.
@@ardijanuar2036 so you are prepared to buy on price rather than quality... You just go buy a KIA or Hyundai There is a place and a market for quality in this world Just some people and some companies just focus on profit They will maybe have short term success But people will soon be disappointed with a crap product and return purchases will be non existent
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So back in the day they just didn't need the profit? I understand there's more engineering, but even adjusted for inflation new cars rarely exceeded $30k in today's money back in the day. High ups in the auto industry pocket way more of what the company makes than they used to.
@@frankrizzo2724 it was easier to make profit on cars back in the day due to less parts needed to assemble them.
I work in car headlights factory... old lamps from 80is had around 9-15 components
Do you know how many components does lamp have nowadays? More than 150. A d what are the most expensive parts? PCBs (printed circuit boards) which werent even exist in old lamps
I hope you get my point here
I hope there isn't any planned obsolescence on any of your merch
you had me hollaring at 5 minutes there :')
Actually I know for a fact for my car, had a plastic thermostat housing but funny thing is that the newer model had it in metal which is interesting so I just swap them
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!!
Modern cars have too many ecu's. Not because electronics are unreliable.
But because the 2nd hand market now gets vehicles no one can fix, with parts they no longer make.
Based
Spot on , swap your spanner for a scanner , I hate limp mode , I hate my electronic parking brake , I would love to run an old car but they aren't as safe are they.
KISS - Keep it simple stupid - However I don't blame the auto companies 100 %. Onerous regulations put on by countries have driven the auto companies to come up with drastic solutions to keep the cars inside the specifications as set out.
Diesel engine cars have been driven off the market. The technology involved in making sure the engines comply to emission specifications has made them unreliable.
Yeah, I got a car from the early 90s, and it was cheaper to get it up and running than it was to fix one issue on my new car.
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.
Using a volvo for an example is cheating!
Everyone knows, they are eternal 😅
I am Swedish, and in the modern world, we all have collective responsibility within our demographics, so you're welcome! 😎
I could never afford a Volvo but a 940 is still a good car. If I could afford a car today it would be a used Volvo 940 or a Mercedes 300D turbo.
@@thomaseriksson6256960 is also great, idk where you live but in europe you can get 940/960 in full option good condition for 5-8k$. They are much less popular than mercedes and volvo guys generally take care of their cars so in my opinion is much better pick especially if you consider that diesel fell out of favor and volvo gasoline engine are as good if not better than mercedes legendary diesels.
Does man let you drive it still?
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
I know how you feel, and not having to remove 3000 shitty clips from 57 plastic covers just to gain access to the car.
LOL. Yeah I'd rather keep the damn snap on in the drawer...
I bought a 10 year old Ford Sierra (UK) in 1999 for £30 and ran it for 16 years,not that there was much of the original car left at the end.When I took it for MOT the mechanics would look under the bonnet and wistfully say 'It has a carburettor'.
that sigh of relief when a Honda or a Toyota pulls in for a service...
@@adeladd7638 Really? A 99 still has a carburetor?
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
Amazing. SMH.
We truly live in dystopia
@@watema3381 This is why I just want a leader who will stand up to corporate bullshit. How is a capitalist economy better than a planned economy if in both I end up with dog water products products just for different reasons?
You see zis part? We have intentionally designed it to be scheisse. As a joke. See? We Germans can be very funny!
@@Michael-uc2pnit is actually funny in sadistic way.
As the guy who works in automotive we do have planned obsolescence, but it is not evil intentional design. If the part is designed to have a life time of 10 years it is ok.
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.
They just get better lawyers 😂
I can confirm. I work in the industry also.
@@d4a Yes and look at the US political environment. We don't hire(elect) engineers and craftsman to office but lawyers and actors ONLY!
I'm designing electronics for LED lights (home and outdoor lighting). Often times we need to decrease the (theoretical) life span of the product from like 6 years down to 2 years just because "we" "need" to save 0.5 of a cent on a single component. This is so ridiculous and I can't understand it. However, I'm told to do so, otherwise I can search for a new job. Really hurts to do this crap to a perfectly fine product.
crazy to think about it :O
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.
Correct me if I'm wrong but i think it's Ford
@@DeeGamingVolt_TGV I don't know, he did not want to name names. I think he was just trying to warn us that not all employers are out to make the world a better place, which I think most of us did. Some are quite the opposite.
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! :
When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more!
When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
@@danielclawson2099 yeah agreed 💯
Er, well what you are saying is actually different, because reducing lifespan as a deliberate objective is not the same as reducing *cost* subject to a lifespan constraint. Are you really an engineer?
Well, there's less points of failure in an older car...so yeah, higher chance of reliability, in general. Incidentally I had a TV that died 1 day after its year long warranty...literally the day after the warranty expired. Creepy.
I have an LG phone that never worked properly, but they said they already had my money so they didn't care.
Literally our LG TV did that last year, died the day after the warranty expired.
Well, that's where the Right to Repair talk comes in but for home electronics, it already somewhat exists for the automotive industry
I wouldn't be surprised if it's just one fuse or capacitor that blew, the cost to repair would be small but good luck finding the parts, as the manufacturer probably told the factory not to sell those separately.
But a day after seems like you got unlucky, they can be accurate for planning it's demise, but not that precise. Or it was planned to be close and just cut their losses on the ones that broke before the warranty's expiration.
I also noticed a few replies talking about their LG devices. That's interesting, maybe we're somewhat lucky, but we've owned Fridges, TV's, Washing machines... basically all of our appliances were LG, all never had an issue, except for our microwave, which just stopped heating the food as quickly, I'm talking throwing the popcorn in for 5 minutes or some bs just to get half of them popped. It's unfortunate because that was a damn good microwave, but guess what? Suddenly "died" not long after the warranty expired.
The appliance industry really needs some improvement with Right to Repair. Not everyone can shill out a couple thousand bucks for a fridge and washer every couple of years.
Shameful.
@Jack K that why Europe has a 2 years obligatory warranty lol
3 of my last 4 mobile phones died 2 years after buying them where coincidence don't you think! 🤔
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.
Got a 69 Bug because I know I could fix it if I ever need to. Its 1500cc air cooled engine is very simple, and so is its electrical system. Plus, old vehicles are better looking.
Exactly.
Hell yeah, brother
I drove my 95 K1500 until the cab literally fell onto the driveshaft.
Then, I put wood blocks under it and drove it for a couple more years - until it happened again. 😂
@@brianworden7022 absolutely...I had a 1966 1300cc beetle in H.S. loved it. rolled it...shame on the younger version of myself..
I own a car parts store and we had a appointment with a big company that manufactures car parts and they told us that newer model cars have a shortened life span so they break easier, and seeing the build quality and problems of new cars the answer for this video is a big YES.
This is true of Ford, GM, and Chrysler, but this is because they're being absolutely thrashed by Honda and Toyota and are cutting corners out of necessity, not because it is profitable. The fact that the quality brands are beating the crap out of the value brands kinda proves that cheapness results in its own rejection the moment it goes too far.
And my uncle works at Nintendo and he says that they are going to send everyone a copy of battletoads.
@@theredscourge Still American cars are more expensive.
@@Carskinify The unions certainly aren't helping with that, but if you watch teardown videos of failed engines, you notice almost all of them are American brands, and hardly any are Asian brands, and almost all of the latter are because the owner didn't ever change the oil, or some maintenance guy accidentally left a loose bolt somewhere inside the oil system or something.
@@theredscourge I bought a new "89 Dodge Dakota and parked it along a street and a young guy walked by and said"You couldn't give me a damn Dodge." and the rear end (differential) failed not long after. American companies don't care. They depend on people's short memory. I've worked in union shops and all they do is cause trouble. They don't deserve a job esp. one that pays like they do.
The use of plastics throughout the engine compartment results in failures of parts that may cost a few dollars to manufacture, but often cost thousands of dollars in labor to replace. Worse yet, many plastics gets brittle with age, so when servicing engines, stuff that wasn’t broken often gets cracked during the disassembly process.
Let's not forget that there is a very long list of metal parts in the engine compartment that fail as well. Coolant systems, especially poorly-maintained ones, are hell on metals, like aluminum alloy. Material selection is a constant battle for automotive engineers, with the tradeoffs of cost/weight/longevity (choose two).
@@mhagnewand most car manufacturers have narrow profit margins of around 3 to 5 percent. Even without dealer markups cars are expensive to make
@@imeakdo7cars aren't expensive to make. Following all the bullshit govt rules are.
@@imeakdo7 3% of a billion is still enough to retire on
cars do not cost alot to make (since most are made in china or cheaper place) just look at tesla profit and tell me again how narrow the profit margin is
@@mabisfab77paintball Tesla is known in the car industry for having absurdly wide profit margins, they have the widest margins in the entire industry far more than any other manufacturer, most big car manufacturers only have margins of 3%
Caption should read 'built to be owned' vs 'built to be leased'
Underrated comment.
"own nothing and be happy"
Also - 'If you can't afford a new BMW - you Definitely can't afford to own a used one...'
Today is a throw-away society - so, unless we develop a secondary market for the new EV's that makes sense to 'repower' and resell them (unlike today's inflated used car prices) we will definitely be wasting more resources at an even faster rate than we are now.
Exactly! They are pushing hard for this. To escape the trap, buy classic or modern classic. And take care of it like she is your wife.
Finally someone who understand that.
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.
Totally agree with you regarding improvements with oil, and is much more important than people realise. I agree to disagree with electric cars though if you know how to repurpose a used battery they can make a lot of sense if they have not been degraded by more then 50%. My battery is 10 years old and has lost 6.1% of its total capacity (and could be put back into an EV), in contrast my Renault diesel 1,5DCI of 2005 is complete scrap, engine blew at 110K miles and will cost more to fix than the car is worth! ICE no thanks!
Oh, God, yes.
I remember peeling valve covers off in the old days and there would be a perfect mold imprint of the rockers made out of sludge on the inside. 😂
Then, one day, I realized, _"I haven't had to scrape a cover in a long time."_
That's when I realized there was a jump in oil quality.
Funny how it always seems to be the sensor that goes and not the thing its supposed to be sensing.
@@BennyHolden-ls7sj My main point was just that by running out and buying a new car of any type, you are not doing the environment any favors at all. Cars are made up of thousands of components coming from several hundred different suppliers. Take something like an oil cap for example. Simple part, not much to it but Ford does not make them. They don't make most of the parts, they come from suppliers. I'm from Detroit originally and worked briefly in manufacturing of auto parts so I'm familiar with this. At one point I assembled dash boards for the 88 and 89 Chrysler minivans, and at another point I was assembling rubber and metal components for motor mounts.
