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Survivorship bias
Far from it. As a technician there are way more service calls on newer appliances and much shorter life cycles for them. Certain fairly universal parts are clearly being made at a lower standard now as well. For instance, a very common repair is gas oven ignitors. Many different manufacturers use the exact same style of hot surface ignitors. The ones i see these days burn out in ½ the time or less than they ever used to, even though the design of them hasn’t changed one iota.
There is a clear and obvious lack of quality in today’s appliances. An old Maytag washer could last 25 years with minimal repairs/maintenance. A newer Maytag doing the same work over the same duration would be lucky to get ½ that mileage before it got shit-canned, though it’s likely it would happen even sooner than that. The comparison in design is night and day. The old one was simple, field-tested design made for reliability and relative ease of service…the other is a hodgepodge of electronics and sensors connected by Angel-Hair spaghetti-thin wiring that will have something break in less than 10 years with regular use, and likely less than 5 with heavy use. Sure, a few of the old Maytag’s didn’t go the distance and a few of the newer ones managed to squeak out more mileage than expected…but anyone with real experience with those 2 machines would take the old one over the new one every single time. It’s almost unfair to compare an old Maytag washer to a new one because the most important metric is reliability and there’s simply no comparison there.
Do people genuinely think modern tech is that durable/reliable?
I’d consider spaghetti-diameter wires pretty thick
If you say so. We never used to have to replace a wiring harness on a washer, but I’m not a wire expert so i suppose i could be wrong
You’d pick a maytag washer from the 40s or 50s?
The 70s/80s is the sweet spot
I do have a modern fridge that keeps going and going. Old fridges do have an issue, too: they are much less energy efficient and have a massive impact on your electricity bill.
Tell your friends to stop buying from Samsung
Jokes on you, I bought my fridge from LG.
Unrelated, but does anyone know how to stop my A/C from beeping out morse code adverts for McAfee?
- don’t get fridges with in-door ice cube makers or in-door water dispensers or other complex features
- if you have in-door water or ice, clean those systems every few weeks. they get disgusting and unsanitary very quickly
- don’t get samsung appliances, especially not with complex features
- chinese appliances can be very hit and miss
- (america) don’t get kenmore appliances
- sometimes a higher price / better brand really is better overall
- top mount or bottom mount freezer are most reliable
- check local consumer reports ratings (not always compatible with technician’s uncerstanding of fridges but usually a great starting point - if you have the means then ask a local independent technician for their appliances of choice)
- keep a bit of space inside the fridge near the walls
- keep space behind and next to the fridge for the compressor to function properly (see manual)
- proper compressor/condenser maintenance like cleaning of the coils can add more years to the life of a fridge and make them perform better
- if you don’t have it, get a surge protector
- if you need an independent freezer, get a chest style freezer
video from an american technician comparing fridges and giving tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n76TXuDcok his channel is great in general for americans who want to buy appliances
It doesn’t matter how old it is - any fridge needs refilling
Nah. My dad has like 50y old russian fridge bought by the grandpa in the Soviet union times and it still works.
Enshittification is a turd that touches everything on the way down to the shareholder value lands.
Buuuut this is the kind of thing that survivorship bias was made for. Were things made to last 60 years ago? Not so sure about that, material quality and engineering have come a long way, though so has systematic greed.
For all the stories there are of old appliances weathering the storm of age, you don’t hear about the ones that don’t. Likewise, we now have more styles, makes, and manufacturers, which makes more room for cheap flashy stuff to hear about when it breaks unexpectedly after a couple years.
I’ve had both fridges that lasted 20 years, and ones that lasted 2, sometimes its probably just the luck of who they had running the assembly line that day
Also, expensice appliances still last. It’s just that back in the day expensive was the only option.
It was also that old appliances were expensive at the time.
If you buy a fridge for 3000€ today, it will also last you a very long time.
It’s a sad fact of society that there are no great rock ballads about refrigerators.
With their phased out refrigerants that you can’t find anymore and when you call someone to recharge it, they can’t and youre stuck with a fridge that no longer works.
AI memes?
My mom bought a new house and is moving in, in a couple weeks. I went over to get internet installed a couple weeks ago and noticed the new fridge was making an awful buzzing sound.
Mine’s ~25 years old. It’s second hand, so I’m not sure how old. It has worked perfectly from day one. I hate to talk about it, don’t want to jinx it.
If it dies, I’ll try to repair it. If I can’t repair it, I’ll look to buy an older used one somewhere.
Really though, I don’t like when this sort of thing is publicized, because people who might decide to get rid of an old, perfectly usable fridge to buy a new one will learn that they shouldn’t so there won’t be as many used ones to choose from, and they’ll be more expensive.
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The fridge was designed to survive the third world war.
