4 ms·
It's like cars. Decades ago you might see your local mechanic once a year (if you're lucky) or multiple times a year to fix issues with the car, nowadays there'
by judge2020 4y ago
It's like cars. Decades ago you might see your local mechanic once a year (if you're lucky) or multiple times a year to fix issues with the car, nowadays there's a good chance a new car will go 100k miles with only wear-and-tear items needing maintenance done.
- jacquesm 4y agoBut if they break you're in for a world of trouble, and you will in one go end up offsetting a good chunk (or more) of what you saved up to that point. In a way this is the result of designing things to outlast their warranty, once the warranty period is over anything that still works was essentially overdesigned. Fortunately for cars and other high ticket items the secondary market will punish brands that are playing it too loose and too fast but I've seen pricing for for instance headlight or taillight assemblies that make you wonder if there is an error.
- ecpottinger 4y agoMy mom's fridge broke exactly one day after the warranty expired. She was crying on the phone, then they said they would honour the repair anyway. That made her happy again.
- Zach_the_Lizard 4y agoOld cars had more maintenance requirements and were far less reliable, but repairs tended to be simpler. For example, you may need to tune your carburetor seasonally. Old points based distributors needed the points adjusted or replaced. Simple tools like a screwdriver and a matchbook can get those two sorted. Fuel injection and electronic ignition eliminated a lot of regular maintenance, but they are harder for the average person to troubleshoot, let alone repair. Gone are the days where a rough idle could be fixed with a screwdriver. But so too are the days where a mountain pass requires that same screwdriver to be pulled out on the way up and the way down to adjust the fuel-air ratio.
- 13of40 4y agoI have a car maintenance manual from very early in the 20th century (1910 or something) and the maintenance schedule it describes would be ludicrous nowadays. It talks about changing the oil and greasing all of the joints every couple hundred miles, for example. At the same time, there are some components that are essentially the same now. Based on the diagrams, it looks like the wheel hubs and bearings would be compatible with the ones on my modern boat trailer.
- lostlogin 4y agoThe bearing might be compatible, but new ones are so much better. The slop (if that’s the right word) in bearings manufactured 50 years ago was more than you get now.
- 13of40 4y agoI'm not a serious mechanic, but I suspect one of the reasons the bearings and shaft on the hub are tapered is so you can tighten it down and accommodate for minor variations in the tolerances. That would have been more important before it was all being done with CNC. The material for the bearings was probably not super either.
- jacquesm 4y agoThings that have changed in bearings: better materials science led to more understanding of how you can harden surfaces and this in turn led to better 'races' in bearings as well as balls and rollers that are harder leaving bearings that last longer in principle. But all that wouldn't matter one bit if the bearings weren't sealed properly and that's the second improvement that led to longer bearing life. Finally, the third factor, improved lubricants, better able to deal with thermal cycling and high heat.
- gramie 4y agoMy Dad, born in the early 1930s, said that on any lengthy drive (I'm guessing > 100km), you just assumed that you would have at least one puncture or other minor breakdown. He and his cousin were given a car with a wooden body; once the engine overheated and it burned to the ground.