So anyway, an oil cap is made from plastic, a rubber gasket, a piece of metal in most cases, printing on the top of the part, and so on. So this 1 part is made in its raw form, someone else makes the gasket or O ring, it's sent somewhere else to have the emblem inked on, sent someplace else to be assembled, then sent to the factory where it might be further divided and sent around the factory. How many times did that part move before it finally made it in a vehicle? And that's just 1 part. How much environmental damage does the movement of all these parts create? Now multiply by thousands of parts and hundreds of suppliers. Never mind the "break even" point of an electric car. My main point was just pointing out how driving a 50 year old car made from a majority of metal and recyclable components already exists. I have rebuilt my engines to be a little less polluting but even with no emissions controls, buying a new car of any type contributes more pollution than my old cars ever will. I'm not saying don't buy a new car, I think you should be able to buy whatever you want whether it's ICE BEV Hydrogen, whatever. But if your main concern is the environment, your least polluting option is an old metal recyclable car that has existed for 50 years already.
But the battery issue.... Have you seen what's involved mining elements for those EV batteries? What it does to the landscape and how much CO2 and NOX are emitted? Again... Not saying don't buy one, but as far as environmentally friendly I'll stick with my 66 Lemans and '70 Kingswood wagon.
@@NarwahlGaming It sure has made a difference. I remember taking the valve cover off my 77 firebird in high school and it was like a hard tar all over. But I haven't seen anything like that in years now. Can't remember the last time I actually had to scrape sludge off a valve train. 20 years maybe?
Old cars are not necessarily more reliable, but they are easier to fix when they break down.
this pretty much, but sometimes all it takes is a bad sensor for the car to not work.
@@AlineaEuros And modern cars are filled to the gills with sensors. A mechanical fault will always be easier to diagnose/repair than an electrical fault. Especially on a vehicle where the wiring looks like a multi-colored pot of spaghetti.
My 94 Ranger = super easy to work on, super easy to fix.
My 00 Mustang = pretty easy to work on, pretty easy to fix.
My 05 Focus ZX5 = a bitch to work on, a bitch to fix.
if The new Cars were driven on the Gravel roads that the old cars were constantly driven on they wouldn't last a year, the new cars are all pavement queens! I have seen many new pickups that are trashed after 1 year of Gravel roads !
The Real problem I have with the new technical cars is. If Dealers Computer can't tell them what is wrong, there chances of fixing it is slim to none! i am fed up with taking My Car to the dealer 5 times for the same problem and it is still not fixed !
@@sixstanger00 used to own 2001 focus (eudm), it was pretty simple to work on, but You have different engines in US in those cars (not counting SVT/ST170)
As an engineer, machinist and automotive technician I can tell you with absolute certainty car manufacturers are evil!!!!😾
I agree
As Japan's minimal computerisation and standardisation of cars revolutionised Economy, reliability and manufacture. Cars, around 1996 were as good as they were ever going to get and have steadily grown colossally worse since then. The Honda Accord (triumph Acclaim, Rover 214i etc.) being the apex platform that spanned nearly a decade, repackaged by everyone and selling 100's of millions of mechanically identical cars into every market on earth. Cars were complete, with only future fuel sources offering any real need to alter this 'perfect' closed-loop of repair, to recycle, to drive. Buy a 1990's accord and you need never buy a new car again.
.
...Real Design, for once in well over a century. Resulted in a product that people actually Needed and therefore sold itself. The primary reason Honda still exist as a company at all, when nearly all of Japan's other multi-nations have failed. An impressive feat given that both Electric and External combustion (steam) have always been superior options, probably why an entire world of auto industry wasted so much time with the worse power unit. The Internal Combustion Engine.
/and dealerships
yeah. they intentionally engineer stuff to take longer to service so they can charge more labor. Example, how in the world does the book call for 2 hours to change a light bulb? a smart engineer would probably think "Lets make this simple to get to since it indeed will need to be serviced" (some) Parts are absolutely designed to fail after a certain period of time.
i am a machinist technologist, engineering student, and aspire to continue to become an automotive mechanic afterwards too! In my opinion, there are consumer grade products, and there are commercial grade products. Those are engineered VERY differently.
@@eonreeves4324 That´s mostly because car designers don´t cooperate with engineers. Instead, engineers are provided with the result of designer´s work and have to figure out things "on the fly".
Also, designers are paid to make designs, not to think in any way about practicality. That´s why most of the furniture sux as well.
"Who would make a thermostat housing out of plastic..?"
An ACCOUNTANT, that who....
😂😂😂😂😂
In my X5 there were concentric rings on the radiator hose barb. The thing was designed to fail after "x" many start ups.
@@Eluderatnight Sick.
@Darren dorion allmost all 90's European cars were made like that. The Japanese were more sane and just kept doing what they always did, build quality at a good price.
Chrysler 300 thermostat housing is made out of two pieces of plastic that are glued together. LMAO!
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.".
"Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands." - It's sorta a complex idea. Engineers are very good at their job now, much better than in the past due to having more knowledge, but they are all designing for a specific number, which is either in years or miles.
There are significant advantages to selecting a specific number, and designing all your parts to just barely last to that number- you get weight and cost savings, which "should" ideally pass on to the consumer.
Now, I wish they would overbuild things to a bigger number, or publish/warranty their design number (minus X percent), but I understand that being able to sell a car for 20k instead of 22k is advantageous, as well as that car getting 30mpg instead of 25mpg, and it having 10% less emissions.
Is it worth all of that for a car to last half as long? That's a consumer decision.. and unfortunately, consumers decided "yes".
My best car was a 1978 Mercedes 300D. That car was a tank. A comfortable tank. It was not very quick, but it got 28mpg in all situations. At that time, diesel fuel was about $.50/gal. It required very little maintenance but when it did have to go to the shop it was expensive. It was my first Mercedes, and I put quite a few miles on it, and it could have gone many more, but California decided to deoxygenate diesel fuel. They didn't research it, and it washed down the cylinder walls, causing the motor to lose compression. It never started again.
The state offered a $500 settlement to replace a $12,000 motor. I've had several Mercedes since then but that one was the best
"You lost your house? Here's some tents"
My dad had the 200 D , even slower but indestructible. Great car indeed.
You misspelled Commiefornia:
You should've gotten a lawyer. And a new engine that those idiots paid for.
still driving my w123 @400k miles
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.
Which is funny, since people will always be put off by a car being too fragile, sending them directly to a competitor with a reputation that notes "high reliability".
@@DoodlezMusic You would have to reiterate that argument with an example, to make it a true argument.
As per example, of socio-economic factors.
For example, people suffering from medically induced mrna vaccination regret are largely unaffected by socio economic factors, but by education levels, same will apply to cars as well. Old cars really rock, new cars can sock dry squeezed hemmoroids suffering from fat american digitalized soyass
it starts with your toaster and ends with you car. my mom got the same washingmashine for twenty years. i got fuckin five of this new ones in ten years. and new toaster evry year. they are rly forcing us to buy new stuff.
@@HighTenner I exclusivly use old stuff, I like the new stuff, like global mass injection of unverifiable cooling conditions of gene prophylaxis. At least the war on drugs is going strong and we are healthily max boosted with 4 shots yearly including bivalent boosters for your regular updates. Finally EV vehicles and high taxes will save us from the weather change and stop le volcano and le quake 2
@@DoodlezMusic the fact that apple exists at all disproves that
As an owner of that old Mercedes (80s 300D) used in this video's comparison (along with many other cars from different manufacturers) I can assure you they are the most well built, reliable and useful cars ever constructed. I still drive mine daily happily communting to work, hauling kids around and towing a loaded trailer all while nearing 400k miles with a completely orginal drive train...
I have a '72 MB 220 Diesel in the garage. Runs all right...
This. Another funny thing with the old Mercs (at least in Germany, don't know if they also do this in other countries) is that you can just walk into your local dealership and buy basically every part that should break brand new so no need to scour scrapyards for used stuff that's been abused for decades or cheap Chinese crap that doesn't fit right
1984 500SEL here for the last 20 years, and it's my newest car.
The question is not "is it driving" with this merc, its "is it Holding together" since its rusting like a harbor rail
@@carhawara3394 depends on where you live - luckily for me they don't salt the roads here so it doesn't have rust.. but other parts of the country / world - yes, that's def an issue.
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.
Part of that cost discrepancy is likely the anti-collision sensors and integrated tail lights/marker lights on the bumpers of modern vehicles.
The incentive to build more robust cars is brand image and residual value, it's worked so well Toyota is the largest automaker in the world.
I know for a fact, that in the 90s Mercedes Benz decided that being THE original builder of every 30 year-old mega-mile taxi in the middle east and Africa was not the brand image they wanted. BMW didn't like young boy-racers were driving around in pimped up 20 year old 3 series either.,
You and I may have thought that having a long lived car proves the marque's build quality. They thought it devalues the brand image if any old Joe can afford to own one.
Planned obsolescence ensures brand exclusivity.
So now, built like a Mercedes means quite a different thing to what it did in the 90s.
@@DanA-fk6tl Agree! That is why the Mercedes-Benz that I truly desired are from the 1970's and 1980's. Especially the W123 300D, love how it is incredibly reliable, and very mechanical. A time when Mercedes-Benz truly justifies the tag line, "The best or nothing".
@@DanA-fk6tl Well you also have to think that Mercedes ceased to be Mercedes in 1996 when Chrysler bought them out.
Funny story.... women came into my job with a entitled attitude bitching about the price of changing a battery in her remote... than she points to her "New Mercedes" and tells me, "that is why I drive a Mercedes what do you drive?"
I just point to my mint 1983 240d and say... "that is a real Mercedes, you actually have a rebranded Chrysler."
@@DarknessNation women
Toyota is still making Reliable cars.
In India there is Model named Innova a SUV.The cost of maintenance is so damn cheap.
Most of tge Taxi operators buy that.
Even the cramped 3rd row is awesomely comfortable.Recently traveled 600kms sitting on the 3rd row.
Never felt any jolt and was not tired at all at the end of the journey.
I must be in a small minority, everything I own I keep until I can no longer fix it.
no, I do the same, it is absolutely more cost effective to repair an old car than to buy new or used, considering that vehicles are upwards of 30k and you have to carry full coverage insurance if you have a note, no, that math doesn't add up, people are stupid, the depreciation alone is more than what I spend in a full restoration project
yep, that's why earth is doomed, because we are the minority
Glad to find a few more people who run and upkeep stuff until I can't even make parts for it.
I learn from my dad, we drive a vehicle and keep fixing it till it rots or the motor blows up. And even then we try to motor swap it, bought a f150 brand new and drove it till the motor flew apart at 370,000 and 70,000 of that was with leaking injectors
Let me be even weirder. I either get hauled by my family, friend or I use public transportation until my parents give me their 1986 Toyota Camry.
I've been a mechanic for twenty years. Newer cars have way more problems then the older ones. Nearly every job is heaps harder then it used to be and major repairs are extremely common. Just this year I have already changed engines or had to do head gaskets on more then two dozen cars that are less then 15 years old. My ute is 20 years old and nothing ever goes wrong with it. Except your usual wear like tyres and brakes.
Not true. New cars just have different sets of problems. However, main reason for those problems are 2. The manufacturer AND the customer. Unless the engine has been broken by manufacturer during its manufacturing, there should be nothing major wrong with it. But if it gets broken, it´s not intentional. Maybe some worker dropped a sensor before installing it. Or nobody checked the new shipment of parts. These things happen, when you shift from specialized workers to cheaper workforce.
