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Yea, this appears to be a popular topic. I spent the entire release day answering comments. Lots of good ones on this topic. Some stand outs direct their comments toward the name ‘planned obsolescence’. Perhaps that’s where my issue lies, in the name, and not the principal itself.
As many have pointed out, things will wear out. Machines are tested to the point of failure. Therefore the failure point is known. Now the argument becomes if that is part of the ‘plan’ or not.
I think it is to some degree. To the degree that the manufacturer is aware of the lifespan. My point in the video is that it’s not a strategy to get people to purchase a new product so much as to live up to consumer expectation of reasonable useful life. In short, they’re not trying to dupe you into buying new after a given amount of time. They just know when a vehicle will reach the end of it’s useful life. Hopefully that’s after the warranty expires. Thus living up to useful expectation of lifespan.
I think the real discussion here is in the name ‘planned obsolescence’ and the interpretation of what that actually means.
Planned obsolescence for me is a real thing, but I do not think it is an absolute evil. Things need to planned to fail (within reasonable time frame) so owners do not use them beyond the practical service life and open themselves to safety risk.
Sure, probably can make a bulletproof design, but when the wire insulation has a effective life of 15-20 years before breaking down, some owners will use the thing without realising the dangers that poses. Probably can also enginner against that, but cost comes into play. How much is longetivity worth when a few years later, maybe new techniques or technology can improve it? (Maybe in terms of manufacturing speed, not lastability, but it is an improvement.) Manufacturers, like any other business; must be profit and innovation driven.
What I do think is a bad thing is yearly product cycles, producing cars with incremental improvements (either in performance, function or form)
And that is the reason why I think planned obsolescence is indeed occurring.
Perhaps just not for a single reason though
1) to prevent market saturation, but engineer it so that it is not cost effective to maintain, rather than make it destructible (As Vlad2 mentioned)
2) safety issue, to prevent users from using it beyond its effective (or safe) lifespan and opening chances for owners to sue the manufacturer . (As suggested by DaFirnz)But sometimes planned obsolescence fails.
Takata is probably the most recent example of how planned obsolescense fails when they designed their inflators for a 7 year effective life, and most units fail and corrode before its effective life.
Then again, airbags are pretty recent and their MTTF is likely not as accurate as some designs such as brake servos, macpherson, leaf springs and whatnot that has pretty much gotten spot on given their technological age.
Its a risk to the company to implement planned obsolescence, but we all know manufacturers take risks all the time when implementing new technology or design choices. (Will the cutomer like the newer design compared to the competitors?)
Anecdote : Personally not liking the new looks of most post 2010 models, they look like a pain in the ass to wash with those fine grills and corrugared surfaces but maybe its just my age.
But I do really think planned obsolence is a choice they won’t think is too risky to take as you make it out to be.
I don’t believe that the manufacturers build cars to have them fail. You are right they just use cheap parts and in some cases build these cars for a certain location like Europe and European cars. They don’t drive more than a few thousand miles a year in comparison to Americans where we drive for tens of thousands of miles. Japan is another place that is small yet somehow they engineer cars to last well in American markets. Probably on their dependence in exports. I also think of the customer service and experience they want to leave on their customers. If a car fails after a time, you are going to be frustrated and say those cars are worthless and not go back again.
Thanks for the opportunity to vent a little bit about this. Planned Obsolescence exists in my opinion, if not from the design standpoint then absolutely from the maintenance schedule recommendations (100K miles for plugs, coolant etc.) as well as the diagnostic and parts costs to repair an older higher mileage vehicle. I have a hard time convincing people to spend $1K to $2K to repair a 10 year old car. They would rather take what they can get for it on a trade in and put the money towards a new/newer vehicle. What would you call that? Going on, FORD begins to class certain parts as “obsolete” at a models 5th year of age and at times the aftermarket has not produced these parts leaving you to a salvage yard for the item needed. Also it’s usually no fun trying to extract spark plugs from an aluminum head at 100K miles for the first time. Ever seen what a GM cooling system with DexCool looks like at 100K (if it does not fail before that). Remember too that Henry Ford’s factories were making bomber aircraft during the WW2 that had a very very short life expectancy! Did this give him some ideas about similar practices for his automobiles? If you can, read the book “Lee Iacocca” and you might come away with some different ideas about this topic. My feelings for now and the future is that the rolling server/databases still called automobiles will become so cost prohibitive to diagnose and repair that the only alternative will be to “replace it.”.