It´s often the customer, who keeps driving around with "Check engine" light, ignoring potentially severe repair, simply because "it still works". Until it stops and then only the manufacturer is to blame, because facing our own part of guilt is hard. Also often caused by NOT READING THROUGH THE USER MANUAL - you know, that thick book, customer gets with his car?
However, in the end, it´s all luck-based, as with any other consumer goods. You may be lucky and only pour oil and fuel into it for many years, or you may be unlucky and know every mechanic in the vicinity.
Sometimes, it´s the mechanic´s fault. Not every one of you is straight and honest and people often have hard time figuring it out - especially when they know nothing about cars.
And at last - i had my own share of issues with an old car - it would turn 21 this year. 1000 little things, that kept piling up at constant rate. People just have to remember, that mechanical parts wear (thus have to be changed regularly) and electronics may work for many years until sudden death occurs. However, as car ages, more problems will arise, until you hit a treshold, when maintenance cost will become unsustainable.
Yet I see far fewer cars on the roadside needing assistance.
sounds like you own a diesel Hilux and are Australian. Am I right? Anyway Australia lagged a bit with the diesel emissions craziness and plus 20 year old utes were designed with that CAD sweet spot he described- enough to help manufacturing tolerances and efficient design, not enough to perfect planned obsolescence
@@Morpheus-pt3wq you day there should be nothing wrong with a new car. You are correct, there shouldn't be. Problem is, there are hundreds of problems in new cars. I have a successful business because so many cars 10 years and younger have countless issue's. The fix is always more time consuming and the parts are increasing in price every day.
Look at a thermostat as an example.
You used to be able to but just the thermo and change it. Cost under $100 for the entire job. Now you need to buy an entire housing that costs over $300 and takes hours to replace. Now a thermostat will cost on average more then $500.
@@manoman0 because these days they don't road side assistance. These days the road side assistance company just calls a tow truck.
I love old cars. Something about being able to fix your metal machine with your own hands without getting lost in 100 electrical components and sensors. They really did make em different, we'll never see those times again.
This video is not about cars. this is about life. Sustainability is yours, mine and our governments choice! Well done sir!!
It is about freedom no about cars.
Meanwhile "enthusiasts" still arguing about ls vs 2jz or whatnot
@@eustahijelifetips what does that have to do with this?
There's no sustainability in the material world. The time factor does't allow it, plain & simple.
Exactly, so don't vote for handouts. God helps them that help themselves!
I bought a gorgeous Orange Mazda MX5 NB, I call her Clementine (because orange). She's got 100000 miles on it, and both an engineer and 3 mechanics said her engine is in an amazing condition for a 22 year old car with 9 previous owners.
I drive by so many broken down cars (15 years or younger) and I keep thinking when will it be my turn, but this video made me feel better. All she had replaced so far was the drive assist belt and the original 22 year old alternator. I love Clementine, I never want to get rid of her, she's a perfect image of Japanese 90's design, when engineers used to made cars, not marketing departments.
I hope you and Clementine do another 100k miles together. Even if she breaks down, it's likely an easy fix supported by a gigantic market. Remember the mx5 is the world's best selling roadster
I laugh everytime I drive past broken down modern cars in my 1976s Lada.
Ywnbaw, repent and accept nature
"As a civilization we are still in the stage where we believe that the material things someone owns can increase their status in society and their value as a human being." Well said.
Sadly true.
That said, I will never buy a brand new car. The cost of turning that key for the first time...It's an idiot tax. 20% of the value (at least) gone in one second.
My best car? 2002 BMW e46. less than £1k when I bought it. 5 years and less than £1K in replacement parts later it still starts, stops, looks great, and is comfortable. I could easily afford a more expensive car. But why waste money that I could be spending on a holiday?
@@DanA-fk6tl Same for me.
My 1997 Volvo cost me 2000€+1700€ for the LPG system, and since then I had only minor issues and wear part to change (tires, brakes and belts).
Even the AC system was never touched and after 25years it is running like new (with 35°C outside gives me air at something like 8~10°C in a minute).
I mean, it sucks to cry but its a whole lot better to cry in a volvo.
@@ChunkyWaterisReal lmao
Men value their mate's girlfriends ( or boyfriends) by evolutionary design . Darwin was onto something from the start . There's the stage ... Those are our human limitations set by evolution over million of years ;) Evolution is cleverer than we are, Leslie Orgle .
What makes sense to me, is that this is a type of survivor bias. The old cars we see today, are the ones that were taken good care of.
agree!
The "Intelligent Consumer" is a myth.
This. That's how we got FWD BMW (just to mention one glaring example). And the system is rigged to keep people dumb. It's very complicated to get unbiased reliability statistics. Car magazines are paid by car makers and only focus on new cars, downplaying defects and poor design choices. Finally, too many adults can't stand peer pressure, and the herd goes and buys what the alpha man decided to.
I would say more like far and few between but do exist.
My dream car is a 1998 Volvo S90. However, it seems like the government where I live want to make it impossible to own an ICE-car in 15 - 25 years.
customer is never right, let's be honest lol
Well, in no corporation i've worked at single human was allowed to make purhase.
Usually they have special departament, equipped with specialists of minimum 5y of experience.
So everything , from components actually used in production to things like ballpoint pens or safety shoes goes thru this departament, wchich checks every little detail, negotiated warranty, even analyses broken items to estimate MTBF contributing factors. All this using computers and knowledge base systems, and basically scientist-grade educated personell.
It would be silly to even suggest single person could be somehow comptetent to buy sth as simple as piece of plastic. Machine like lathe? Laugh 😅
Then out of sudden for buying sth with thousands of moving parts, software, fluids, hydraulic systems, design strategies, financing plans, related to global market of fuels, taxes, insurances and without premium technical support... you send single layperson, and let him/her being manipulated by emotion-driven marketing.
Result must be Fail, and it's facepalm grade fail.
I know only a few people who did research like hiring 20y+ experience master mechanic as advisory, before buying a car. And even then they did it wrong - not paying right amount for time and experience required, not actually hiring someone who can properly communicate with such an expert but talking to mechanic in person instead, and finally not creating consylium, gathering data and doing proper statistical analysis.
All this when investing over 50 000e of cash!
If you wasted so much cash doing risky purhase even in quite crappy corporation, You would get fired with totally bad reference of breaching trust and mismanagement of investiment funds, if not outright arrested if the company was anyhow related to public money, probably ending up on the streets or doing physical worl for rest of your life.
But wrecking budget of Your family? Depriving your kids of education and spending cash on car repairs ? Not showing up on charity meetings for next 10y after You made bad decision to buy designer's clunker? no problem.
I like the old auto owners manuals that told you how to lap the valves vs todays owners manuals tell you not to drink the fluids!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Modern litiginous seciety it the reason for this garbage!!
... what? Do you mean lap? Whens the last time you pulled the heads off and pulled your valves out let alone lap them?
@@richmondvand147 Not me personally but how different manuals back in the day were vs now. It's like an analogy as well for how stupid people can be these days. Like common sense should tell already not to drink the fluids.
That’s priceless… completely accurate 😂
Great Video: As an engineer I can confirm that Planned obsolescence is '' fact'' in most manufacturing and in particular in the automotive industry. I have a Mercedes W123 1984 . Easy to work on not that much goes wrong. High quality materials used with longevity at design. My modern Mercedes is a minefield of hightech component failures! Same manufacturer but change in design strategy/ philosophy ! Certainly don't make them like they used to.
Capitalism sucks.
Something I think people don't realize about those old Mercedes is how expensive they were new. A lower trim W123 in 1985 started at $35k in the US which is about $95k in 2022. The maintenance should have occurred 2-3x as often. You get what you pay for and most people aren't paying $95k for a slow, bare bones car unless it's a 70 series Toyota Landcruiser with some upgrades or a military truck and both of those are reliable and fairly easy to service.
The rot set in with the W220 S-Class. They dazzle you with so much amazing tech in the hopes you won't notice that everything feels that little bit more flimsy.
That's why I only drive pickup trucks even modern ones cuz atleast the planned obsolescence is a bit longer cuz they are built tougher to be a work horse and can expect to drive longer miles for expected hauling. Can't say the same about sedans and SUVs but that is where Toyota steps in.
@@ben501st I own two lancia, Kappa and Thema, Thema was 91,000$ in 1993 and Kappa was 93,000$ in 1998. For that time, both were full luxury, with two zoned automatic airconditioners, electric leather Poltrona Frau seats , electric windows, child lock for rear doors, electric mirrors with 3 electric motors and mirror heaters, smart suspension, excellent turning, FWD, ASR, ABS, electric headlight adjusting, and all of that back then was very expensive. Those cars still run, and everything inside and around engine is made of steel or high quality aluminum alloys. Clutch set was replaced on kappa after 340,000km.
Excellent video - I agree with all of this. Not only are modern cars now made from cheap unsuitable materials like the Mini's thermostat housing but the proliferation of electronics in them is also a blatant form of inbuilt obsolescence. I have heard of countless instances where car electronics have failed suddenly and inexplicably and no one seems to be able to fix them - especially the dealers who just don't seem to be trained to cope. So many cars with perfect bodies, mechanics and interiors then go to the scrap yard. As you say, it's no good trying to claim that they are then sustainably recycled; it still takes a huge amount of energy to re-use materials, especially metals, so the most environmentally sound solution is to keep existing cars going as long as possible. Not something the manufacturers want to hear of course. They should be changing their business models to restore and update existing cars rather than build new ones. I believe Renault is beginning to think this way. However, you are so right about the silly snobbery about having a new(er) car - remember the nonsense in the UK over the annual change in year letter on the number plate?
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! :
When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more!
When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an id iot who dont understand !
As a BMW owner, I can confirm the problems with plastic cooling systems. Seeing a puddle under my car is normal for me and I'm not even exaggerating
Man, I can't believe they put plastic crap on such key parts. A premium brand like BMW going cheap on a thermostat housing or cooling parts, what the fuck.
@@akafede4351 and they're still doing it today
@@madjoemak As a BMW owner, my 15 year old E90 330XD with 310 000km's does not piss itself with either either oil or coolant.
I understand that there are legitimate complaints to be made about BMW's excessive use of plastic and rubber for engine parts... But... You don't brag about your car pissing coolant everywhere you go. Coolant tastes sweet and animals will drink it. AFAIK OEM coolant for BMW's is ethylene glycol based. And it will happen regardless what car you have. I've seen Audi's also do it after the gaskets age and need replacement. Time and thermal cycling are not kind masters and no seal will last forever.
Diagnose where the leak is and fix it. In my case, on the M57, I know two parts will fail for sure - the thermostat return pipe gasket from the EGR cooler (it's both a plastic ring and a o-ring seal) and a plastic connector from the engine block for coolant return hose back to the reservoir.
@@D3humaniz3d I recently replaced my entire cooling system because it kept breaking and now it's been fine for the past few thousand kilometres. However now it's failed inspection because of rust. Fml
Lol happened to me once
Cars peaked in the 90s. Tech was fairly advanced, but regulations where not insurmountable and people bought to repair instead of replace.
My Audi 80 agrees
Emissions regulations are designed to crush people's access to personal transport that is independant of the main grid
My 96 Polo Classic that i use every day agrees, and for 10 years the only thing i put in it is gasoline=))
@@illegalopinions4082
They want everyone living in cities and using public transit. How dare some of us living away from BLM, mask mandates, and terrorist attacks.
Yes i still daily drive my 98 pontiac firebird and people ask what year is it and they don't believe it. Cause it looks better than most modern cars
“Electric cars will do nothing for sustainabilty.” Few people seem to understand this and I'm glad you pointed it out. Apart from your ability to explain engineering concepts very well, you are also spot on with your observation about societal, political and enviromental issues. I really like your work. Keep it coming!
They are 50 per cent heavier so require 50 per cent more energy to move, so depending on how the electricity that charges them is produced ,they actually can be worse for the environment
@@irish-thinker4429 Not so, an electric motor is generally 90+% efficient Vs ICE at a max of around 35%. EVs are potentially way more easily repairable than ICE. Tesla,s 4680 cells and BYD's blade cells can last potentially for a car's life (Even then they're replaceable). Heck even the early Nissan Leafs can still have 90%+ battery capacity now and that's after 10+ years.
@@daviddunmore8415 yeah but you look like a gay driving any of them 🤣
@@daviddunmore8415 ev uses electric power from the typical fossil fuel power plants. Its just changing co2 load from vehicles to powerstations. Its not going to change anything.
@@bouzouSG Actually it changes quite a lot. You no longer have to extract crude oil, refine it and ship it halfway round the world, then offload it into tankers and transport it (Burning oil all the while and polluting the air) just to burn it in cars which are no more than around 35% efficient. Even charging your 90+% efficient EV with 'dirty' electricity will have a much lower environmental (CO2 and NOx) footprint than continuing to burn petrol and diesel to move your vehicles around. Anyway with the rapid growth in Solar PV and wind, plus tidal/wave and (eventually) Thorium modular nuclear generation the case for oil will be over (Even if it's not quite there yet).
maintaining and keeping your old car is more enviromentally friendly than buying a new one.
Yeah exactly
Tell this to the Tesla owners
Tell this to any new car owner.
Very put.
It’s not true. Read more.
Old cars are more simple. Give me a socket set and a late 80’s Mercedes and it’ll outlive my great-great-great grandchildren
unfortunatly old cars have a problem called rust, unless you are in very specific regions. Also older cars, although simple, are kinda divas that require very regular maintenance to stay reliable.
Late 90ies early 2000 is the sweat spot: though enough to have simplified maintenance, still old school electronics, extensive use of galvanised steel.
My 66 Chevy looks better than my dad’s 95 F150. It does require more maintenance. But hell even an engine swap can be done in an afternoon for 300 dollars.
@@tinatpasselepoivre Actually, cars only have problem with rust in very specific locations. If you don't use salt and chemicals to melt snow, or live right next to an ocean, rust is not a problem.
@@gizzyguzzi sorry to disagree. Some (most) old cars have by design water & crud accumalation spots were water will enevitably pool and make rust appear no matter the conditions. They also suffer from poor rust protection (no galvanizing,...)
W124 drainage under the battery and rear rolling gear mounts
2cv rear bump stop mount, pedal box, wind shield emplacement
Traction avant from chassis arm (the so called '' ham '')
Old school Mini in general
Old school defe defender also
Ect, ect...
Unless you litteraly never drive under rain or in a region were rain is rare
@@gizzyguzzi on the 2cv, Traction and mini exemples those are un-maintable aera unfortunately.
They are not the only one...
And good for you rust is a a btich
It's not about what breaks first. It's about what obstacles they put in fixing it.
Right. A cracked plastic intake manifold is less of a problem if it's not combined with two other components that are sealed shut in it.
@@soulextracter but more than that, everything made today is integrated with computers that require a copyrighted piece of company software to reactivate which requires 200$ just for the privilege of having them gaze at the car you reassembled yourself.
If I do not have immediate access to head bulbs I choose another car thank you. Even changing wiper motor can be a hassle, if it's over 30 min job time to change cars again to one that one can actually do diy fixes..
Car makers have been at it for years, look carefully at the bolts etc in your car. A lot of them will be torx or other silliness which makes working on things that extra bit harder.
@@Negativvv My GM Opel has some kind of reverse torx bolts, bigger sizes do fit to ordinary millimetre size sockets but the smaller ones do not. If I buy another Opel it's gonna be pre 1997 again lol..
My 2001 LeSabre has 333,000 miles on it and i don't plan on getting rid of her, she's one of the most reliable cars I've ever owned and I've only ever owned American vehicles in my 40 plus years of driving.
Man, I hope my 07 Ford mustang can last that long but I doubt it, lol. It's at 166400ish miles with 3 previous owners. I only had it since late May this year and I already love the damn thing to death compared to my fragile ass Impala that left me stranded more times than I could count. 😂
Government initiatives to remove "old clunkers" from the road on the basis of "efficiency" always piss me off. The energy costs of forming and machining the complex hunk of metal never seems to enter the equation at all. It would be great to be able to compare the amount of CO2 produced during the construction of a car, versus the amount that the car itself would produce during its lifetime.
Check out the Engineering Explained video on this, he actually does the math. Long story short is that if you do an average American commute the total emissions savings are definitely worth it switching to a new EV. If you aren't doing a lot of miles it isn't.
That's one of the stupidest things governments did. I Still can't believe that Germany gave people money to have their old cars crushed and have them buy new cars. WTF was that?
@@wiegraf9009 Americans already own multiple vehicles so getting a small and affordable EV with 100 mile range or so for daily commutes would definitely be possible.
@@imnotusingmyrealname4566 Depends on the household but yes definitely possible for your typical suburban family!
@@wiegraf9009 But EVs currently in America don't make any economical sense, even with these insane gas prices. Corolla Hybrid AWD is just unbeatable as a commuter.
If anyone starts a service where 3d printed metal parts can replace all the plastic crap in the engine, he'll make a killing.
It's a great idea, but it will be illegal to modify cars before 3D printed metal becomes cost effective.
There is currently an effort underway to create an industry like this to make 3D printed metal and plastic parts for older and antique vehicles.
@@tobyvision they can't police a personal car to that extent. Often aftermarket replacement parts are sub-standard to be cheap, this would be a great idea.
@@jmbpinto73 Just wait. They are already doing it with a few of the critical components in cars, and at large in farm machines. More and more car components will be internet of things networked and age locked. This will be backed by safety legislation mandated by the extreme reliability requirements for self-driving car networks.
@@jmbpinto73 yes they can...look at diesel emissions and pickups
"plastic valve covers, plastic intake manifolds, plastic thermostat housings" my poor little M54 would be very offended if it were running
LMAO
Look another twit that thinks "plastic = weak" pro-tip it's not and it's not even more durable in many cases if for no other reason then being almost impervious to corrosion in most cases. People go "OMFG it's PLASTIC" totally ignoring that "plastic" covers such a wide range of products with such vastly different material properties that the term is so vague as to be meaningless.
This also amuses me because the people that spout it are often irrational and inconsistent in how it's applied. Since anything besides metal is apparently super bad shouldn't you guys also hate like rubber hoses for example? If metal is so damn great shouldn't you want EVERY line carrying fluid in a car to be metal hydraulic fittings?
you forgot to mention a plastic oil pans, plastic belt rollers and gears,
😂👍
Whenever someone says M54, I have the urge to run to the nearest shop to buy some oil for top up.
Yes, absolutely car manufacturers are making the cars so that they will break after guarantee finishes. I was visiting Mercedes Benz factory in Germany, Bremen it was part of my university partnership program, and the Representative of Mercedes who was giving us the tour told us himself that they almost bankrupted due to the cars not breaking down so they had to reduce the quality of production for everything except S class (I don't remember maybe E as well) and after the recovery period the main change they made is the testing process from testing parts to last at least 5 years to testing so that they will breake after 5 years. So yeah that's why you should avoid cars which are 4-6 years old because it is the highest risk period.
The thing that makes manufacturers evil is how they design and control 3rd party production of the plastic assemblies in a way that prevents most of the parts from being bought from any other vendor. Then when they stop supporting said product nobody else can either. This is what right to repair bills aims to correct.
Interesting
New world order
Plastic parts could be made to last, with high quality plastic, or cheap aluminum would live 5x longer than that plastic thermostat.
@@uroskostic8570 I am not sure if plastic can even be made to last long term (5-15 years or 120-150,000+ miles) in an engine bay for a critical engine part. Abs, which is the hard plastic commonly used in the engine bay parts, melts at about 400°F (~200°C) and softens at about 105°C or 221°F. It can get up to about 500°F in some spots of the engine bay with the hood closed. Like next to the exhaust manifold or a turbo for example. The average overall engine operates at just below 200°F or ~100°C. So best case, you are running the plastic part right next to the point where it begins to soften and lose structural integrity all the time. It would be analogous to expecting a sealing part like the intake manifold or the engine block to not warp and maintain its seals while repeatedly heat cycling to just below red hot during operation. That is not even taking into account the fact that plastic gets brittle as it ages, and sunlight (uv light specifically) slowly breaks down plastics. That's why all the little plastic bits on a 10+ year old car break off even when you try to undue them properly and why the plastic dashes on older cars are commonly cracked.
@@joshnabours9102 i agree. thats why i said even cheap recycled aluminum is better than best plastic. and i think casting of aluminum is cheap
If they could,they just gonna make pistons out of plastic too.
Ford did so, in a research project engine, in the '80's or so. It ran, and IIRC, no one had ever heard of carbon fiber at the time, either.
The best piston material is ceramic. It can stand extreme temperatures, is incredibly hard and doesn’t expand.
That’s gonna last 2 minutes maybe
@@jimgordon3206 but i dout it and one good bang from bad settings or poor quality fuel ⛽️/leaks or antilag would crack the carbon or tungsten ceramic parts from the shock waves and heat spike. 🤷♂️ maybe im wrong but probably not as i looked in to doing 💻 stepper motor controled twin-cam-perhead and geared rotary sleeve valves mostly so i didn't need to hone it 👌 V-twin/X-4 test engine ( 4.5inx5in stroke and didn't finish it 😒 ) ( it was going to be a experience and experimenting for a X20 liquid cooled engine ( a Allison X4520 and liberty 24 / German/uk knockoff/hot rod ) and still would like to build it but courant life situation isn't allowing it to happen and have a use for it as i was go to use it in a full size 🇺🇸 truck ) in 2009 as a 20's something year old
and if it did work im game for a set for a 440/hemi 108mm/4.25 piston's 13:1 aka max dome mopar or at least some people with a v8 might be interest in a set or 2
@@richardprice5978
I’m sure the nay sayers said similar things about aluminum pistons when the norm was steel or cast iron.
I love how much you try to stick to science and facts, rather than to please the people that watch the videos, that is how information should be presented and I'm happy that I can find that here, even if I don't particularly like what I have to hear at times. Keep up the good work, UA-cam and social media needs more of this.