Just look at your own Fixing it Forward project. It is a VERY noble and wonderful program and it just shouts that if not for you and your efforts they would not likely spend the money it would take in the real repair world to fix their vehicles if they had the money!
I do my own share of Gratis work for worthy people too and all are faced with the same “it costs too much to go anywhere to get it fixed.”
Manufacturers know a LOT about how long something will last, they have a LOT of experience with it! They keep the best secrets!
So that is my 2-cents worth on the topic, just my opinions. Thank you again for a forum where like minded people can express themselves and share their experiences.
Planned Obsolescence does exist, and in many forms.
So in 2011 I bought a brand new computer, and no it wasn’t cheap. I never had problems out of it until 2 years after I bought it, the HDD started failing and then just died. I lost everything. I looked up the model number and checked the website to see if I could get a free replacement, and sure enough the warranty had expired 2 months prior to the HDD failure. I was out of luck.
A good friend of mine who is in the computer industry and has been for 20+ years told me the real deal. He told me that current HDDs are only ment to last so long, and that the one I had that failed was only ment to last 2 to 3 years tops. He told me that it was designed to fail, to cost me more money to replace it or have it fixed.
I know this post really isn’t automotive, but I hope you understand what I’m saying.
I am not sure that engineers or manufacturers intentionally build in a lifespan on parts/components/etc., but I think that they have to be acutely aware of what those lifespans average out to be and market to their customers accordingly. One example that has bothered me is Toyota’s marketing of their World Standard automatic transmission fluid. Toyota claims that their ATF WS is a “lifetime” fluid, but there is not a single source that I can find that defines what “lifetime” means (and a quick internet search will yield many anecdotes of dealerships describing the ATF WS as “lifetime”). My 2007 Camry’s manual essentially states that the ATF WS should never be changed unless you are towing:
“Change automatic transmission fluid only as necessary. Generally, it is necessary to change automatic transmission fluid only if your vehicle is driven under one of the Special Operating Conditions listed in your ‘Scheduled Maintenance Guide’ or ‘Owner’s Manual Supplement’.”
This makes me wonder as to what secret Toyota has stumbled upon that the rest of the automotive industry has not. Why is their ATF WS indestructible and infinite while every other auto maker, mechanic, and DIY enthusiast suggests replacing ATF at specific intervals? The only reason that I can surmise is that Toyota’s definition of “lifetime” was created by their marketing team based on sales figures. “Lifetime” could mean the length of the initial warranty on the car, the average length of time that the original owner keeps the car, the length of time that the transmission is expected to last, or some figure that is completely arbitrary. But, by not providing a clear definition as to what “lifetime” means, I think it is fair to suggest that they have some knowledge of how long their transmissions will last. Whether that length of time is intentional or not is open to debate, I suppose.
Or maybe I need a tin foil hat? I dunno 🙂
I agree that while planned obsolescence is a real thing, it doesn’t apply to cars.
The most obvious example of planned obsolescence is the smartphone/tablet market. New versions of operating systems that can’t run on older hardware (sometimes only a few years old) or slow it down to the point of near-unusability; new phones that are 98% the same as last year’s model but with one or two “must-have” hardware additions; that sort of thing. It’s quite blatant that they want you to be upgrading your phone every year.
But cars? No. They’re too expensive. Sure, some people can afford to buy a new car outright every year, and many of those who can’t are happy to keep rolling over loans or lease deals so they can always be driving the latest model, but for most people, a car is something they replace every 5-10 years, and often not because it’s broken beyond repair, but because they just want something newer, more comfortable, with more toys.
The idea that engineers deliberately build in failure is, to me, nonsense. There are components that will wear out and you expect to replace, and there are components that you can reasonably expect to last the life of the vehicle. As Eric says, early failure is an unintended but unavoidable side-effect of the budgets that engineers have to work to; there will always be bean-counters saying “No, you can’t build that part out of that material, it’s just too expensive”, and then there’s the whole issue of automakers not actually building most of the parts themselves, but contracting out to the external companies that can meet the required spec at the lowest possible price.
The simple fact that there are millions upon millions of old cars still in regular use as daily drivers should give the lie to the idea of “planned obsolescence” in the auto industry, as should the fact that the automakers typically provide parts support for old models for about 10 years after they are officially discontinued (and, in the case of popular models, often much, much longer).
i don’t think planned obsolescence is as bad as people like to point out, but i think planned obsolescence is a thing, i don’t think they are literally designing them to fail at a given time, but i think they are designing things to fail sooner than they otherwise could, but i get it, i agree… and let me use my favorite V6 as a example to support your claim.
the biggest issue with the 3800 V6 that kills the engine bar none as many know is the lower intake manifold gaskets, why? as many of us mechanics know they are made of plastic! why do i think they where made of plastic? because the metal framed ones that last a really long time are about $20 more expensive and that adds up! also its possible the lighter gaskets save weight… A lot of the newer engines require components that more strictly monitor emissions and economy, at the same time they are trying to reduce the cost of production so they can make a bigger profit… so these components are made on the cheep side and they are know for breaking down, example, a engine light turning on for a Evap emissions gross leak, when its the evap purge valve that commonly fail because they are cheep Chinese made junk.
Issue is however i think part of it is planned obsolescence, i literally do not think they design the cars to fail at a given point, but i do think they do plan on them failing sooner so the customer will get tired of fixing their vehicle as it reaches a specific age so they will be tempted to go out and buy the newest model! i think they are designed not to fall apart all at once, but to start falling apart so you have to continue to fix them over time, this temps customers to want too buy new.
If you want my personal opinion people should just completely stop buying new cars and just fix up old ones until car companies decide to start putting some quality into there work, and stop charging so much for something they only paid so much to make, workers today are paid on average no more that $11.00-$12.00 an hour to make the parts of these cars unless you work direct for GM or Ford or Chrysler and thats just the parts made here in the us, a majority are outsourced to countries who treat there workers like slaves, and the end result is a steaming pile of junk that continuously breaks down over and over… i have really not heard much positive about the new cars, and being an employee of a company that produces parts for these new vehicles, i can understand why…
[quote=”twiggy02919″ post=157603]
Same thing happened to me, so I replaced my IPAD2 with a Samsung Galaxy tablet and couldn’t be happier.[/quote]Except that when your Galaxy tablet is as old as your iPad 2 was (5 years), chances are it’ll be similarly slow when trying to run the latest Android OS. And of course, 5-year-old hardware is virtually Stone Age as far as the computer market goes, so there’s every chance that you’d want to upgrade again at that point anyway, as the brand-new hardware by then will be so far ahead of your Galaxy.
It’s a matter of having something last just long enough. Like through the warranty period. After that, it’s your problem.
I’m surprised how quickly modern cars degrade, in terms of NVH. I remember when the original Ford Focus was launched in North America. The ad campaign made a lot of hay out of “German engineering”. 2 or 3 years later, I was in the market for a second vehicle and I test drove about a dozen used Focuses. Each and every one of them rode like a Sherman tank. A very unpleasant environment in which to spend your road time. These cars were sucked out and aged quickly.
I’m not picking on Ford in particular, just using one of their products as an example of a larger problem. Everything is cost engineered down to a fraction of a penny these days, and as a result, a lot of robustness and longevity has been engineered out of products. And it’s the consumer who pays for this false economy.
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