I´m very sorry, but, the numbers tell a different story. ua-cam.com/video/6RhtiPefVzM/v-deo.html
@@Skyliner04s In the video he mentioned the 10 year lifespan of Lion batteries under average driving conditions. A reliable ICE vehicle can easily go 3 to 4 times that lifespan. We have the technology right now to build ICE vehicles that could last that long, we don't have the technology for EV to do that yet. Of course this would require everyone to change their mindset about vehicles, and needing a new one every couple years, either that or massive regulation.
@@Skyliner04s First off, I must say, that comment was a bit lame; two lines where one of them is a link to another video. And you don't actually state anything concrete in your other line. It would be alright if that other video was on the same exact topic as this one, but it isn't.
Matter of fact, the "different story" covered in that other video (incidentally on a very good channel I'm subscribed to as well) addresses, at best, only a PART of what is covered in this one, and a secondary part at that. The current video is focused on alleged superior reliability of cars produced in another time Vs alleged "planned obsolescence" of currently produced automobiles (regardless of their power source).
The only part where the two videos are related to each other is on the subject of battery electric vehicles impact on the environment (in a broad sense). The video from Engineering Explained addresses the environmental impact of production and use of BEVs vs ICE vehicles, and barely touches the end of life (or post end of life) of said vehicles. And this, the end of life of BEVs is exactly (pretty much) the only thing the current video addresses regarding the environmental impact of BEVs - it also does so, exactly to emphasize that governments are NOT considering the end of life of BEVs, and why they should.
On the end of life of BEVs, Engineering Explained made only one passing point: that "end of life emissions, relative to both electric and gasoline-powered vehicles, is relatively low, very low in comparison, to usage and production, so we're not going to be looking at end of life emmisions in this video". So, there is basically one line on that other video that relates to a secondary point on this video.
Now, on this video, it is mentioned that only 5% of vehicle batteries are currently being recycled. What is done to the other 95%? What emissions are produced by presumably just dumping those batteries somewhere? Were those accounted for in the Yale study mentioned in Engineering Explained's video, or just the recycling?... Also, what are, other than emissions, the environmental impacts of dumping said used batteries wherever they may be being dumped?
This sounds a bit to me like the environmental problem of Plastics. It's an issued debated on other circles, but that never seems to be approached on the automotive industry. Plastics are, first off, produced from the same raw material as carbon fuels. And the long term inability to recycle so much of them are really very loooooooooong. And the politics (and economics) invovled in it are, well, frightening. And yet, they seem to hardly ever be considered on current regulations on vehicles.
TL,DR: All in all, this current video addresses a current question related to car manufacture, car buying and car maintenance, in a very clear and reasonable manner. The video you suggested hardly touches on the same subjects as this one, and furthermore does not present any evidence that "the numbers tell a different story" (than the one presented on the video or on the OP's comment), as you claim.
explain to the public why the part at 13:00 is complete bullshit and a bald statement, please....
@@jeanackle First of all: I didn´t intend to offend anyone.
Oh boy, what can of worms did I open here?
In your original comment you stated D4A was sticking to science and fact. I guess that kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
He does not have one single source linked. Engeneering Explained does. Where does the 5% figure come from? nobody knows.
A new battery will be expensive. A new ICE for your 90s sport car will be expensive, too.
The Covid19 outbreak example as well. How much is dramatically reduced traffic? How much air pollution is not that much at all.
The mobile phone market as well: a few numbers, no source.
I could be persuated to say 80s and 90s cars have fewer points of failure and engines that, if maintained properly,
last a very long time. At the same time: put a MkIV Supra head to a MkIV Supra. Stock at that. Which one has more power, more comfort, more safety, better fuel economy?
All these things come at a price. And in addition: nobody is keeping you from maintaining a new car like a 90s car. If there is knowledge of a weakpoint of a new car, most likely there´s an aftermarket solution for that.
I like my japanese sportscar as well as the next guy. I love my GT86 screaming at me at 7500rpm!
But Engeneering Explained shows that an EV would be better for the environment in most cases. With numbers and sources. This is science.
I think people more so tend to replace their cars early first because their needs change but then secondly because they expect it to develop some catastrophic problem and an expensive repair bill. Phone manufacturers actually do actively sabotage user's older model phones by designing parts that can't be replaced (like the battery in your phone), adding software updates that intentionally slow your phone down, and then fighting 3rd party repair and "right-to-repair" laws.
I've owned about 15 cars and I can confirm, the newer the car the more problems you have, the costlier the parts, the more time consuming the replacing process. I ended up with a small 1998 BMW as a daily driver and a 1962 Cadillac for the weekend and now I'm happy.
Any Car newer than 2010 is not affordable to run unless it has a Warranty, the cost of Repair is more than the value of the car!
Well done
94 BMW here. Fantastic cars with some very basic mods. When set up correctly it drives miles better then anything from BMW now. New BMW'S feel like old Honda civics. 🤢
@@herbienbrian2 exactly, my E34 just turned 29
New cars are engineered to be assembled once, as quickly as possible. They are not made to be fixed.
'Design for assembly' as Steve Munro calls it. The proliferation of plastic parts has come about cos it's cheaper than metal.
@@strangelove9608 Mk. 5 Fiestas were like that cos they stacked the airbox on top of the engine like a cover. They were an inline 4 engine so you had to do this for all the plugs.
Indeed, how did we get to the ridiculous stage where you have to remove the front bumper to change a headlight bulb?
@@woofgbruk5947 We are a joke to them..
I own a diesel Mercedes from over three decades ago. They were built to last during that era. Reliable. No unnecessary tech. No black-box spying on you. No clumsy infotainment. Smog Exempt.
These are far better cars than today’s trash
Yeh but they still rusted , the main killer of most cars
Until you crash...diesels are also notoriously hard engines to kill if serviced every once in a blue moon.
@@LOTPOR0402 Not more than modern cars. Seen plenty of modern VW's and Audi's full of rust on the panels just behind the front wheels
@@LOTPOR0402 actually if you get a good body with a reliable engine the 90s cars are the best probably. I'm telling that of my own experience: I owned rusty Passat B4 1,8 with a very reliable engine (it was driving great even with very low oil pressure after 400000km) and now I own B4 VR6 with a few surface rust spots but a bit overengineered engine (nothing critical fails but still it fails sometimes), so it's very possible to find such a car from 90 which would be in a good shape and still reliable even in my country where snow-melting chemicals are being spayed onto the road for around 4-5 months in a year. The question is that you probably gonna have to service it yourself as not many people know how to do it properly nowadays; features in these cars and most importantly safety are questionable also but a lot of people including me are ok with that I guess.
@@LOTPOR0402 if you don't take care of it it's your own fault
let's also consider how this trend of ''putting more stuff but that is less reliable to maintain the cost low'' is probably affecting the technological research for future innovative solutions: I think no cars manufacturers will have interest in investing in something that would ultimately make the product less complex and more efficient (also more expensive), but they'll rather direct the money onto re-creating what is already available, they'll push the old design to the limits, just to stay cost effective and within emission requirements, while also sacrifying durability, which, as you explained, is a benefit for them, pushing you to buy the new parts and new cars more often
I wonder how much survivorship bias also plays a role. I imagine most old cars that broke down all the time had their over the hill moment a long while ago and got scrapped 'cause it cost too much to drive. And cheep bad cars that broke down all the time where less likely to become cherished classics that got kept even when it wasn't economical anymore.
Surely it does. That's a large part of the reason older notoriously unreliable cars from Mercedes Benz, BMW, Cadillac, etc are still reasonably common compared to older cars from Chevy, Dodge, Ford, Hyundai, etc. Not because they are more reliable, but because their owners tend to care about them more since they cost more and are seen as more valuable, so they tend to be preserved instead of scrapped and replaced. Where I live I see way more late 90's-mid 2000's BMWs and Cadillacs than Hondas or Toyotas from that era. Do you think that's because BMW and Cadillac sold more cars or because they are inherently more reliable? No way.
@@averyalexander2303 funny story... In Canada, there are almost zero pre-1985 Japanese cars, because while American cars can handle the cold very well, the Japanese cars have rusted to death. So surprisingly, American cars last longer in this country
People talk a lot about survivorship bias when people say things from the cold war era lasted longer but a lot of people forget that many things back then were supposed to be more easily repaired rather than thrown away so it's not even necessarily that the original product with all it's original parts lasting but just the fact that every time it broke it was easier to replace a part rather than the entire unit.
@@P7777-u7r I agree. For this reason, old cars are often much cheaper to fix as well. One of many examples of how newer cars are designed to be disposible is filters. Back in the 90's, nearly every car sold had easily replaceable fuel filters. Nowadays, the fuel filter is part of the fuel pump assembly in the gas tank and often can't even be purchased from the dealer seperately and is a pain to change. These days, transmission fluid isn't even designed to be easily checked let alone changed. And don't even get me started on those POS plastic headlights. As far as we've come, it can't be denied that in a lot of ways, modern cars aren't built to last or be repairable like older cars were.
@@kimjongoof5000 Supposedly early Japanese cars had problems with shipping across the salty ocean with incomplete paint coverage. They fare better now that they're mostly assembled in the US and have better paint. In any case, in Wisconsin in the 90s and early 00s, the only old cars I saw with body panels not rusting were Saturns that used plastic.
Our 1972 model Volvo 145 station wagon - and its engine, drove well for more than 496 000 kilometers - we had it from 1980-1987. It worked flawlessly and we sold it on to a guy who drove it close to an additional 100 000 kilometers or more.
Two new Saabs in the family. A 900 from 1985. Clocked up 620.000 km with no problems from the engine and gearbox,... and a 9000 which clocked up 670.000,........ Salty roads in Denmark got it uneconomical in the end. To weld them.
I have a (very) old paperback from the early fifties that talks about planned obsolescence, and it's role in generating repeat sales. It was very straightforward that the target lifespan for an American automobile, was 100,000 miles. In the sixties & seventies people were so fed up with cars that were intended to be junk from their manufacturing. That's when foreign auto manufacturers started shipping to the U. S., people dumped the "Big Three" and bought foreign. The big three had to start building better cars to compete, or sooner or later they would go out of business.
Competition is a beautiful thing.
Chinas auto industry will do/is doing the same thing as japan did with its introduction to the west in the 70s
That's interesting: I have many publications and consumer guides from the fifties, all of which mention planned obsolescence, this of course being solely regarding technological features, specifications and aesthetics. Planned obsolescence of mechanical durability is of course, a complete myth. Unplanned appeared in the fifties of course due to the atrocious quality of US built cars from the mid fifties onwards, where the manufacturers just threw the cars together to get them out the door.
Ironic: warranty in the mid fifties was 30 days, now its 7 years...
Cars could last much longer than that. It was rust and lack of maintenance that killed them.
@@mt-me5ug lol. i think they will have to match the reliability of european, japanese, american and korean cars before they can better them.
@@chir0pter so they only need to match Korean and Japanese, because German and American haven’t been reliable for 30 years.
My 25 year old Mazda MX5 or Miata in the US, has never let me down in the twelve years I've owned it.
“Endless money pits!” Scotty Kilmer.
Hell yeah!
Hell No!!!
Scotty's cars all look like shit though
AGREED, 100%
@@Anthonybrother Which is why he's a multimillionaire and you're not 🤣
Planned obsolescence in the automotive industry is well documented even as far back as the 1920's. Gat really drove it home as the industry standard was the Great Depression and massive boom of post WWII.
An additional side of that is maintenance. A part designed to be maintained can generally last longer because it can be, well, maintained. The risk is lack of proper maintenance can result in early failure. Thus, manufacturers go the non user serviceable route for better predictability on lifespan. Plus the added bonus that most people don't want to do anything to their cars other than drive it.
Which makes it really interesting for me using an unmodified 90 year old car as my primary transportation, heh.
Great depression opened the eyes of manufacturers to the fact that costumers didn't need their cars to be built like tanks. They need them only to last their ownership time. Also so called "planned obsolescence" started with the invention of model years - manufacturer added some minor features, tweaked the looks, and suddenly a perfectly good car started to look dated. So people wanted to buy a new one. Since original owners kept their cars for less time there was no need to keep them super solid.
On the other hand even the newest super "unreliable" cars are miles ahead of those from the 70's not even to mention 20s. In fact they're only less reliable than 90s and early 2000s cars. Things are more or less back to normal.
Well said😺
Estimated by The Car Care Nut that only 20% of ppl do regular service maintenance. I get it now; why build a car that lasts longer when most ppl don't take care of them anyway.
If you do not make your car last your entire lifetime.
Or at least half your life.
Is so very wasteful.
As …. We should be considered lucky to get one car.
Ppl believe their car is worthless from hail dents.
3rd world country person would love their machine despite dents.
That alone shows the horrible mental problems us ‘modern ppl’ are
@@fastinradfordable people are suckers for image first; it's New so it has to be good! We are wired to respond to appearance and language. Now I don't respond to either because 99% of the time it isn't a life or death situation---it's drama.
I saw a video titled "how much sawdust can you put in a cookie before you notice" that kinda sums up planned obsolescence. Just how far can you push things before people start to notice. I get that people want to buy the best product and the one that will last the longest etc. but the problem comes when people don't know they are being ripped off. I think companies just need to be honest about expected lifespans of parts. Also what you mentioned in the video, people need to stop consuming so much like a new phone every year, I doubt it will bode well for the future
I think the answer to: "how much sawdust can you put in a cookie before you notice?" - is : U can push things until they start falling apart under warranty so fast and so much that consumer is annoyed by dealer visits even if it is under warranty, because these visits are time consuming and inconvenient.
Yeah, reliability reports always come with time lag. Taking stuff like hard drives for example - there are reports of drive reliability on the web, but all they tell you is that Model A made by company B C years ago was really reliable and model D made by company E at the same time was crap.
So? Maybe company E managed to fix whatever problem that caused their drives to fail too soon or maybe company B screwed something up?
This applies to everything else as well. I at least try to not expect the thing I buy to last very long, so I would rather buy something that I can easily repair. Even if the manufacturer saved 1 cent by using low quality capacitors, as long as I can replace them easily when they fail it's good enough for me.
Interesting, what the hell does that have to do with built in obsolescence, does the sawdust make the cookie go stale sooner?
@@andyxox4168 no, it holds it together and is cheaper than flower. Read for “cellulose” in ingredients. That’s saw dust. I don’t really eat cookies so haven’t looked, but it’s definitely an ingredient of shredded cheese.
On the other hand, Scotty Kilmer yells from the rooftops how BMWs and Audis aren't made to last, yet people buy them anyway. Indeed, a lot of those buyers (doctors, lawyers etc, non-car-people) think BMWs and Audis are the most reliable, best made cars -- they think they are safer, stronger etc.
The sweet spot is about 1995 to 2010. They got the good stuff right like fuel injection, ABS, traction control, airbags, rust is a non-issue almost, a 5 or 6 speed automatic transmission, but didn’t have touch screens and no satellite tracking you.
You lost me at auto transmission
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?
Exactly this. People who believe just because it's plastic that it's worse quality (or less suitable for purpose) than a metal part know nothing about material science (which would be 99.99% of people).
@@jamesmay1322 You're not wrong at all. I hate plastic more than most people do but even I have to acknowledge that in some cases its not really a big deal. That being said I've worked on volkswagens where pretty much everything (even the fucking oil filter cartridge and the housing) is made of crappy thermoplastic and it cracks if you look at it wrong. Really pisses me off it could've just been cast aluminum.
@@jamesmay1322 cool story bro, now go enjoy your cracked plastic intake manifold 😂
I like plastic for certain applications too. It's a relatively durable material. Ductile, doesn't corrode, and lightweight. As long as it doesn't experience extreme temperatures, friction, or intense sun exposure, it's great.
@@jamesmay1322 They know that it fails prematurely compared to the metal part. That is enough to tell that it is worse quality. You don't need a medical science degree to tell that Dr. Fauci is a scumbag, either. 🤔
My 30 year old 7 series: works just fine
Friend's 5 year old 7 series: already had an engine change and something craps up every 3 months.
I agree, I'm driving a '92 MB W124 230E: reliable, comfortable, low running costs... I don't need more.
No wonder Scotty, on his channels says that BMW now stands for "big money waster"
@@pattyeverett2826 no, Bring More Wallet. 😊
I would not brag about a BMW be it old or new, they have always been overrated cars, specially in regards to reliability. rather have a 70´s/80´s Mercedes than any BMW.
@@MehdiS-music they must be nice for the first owner though (Motorplan etc.). I must confess, I quite liked my '87 316i, but then I sold it at 118k kms in '92. I would hate to see what it would look like now, it was already rusting at the top of the rear doors (condensation) back then, despite being in a warm, dry garage.
I think another point is the discrepancy between what a new car buyer wants and what a used car buyer wants. All a new car buyer cares about is that it will last for the 5 years they plan to keep it and has a good resale value. Those of us who are perfectly happy to drive an older and reliable car are so far disconnected from the manufacturer and the original buyer that it doesn't really influence engineering or marketing decisions.
We are connected through perceived resale value and brand image. It has lots of inertia though.
I commissioned a research project on this in the past. Literally EVERY single manufacturer now uses 3D-injection-molded plastic components for auxiliary parts such as water pumps, thermostat housings, valve covers, etc. Everything that is not the engine or transmission. Subaru, Honda, BMW, Toyota, EVERYONE. The best thing you can do is accept it and plan to refresh these plastic bits at 80k - 100k miles. These companies are not going back to metal components. The days of driving your car 200,000 miles with only oil changes is over.
it comes down to cost-savings, emissions (very big deal), and regulatory restrictions (very big deal). Planned obsolescence isn't completely the only explanation.
It could also have something to do with manufacturing scale.
@@xavier1964 That's a variable but economics always ends up being the primary motivator, with environmental regulations being the second. Those Corporations who meet regulations are able to do business for cheaper in the markets they operate in.
I dont even think it comes from emissions targets. Even if emission standards were what they were in the 50s, then companies would still make terrible cars because they're still cheaper. And the car market today is way more consolidated than it was in the 1950s, further encouraging companies to not compete on quality.
I've got a 1999 Toyota Celica ST202, and a Honda Civic LS 1998 . I have so much confidence in their reliability .
I've had my 2001 Accord for 14 years. I'm keeping it 😉
It’s hard to beat a shitty old Honda. Even though I’m hardcore American muscle, I respect the older civics.
Oh Yes, Toyota's the way to go these days. I had the old square shape Mercedes 7 seater estate for years, which was amazingly reliable and well built, but my current Celica, which is almost 20 years old now, has thoroughly eclipsed that. As long as you change the oil regularly and observe a sensible service regime, they can almost last forever.
The ultimate recycling recipe: when you tired of your car or your phone - sell it. Then a person who couldn't buy new would use it. Then another one and another one. I'm a 13th owner of Moskvich Svyatogor (2L, 115 hp, direct injection) and it still runs good and only needs a floor repair. Which I almost done. Things doesn't need to be recycled until they obsolete.
@SlavHammer47 yes. I was born in USSR and I can attest YOU HAVE TO FIX SOVIET CAR DIRECTLY FROM ASSEMBLY LINE. Stop saying things that are not true
@@chartedtravel he wasn't saying that they were good from the getgo, he said that if they were cared for they lasted almost forever...
@@juhasznagyjozsef every car if cared for can last forever
@@shirool1142 Even when the ECU fails and there's none available or it can't be programmed?
@@PJBonoVox then replace the ecu?
Before: "Simplify and add lightness."
Now: Bloat it with useless gimmicks that will break in 5 years time.
Sportscar of 1990: 280 hp for 1200 kg
Sportscar of 2020: 600 hp for 2000 kg
Sportscar of 2050: literaly a semi-truck
Auto wipers, lane assist Auto headlights parking censor, Auto parking. If you need all that you should not be driving. Its just more stuff to break and make bad drivers.
@@progste That's pretty high for a sports car of the 90s, they got sup 250 for the most part
Useless to you but modern cas wouldn't have all of these features if no one used them.
Colin Chapman
Elon Musk
I just have to say, I've been watching quite a few videos from you and your analysis on engines as well as ethics like in this video are incredible. Very well analyzed, broken down, and explained.
As a mechanic for thirty odd years I would say today's cars are like a phone or a fridge or washing machine they are throw away goods with lots of built in obsolescence I drive an old van and it's basic so less to fail and being old it's fix able.
That won't work for most people. It works for you because you know how to take care of the old van. But the days when people were wrenching on their own cars are over. Unfortunately.
@@johnnyblue4799 very sad but true the dealers and manufacturers have tied people in to leasing so every three or five you walk in and drive out a new lease car so they have no reason to build quality anymore just to stack them high and sell and then they talk about the green issues.
@@paulyarlett1238 Very well said. The 'green' plagues is the gift that keeps on giving. The more we try to make the cars pollute less, the more complex they become and more prone to failure and less accessible for the average person to maintain. That is on top of the planned obsolescence. Switching to direct injection is the last thing in this direction. Not only the engines got more complex by adding high pressure fuel systems on them, but now you need to clean up the carbon deposits every 40-60k miles on the intakes. I changed the PCV system on my 2001 Volvo V70 with 300k km (187k miles). I have pictures of the intake valves. Sparkling clean.
And for the DIYers like me it becomes cost prohibitive to maintain even a 20 years old car. You need expensive equipment if you want to properly diagnose a car like that. Gone are the days when with a pack of feeler gauges and a timing light you could tune up a car...
And what bothers me the most is that the service data is not available unless you pay a subscription. To me is like they don't want you to service your own car.
I like breathing clean air. A lot. But I feel like we're pushing this too far. And the story with the Diesel engines is even worse.
@@johnnyblue4799 in Britain at the moment there is a plague of catalytic converter thief's and diesel particulate filters being stolen we had a customer at work he is a delivery driver stop out side a shop he was inside a few minutes when he came out and started his Mercedes sprinter it had been got at we quoted the repair costs at thousands they cut the down pipe then ripped out the wiring loom with all the NOX and Lambda Sensors and cut the pressure sensors to an owner driver this is the difference between a roast at Christmas or cornflakes.
Same with old laptops, they were actually made to be fixed, seems after 2014 ish they made them throwaway and unfixable as possible.
Before that you could easily disassemble, fix and upgrade whatever parts you liked. Companies convinced people that their laptops were slow because they were outdated, when in reality its from a faulty hardrive or old thermal paste.
For everyday use it is pretty hard to tell the difference between a laptop made in 2011 thats running as it should and one made in 2020, cpu's have become more energy efficient but not that much more powerful in laptops the last 10 years.
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.
Thank you for your support and your kind words. I sincerely appreciate it!
this video is some of the stupidest "invisible hand" + "you're actually at fault for manufacturers feeding you crap" + "vote with your wallet" bul|sht i've heard in at least a couple years
Why is your comment that colour
@@MR_stone69 he is main character we are side characters
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! :
When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more!
When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
#1 reason why 70s/80s/90s cars seem to last longer is their engines were larger at a smaller power output (compared to today). If you have two engines with identical HP and torque, the larger one will last longer as it is less stressed for the same effort.
Still those 2-stroke truck detroit diesel engines gave 500hp
@@metsasuomalainen3691 they were built to withstand a lot of abuse aha
And to that point, which would you rather have? A turbo 2.0 4-cyl pushing around an 4000 lb SUV? Or a 3+ liter n/a V6? Sure the turbo 2.0 4-cyl may even make a little more power or torque than the V6, but barring design flaws on the V6, the V6 will likely last longer.
It's also survivorship bias. There were shady companies cutting corners 40 years ago.
And those cars are no longer around.
So the only ones that are left are the tough reliable ones.
I guarantee you that in the 2060s people will be complaining that they don't make cars like they did in the 2020s.
Because all they will have left are the handful of cars that were built to last.
@@ieuanhunt552 you definitely have a point there. Combination of both factors. Although I do feel most companies now have optimized exactly how long they expect the customer to hold onto the car thus the major parts don't last as long (with aid of greater computer modeling).
Had the same problem with my Glow Worm Boiler - Diverted valve was made from Plastic instead of Brass - they fail quite often - That's why I switched to an Intergas boiler which does not need or have a diverter valve ! My car is a 28 year old Volvo 940 which, with good maintennance, will run for ever !
We are doomed...and will remain so, until that time when the majority stops watching reality shows and discover real life.
Very true the part about the cell phones was disgusting, the only time I replace mine is when it fails
Yup , so true
@@Davidsladky135 Last time my phone failed in 2003 Motorola, since than I don't buy Chinese/American phones and I keep them until I lost them or they just get old. Outdated.
Right now I'm using Galaxy Note9. No reason to get rid of it.
What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with shallow entertainment, it's the result of unchecked capitalism.
@@derp195 it is about wasting time with entertainment & planned obsolescence. Both are run by capitalism.
Entertainment is used to divert people's attention away from reality, from the facts & truths so more crap can be sold to the public.
Capitalists & all lying, thieving criminal governments.
I am 76 and still learning stuff. Thanks
Not many carriers are offering the "Fairphone" in their default lineups. Lots of people rely on in-store financing to buy, and are concerned about compatibility. Cell manufacturers like Samsung and Apple ABSOLUTELY make their phones hard to repair, and they work out deals with the carriers to keep competition to that model far away.
the real problem with Fairphone was that it used the technology from a few years back. I looked at it when it appeared, but its chipset, memory and storage made it obsolete right away. If you have ever used a mid-range Android phone after it was 2,5 years old, you know what it would feel like on a brand new Fairphone. Add to that that in theory, modular setup sounds awesome, but can you see it in front of you, that different camera manufacturers (like Leica or Zeiss) would create modular elements for such a nieche market? After all, you'd have ended up with thick, obsolete phone, that has no replacement parts to it despite of the manufacturer's promise and is also extremely inconvenient to use because of the slow system. The idea was great, but it was deemed an instant failure the moment it manifested the way it did.
@@peterkornis5377 there's also that the 3rd Fairphone lost the headphone port over some bullshit environmental reasons (really they wanted to sell their new unrepairable wireless headphones) right around the time the right to repair movement was getting popular
I've never even heard of a fair phone
Samsung phones except foldables are not that hard to actually fix, it just that there's no phones nowadays except fairphone with removable battery.
@@peterkornis5377and here's the part of why the whole thing with planned obsolescence works and corporation rule. The consumer, that is brainwashed by the marketing. "Obsolete" and "thick" - are his arguments against a cell phone that provides something that others don't, a fundamentally different angle. But hey, it's two millimeter thicker and has 16 RAM instead of 32 - so that's a no-no. Consumer doesn't want all that - it wants bigger digits because he has that idea planted by the corporate marketers: big digit = good. This guy wouldn't think that "thick" is a deal breaker in a million years if not for the fashion trend set by major manufacturers.
When lockdown kicked in the air quality in the UK improved massively. A number of towns and cities had air fit for humans to breathe for the first time in many years. Even climate/EV sceptics were talking about how much better the air smelled.
The reason vehicles began to achieve high mileage starting in the 80s was fuel injection. The cylinders no longer got washed down on every cold start or during heavy acceleration.
if you washing out cylinders on cold start and hard acceleration something is wrong.
High mileage started when PCV valves were installed on engines. Positive Crankcase Ventilation was a revolution in oil longevity.
@@joels7605 Then some bright spark thought up EGR valves and were right back where we started.
@@crazeguy26 exactly... carburetors rarely stayed in tune, and even when they were as good as they could be, they weren't anywhere near as precise as EFI systems. Also, Drivers want vehicles to perform the instant they are started, so manufacturers adjusted the carbs to add excess fuel to ensure the cylinder would fire when cold.
@@audvidgeek "manufacturers adjusted the carbs to add excess fuel to ensure the cylinder would fire when cold"
You mean automatic choke? Which turns off automatically once the engine reaches temperature
The end of '90 and the start of '00 are years of the best cars. Simple injection, no distributors, simple electronics.
CANbus can't be considered simple though
It's honestly pretty funny, because people in the 2000s also have complained that cars are getting more unreliable. Yet you still see tdi passats driving around with half a million km on them over here in europe
dosko have a Mercedes W124 as my daily, super easy to maintain and cheap to run. Lovely 😊
@@BobBenz55 Literal tank right there. No wonder tons of em are still used in Africa. Also loved the seats
I own two cars form that era, a 1998 XJ Cherokee and a 2005 GMC Yukon and I can’t disagree with you at all
We had a 5-digit odometer that rolled over 6 times in our old Plymouth Volare Station Wagon. Reason was it had a Chrysler Slant-6 engine which was designed as an aluminum block, but cast in Iron. The frame rusted while it was running fine. It was slow, heavy, didn't get good gas mileage, and the floor rusted out of it, but the drive train was bullet proof.
The slant six is an unstoppable (albeit slow) force of nature. I have one in my shed I may build eventually.
^This, despite Consumer Reports telling us, “Don’t buy one; they’re junk. Get a Toyota.”
This video is a game changer for me . Its absolutely amazing how the explanation goes, and i totally agree with the arguments, we, the consumers, are the cause for planned obsolescence
When you think for a Moment:
How much of the Cars that are build today are still on the Road in 30 years and the Cars from 30 years ago will be outliving the todays Cars
Essentially more in 30 years time then now cars being 30 years old. Look at the statistics. On top, many will keep they ICE cars… .
my car is a 25 year old opel astra if you are american you probably don't know kocsi-media.hu/5/opel-astra-f-sedan-1-4-gl-455076_226909_1xl.jpg like this one and still original paint with some rust and original engine with vey close to 300 000 km about 186 400 miles and i got it for like 600 bucks worth in our money :D
you could see that in the clip of the BMW recycling centre, was pretty disgusting to see E90's, F10's and i3's getting squashed and 'recycled' rather than refurbished and resold.
@@maszkalman3676 this Car Looks really good and i am from Germany i have a friend and His dad works as a salesman or Something and He had a BMW E39 with the 3liter turbo diesel and He bought the Car used when it was 3or4 years old with 40.000km now He has 560.000km on it and still works fine but i think it is mostly because the shortest routes He Drives are Like 400km.
Most old cars aren't on the road either. Any car will last with good preventive maintenance, but most people are not car enthusiasts or mechanics. Most are sometimes serviced when it's convenient to the owner and thrown away when major bill comes
I agree with almost everything you said. A couple counterpoints:
When you say that we as collective buyers determine the lifespan and sustainability designs that car companies target, I think you overlook the power of marketing and psychological tricks that manufacturers use to manipulate us. We are not purely rational beasts like economists suppose, so we aren’t solely to blame here (though we do have a fair amount of culpability!) second, your example of the fair phone is illustrative to a different point. Before this video I had never heard of fair phone! That’s the power of marketing at work. I would have been very interested in such a device if I knew about it. Thus the general public has a knowledge imbalance that gives larger manufacturers the upper hand.
That's were being an informed consumer comes in especially in the digital age. If someone really wants to get the best and most sustainable options for the things they buy it's literally just a Google search away. I know that would be time consuming but if it's important to you that's what you would do.
I think you also simplify things.
Yes, marketing is very important, but marketing is not global, like the same things are promoted allover the world, and in exactly the same manner. For instance, I'm European and I knew about fair phone. As the guy say, the subject is much too big and complicated, to be solved in a simple discussion or video.
New for 2022: Fins, the modern vehicle needs Fins!
never heard of fairphone before either, altho I dreamed for such thing for a very long time...(glad someone is making such amazing tech
or even if you're rational but have insufficient knowledge or wrong info the result is the same
Great thinking about sustainability. I got it too, lately. Figured out, we change things too much. So, I decided not to do it any more. Most proud on my Yamaha XJR 1300 18 years old, my Fiat 500 multijet 8 years old and my hifi amplifier Sony TA-F 808ES 30 years old, playing every day.
I had a car built in 1955. I had to disassemble it, put it back together and change all rubber parts. After that it did not fail even once for 25 years. All i did is changing oil. I stopped counting miles after odometer zeroed. My guess it was over 180000 when i finally sold the car in perfectly good condition.
The same car manufacturer model 1999 could not even survive 5 years. It got rust, oil splashing out of everywhere. Half of the car was replaced by warranty. Because they had to make cheap parts in order to keep the car price down.
No, they do not built them as good as before. Now you have to buy a 2020 Bugatti to get the Ford quality from 1950
Agreed
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".
Aka asking the status quo about disruption
Been saying that exact line for 25 years. Lowest environmental impact possible
To be honest they are not wrong, when the market will be full of electric, you could buy second hand electric car 😂.
There are merits for both technologies, you should examine thoroughly the environmental impact on fossil fuel extraction, transportation and use of existing power structures that are used for refining storage and distribution and recurring extraction for the same car, as apposed to extraction of Lithium, comparable manufacturing processes between the two cars and then other exotic material that make up a battery powered car, not to mention all of the electronics both cars use including toxic materials that go into making those nice shiny LCD's in those vehicles. Power generation and the supply of power is one of the most polluting and toxic of all human activity on the planet. I know which I would choose.
@@rasoul786 The people I'm referring to are an engineering student, a designer of car lubricants in his late 20s, and an engineer from Jaguar's Formula-E division. Congratulations tiger, you exposed the "status quo".
Planned obsolescence is not only about cars, it involves everything, every consumer product. However even if it was not planned there had to be a way to force the consumers to replace the product they consume after certain amount of time. Because in order for technological advances to take place there must be an incentive for manufacturer to improve the quality and efficiency, safety, and cost, etc. But I hate that we no longer able to fix something that is still good, except a small stupid part of it that needs fixing. Great program as always!
I went out and bought an old Ford Crown Vic with a Police package. Its 25 years old (Its a 1999 model) has 152,000 miles and it still runs like a sewing machine. Nearly everything is easy to fix and what handful of issues can occur have been well documented and figured out. Sure, its bad on gas mileage and tricky to park in a few situations because of its large size, but it's bought and paid for. Most folks at my job have a pricey car note payment that I don't, so 9-15 MPG around town isn't as bad once you take that into account. It's also roomy in both the cabin and rear trunk/boot and has decent ground clearance because the police versions were made to be able to drive over curbs during pursuits, so it can be taken down a bumpy dirt road without much worry. Above all else, it's FUN to drive. It's not even that fast, but it cruise's amazingly nice on the road. I don't need to risk other drivers or a speeding ticket to get joy from driving it. Paid $2,500 cash for it on facebook marketplace.
Ah the Vic. Fun fact, ALL the crown vics that folks think of when they think of those old beasts were made in 1 plant. the Talbotville plant, near St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada.
Yep. They were made in my "backyard."
I just answered several time to this bath.tard bloger under his answer to my first comment but he hides my answer every time! so read here again! :
When the companies make the car in such a way that after the end of the short warranty period it is practically destroyed and it cannot be repaired except by spending high costs and it does not last even after the repair, they practically force people to buy a new car. ! A person who wants to diversify can buy a new car and sell his previous car (which is healthy and can be maintained and used for tens of years without much cost) to someone else to use, while the new car generations after around five years become a moving waste and its maintenance costs are very high, it practically goes out of the cycle, and people are forced to pay the high cost and take loans and do overtime to fill the pockets of your dirty masters in the automotive industry and banking industry sooner and more!
When microsoft company offer a new windows and don't update the previous windows that I got used to, and do things that can no longer be used over time, they practically force me to buy the new operating system! There are many more examples, but fraudsters like you in answer especially want to show himself as an idiot who dont understand !
Your point on the mileage is spot on!!! People switch cars when they still have plenty of life left in them and then also want/complain for pretty good mileage forgetting the fact that they are paying the EMIs every month in addition to fuel. Its funny cause, paid off car that is still fun and good to drive is really economical no matter what the mileage is and also the "features" are a big gimmick. Like what really new do people want? More screens? Oh yeah i forgot they now have the ADAS so people can keep their eyes on the many touch screens and also pay a premium for all the tech. Humanity is moving towards stupidity year on year 😂
that fair trade phone was insightful. i did not even know it existed...
I did not either, I would much rather have that than the cheapest one from Wal-Mart. I feel like they screwed the pooch on marketing with the amount of people that are into customization
Yeah me too, I heard about the phoneblocks but it never came to be... I think if a big company did it a lot more people would like to buy it...
Bas Van Abel has an uphill battle. Modularity is a worthy fight.
Never heard of it either. That is one thing he should of mentioned. The power of marketing. Samsung vs a start up....who do you think has more money to throw around in that regard?
Problem is, at least in Germany, they are really expensive for an lower-middle class android phone. Phones half the price have betters specs, especially Huawei/Xiaomi Phones. They are just not cost effective, slow, bad screen etc...
First video watched of this channel because of YT's recommendation and I didn't expect to be an analysis so deep and anchored in the reality.
I've always worked in Automotive R&D and to me it feels like the industry has backed itself into a corner through regulation and their own marketing trends. Every 'mainstream' brand is so focused on chasing the exact same customer that they have to force them into buying a new car every couple of years, just to generate the kind of sales volume necessary to stay afloat.
Maybe for engineers that decision the chairman takes is bad but they have no other choice. If they let engineer build what they want, the company is going bust. Saab is the very example of this case, idealism can only get you so far in highly competitive market.
And it reflects in car styling, all chasing the same looks (specially SUV´s) and are plain ugly. Gone are the times when car designers had some pride and enthusiasm. But its the CEO/accountants that make the decision. Just look at that.... cdn.motor1.com/images/mgl/NpNNM/s1/2021-hyundai-santa-fe.jpg
We failed due to environmental and safety laws. Trying to sqeeze 1 more mpg while being safer has resulted in... no spare tires, auto stop start, 9 air bags, and yes plastic engine parts.
I own '81 W123 Merc and the first thing that broke after I bought it was thermostat housing. It is metal (aluminium I guess), but it corroded until one day there was hole.
The world's most over engeneerd car, wit the worst seats😁. I had one for a couple of years 230E, only thing to go wrong was the rotor.
@@mullerandre95 actually one of the main reasons to buy it was how comfortable it is for me. But others indeed sometimes complain that seats are too low, lol.
@@mullerandre95 The seats stopped me from buying one.
@@ThorneyedWT I don't have an arse and the 1cm of foam over hardboard makes it go numb very quickly😁
But that thing failed after 40 years (of improper maintenance I suppose).
I remember my Dad telling me how wonderful his new car was because it had a 7 year corrosion warranty.
* Turns out this was an ANTI-PERFORATION warranty.
* You had to PAY for an annual inspection at a MAIN DEALER.
* If you didn't PAY the MAIN DEALER for any work they identified every year then the warranty was void.
The car was a rot box, the warranty was a con.
Well. Thanks for the heads up! I will never buy that car....
Thats a knee slapper.
Was it a Kia?
@@henryokafor8512 Yep.
We nursed it to 15 years but it was well beyond economical repair. It was full of welds. In contrast my 21 year old Skoda still hasn't reached that level of body rot.
They did what they did so as to get a foothold in the market-simples!😁
Bought an 03 Volvo outright back in November and now it’s almost at 200,000 miles. Within that time I had to get a new Cat and now my heater core burst today but I still want to fix and keep it running forever if I can. It’s still really solid and I don’t want a car payment
This is why I love my 90s cars. I don't care what other people drive, I have had my Australian built 1995 Ford Falcon XR6 for 20 years and done 300,000km in that time. It has done 471,000km and still going strong.
I also recently bought a 1991 SC400 as a project car. After watching your video on the 1UZ FE I knew I wanted to play with one.
Thank you for all the amazing content
Australian Ford falcons are great..owned 2... excellent cars
I still have my 98 AU Falcon wagon since 2013
I already decided that I'll build my own car the way I want it. Cars used to be made for driving and now, like you said, there are so many additional parts, screens, buttons, all of this to make the trip more comfortable but it's not even useful most of the time.
When you’re driving a lot, then those comfort features are worth their weight in gold, let me tell you.
@@KAMI_24 I bought a car, not a piece of the vegas strip
@@slappp6163 maybe you’re either buying from the wrong brand or you should just buy an old car i guess…
I think I've heard that in the UK or Europe, it is typical for ppl to order their cars the way that they want it. In the US, that is usually not how it's done, and even pre-pandemic, ordering a-la carte could be a pain but it's definitely more expensive.
@@SayAhh I think you got it backwards. I recently purchased a made-to-order car in the US and it was less expensive than the same configuration but purchased from a dealer lot. The reason is that the dealer saves a ton of money if they do not have to keep the car on premises until a buyer is found -- they dont have to look after the car while in their possession, buy insurance or take a short-term loan to buy it from the mfr.
Thanks for bringing up the overall sustainability issue. It drives me mad to see the way governments obsess about running emissions while completely forgetting about the overall footprint from production to recycling---and waste!---and of course companies know it and that's where they cut corners.
I worked at a company where they made us save money on stationary, hot beverages and year-end parties, while all the executives and partners constantly flew around the world first class staying at 5-star hotels for in-person "strategic" internal meetings of one or two hours, even though all of our offices had top of the line video conferencing rooms, which no-one ever used even though they also cost a fortune to set up and maintain.
Also, while lecturing us on reducing our carbon footprint by saving on pens, paper and hot beverages, and by recycling our garbage (which meant multiplying the number of plastic garbage bins and bags by 4, never mind that), they remodeled the whole office, replaced all of the furniture, for more expensive, lower quality, less comfortable and less practical equipment, with less desk and storage space, when the previous furniture was totally fine, unanimously better overall, and could have lasted at least a decade longer without flinching or going out of style. All of this so that a certain manager, who was put in charge of Facilities because they had dissolved his previous department, could continue to justify their paycheck. And then just a year after the remodeling was finally over, they closed that office, fired all the non-executive and partner-level staff and merged the remaining few into another office in town! X'D (I was long gone by then).
This feels the same to me. You're saving a few drops on one end while leaving the fire hose open at the other.
Basically, a lot of the time is the management and its very common detachment from reality. How typical...
Uh… it’s because the government doesn’t want combustion engines to survive that long, that way they can roll out the EVs and limit how much and where you drive. All these new EVs have so much technology in them that they can ban you from driving just like they can ban you from Facebook for speaking against the mainstream. Going electric isn’t about climate, it’s just about control.
The Fusion was constructed before manufactors got on to this computeraided design of components mentioned in the video...
This video is spot on.
Your best defense is do as much research about your vehicle before purchasing as possible if you want it past its warranty.
You really nailed this with the computer simulation allowing narrower margins to the car reaching the warranty period. I am a structural engineer and this is exactly the same with building design. As your design ability improves due to computing power you can slim down the structural elements closer to what is actually needed instead of over designing for safety.
Career automotive diagnostic tech here. In my opinion, automotive reliability peaked in the late 90s/early 2000s. Every time a manufacturer introduced low-tension piston rings, it was a harbinger of doom.
Well said!!
This is a perfect example of what happens when engineers ran the show then the bean counters got involved
Destroyed everything
Yes- you want an engineering company that hires a few managers to do the boring work, rather than the other way around.
Once again the company is profit driven, if you let engineer let loose with the budget, take a look what happened to saab or volvo. One is gone bust and one is sold to chinese firm to save them from financial doom. If you're not profitable, you cease to exist. The only way for engineer can be free with their creation and not making company broke is to sold the car at extremely high prices like koenigsegg, pagani, bugatti etc.
@@ardijanuar2036 so you are prepared to buy on price rather than quality...
You just go buy a KIA or Hyundai
There is a place and a market for quality in this world
Just some people and some companies just focus on profit
They will maybe have short term success
But people will soon be disappointed with a crap product and return purchases will be non existent
harvard MBAs are cancers to society.
@@ardijanuar2036 planned obsolescence it is called.