5 ms·

> the combustion engine and hybrid cars are surprisingly reliable The OP brings up an interesting contradiction: appliances have become less reliable but cars

> the combustion engine and hybrid cars are surprisingly reliable The OP brings up an interesting contradiction: appliances have become less reliable but cars have become more reliable. Cars have become worse in some of the same areas as appliances, like the use of touch screens instead of physical controls, but cars have nevertheless become more mechanically reliable. What would explain this opposite trend?

michaelt 3y ago
The reliability of fridges was "Buy it for $300, plug it in, it works continuously for 10 years with no servicing" so the reliability really had nowhere to go but down. The reliability of cars, on the other hand, used to be pretty awful. Lots of maintenance, regularly needing repair work done - not to mention regular servicing, oil changes and tyre changes. And people replacing their 5-year-old cars because 'old cars just aren't reliable'. So there was a lot of scope for improvement.
torginus 3y ago
Cars haven't become more reliable, that's for certain - if you are European, you've encountered your fair set of travesties. Manufacturers, in the pursuit of stringent Euro emission standards, nonsensical regulations, more horsepower, and reduced material and manufacturing costs have put out such a set of scrap-worthy engines. They typically have low displacement, few cylinders, small turbos, exhaust recirculation. Ford's EcoBoost and Peugeot's Puretech engines come to mind in particular, with the latter being so bad, that they tend to fail well before 100k km, and there's an active investigation going on about it by European Commission.
smt88 3y ago
Cars are highly regulated.
jfim 3y ago
There's a lemon laws for cars in many places, where if it breaks too much you can just return it to dealership for a refund. No such thing for appliances, unfortunately.
- staticautomatic 3y ago
  In CA you can use the lemon law for other stuff. I got the cost of a laptop back that way in small claims court.
- bryanrasmussen 3y ago
  We bought a new stove about 6 years ago, basically had to get induction stove top because that was all that was available. I bought one of the more expensive ones. That stove top broke after a couple months, but luckily we're in Denmark where the warranty is a year, and when something gets repaired like that it's also under warranty for a year (actually sometimes more). We got that stove top replaced about every 4-6 months for 4 years until finally they did a good enough job that it lasted. The repairman said yeah sometimes it's just like that, ha ha. No monetary cost but every few months you can't cook for a week. Luckily I also bought a portable non-induction stove with two plates which we use whenever the main stove has problems.
  - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    > That stove top broke after a couple months, but luckily we're in Denmark where the warranty is a year You may or may not be a fan of the Euro, but EU law is two year warranty for consumers.
    - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
      maybe it's two years here too then, haven't kept track.
      - BlueTemplar 3y ago
        At this point I'm assuming that if an appliance is only providing the bare minimum 2 years warranty (manufacturer warranty, extended store warranty doesn't "count"), then it's crap, and I should look for a more expensive model. So far that has worked decently well : my kitchen water heater (3 year warranty) is going on nearly a decade and only now is starting to have issues, while the previous one, albeit significantly cheaper (minimum warranty), only lasted half a year. (One should not underestimate the cost / effort spent dealing with a poorly working / broken tool.)
gmac 3y ago
Maybe part of it is that there are few enough models of cars that it’s possible to collect reliability data (and people do), and it’s a big enough purchase (and breaking down is annoying enough) that people pay attention to it?
Ma8ee 3y ago
There are fewer car models, and people tend to do more research before buying a car than a fridge. That means that if a model gets a reputation for being unreliable, it actually costs the manufacturer lost sales.

michaelt 3y ago

The reliability of fridges was "Buy it for $300, plug it in, it works continuously for 10 years with no servicing" so the reliability really had nowhere to go but down. The reliability of cars, on the other hand, used to be pretty awful. Lots of maintenance, regularly needing repair work done - not to mention regular servicing, oil changes and tyre changes. And people replacing their 5-year-old cars because 'old cars just aren't reliable'. So there was a lot of scope for improvement.

torginus 3y ago

Cars haven't become more reliable, that's for certain - if you are European, you've encountered your fair set of travesties. Manufacturers, in the pursuit of stringent Euro emission standards, nonsensical regulations, more horsepower, and reduced material and manufacturing costs have put out such a set of scrap-worthy engines. They typically have low displacement, few cylinders, small turbos, exhaust recirculation. Ford's EcoBoost and Peugeot's Puretech engines come to mind in particular, with the latter being so bad, that they tend to fail well before 100k km, and there's an active investigation going on about it by European Commission.

smt88 3y ago

Cars are highly regulated.

jfim 3y ago

There's a lemon laws for cars in many places, where if it breaks too much you can just return it to dealership for a refund. No such thing for appliances, unfortunately.

staticautomatic 3y ago
In CA you can use the lemon law for other stuff. I got the cost of a laptop back that way in small claims court.
bryanrasmussen 3y ago
We bought a new stove about 6 years ago, basically had to get induction stove top because that was all that was available. I bought one of the more expensive ones. That stove top broke after a couple months, but luckily we're in Denmark where the warranty is a year, and when something gets repaired like that it's also under warranty for a year (actually sometimes more). We got that stove top replaced about every 4-6 months for 4 years until finally they did a good enough job that it lasted. The repairman said yeah sometimes it's just like that, ha ha. No monetary cost but every few months you can't cook for a week. Luckily I also bought a portable non-induction stove with two plates which we use whenever the main stove has problems.
- ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
  > That stove top broke after a couple months, but luckily we're in Denmark where the warranty is a year You may or may not be a fan of the Euro, but EU law is two year warranty for consumers.
  - bryanrasmussen 3y ago
    maybe it's two years here too then, haven't kept track.
    - BlueTemplar 3y ago
      At this point I'm assuming that if an appliance is only providing the bare minimum 2 years warranty (manufacturer warranty, extended store warranty doesn't "count"), then it's crap, and I should look for a more expensive model. So far that has worked decently well : my kitchen water heater (3 year warranty) is going on nearly a decade and only now is starting to have issues, while the previous one, albeit significantly cheaper (minimum warranty), only lasted half a year. (One should not underestimate the cost / effort spent dealing with a poorly working / broken tool.)

gmac 3y ago

Maybe part of it is that there are few enough models of cars that it’s possible to collect reliability data (and people do), and it’s a big enough purchase (and breaking down is annoying enough) that people pay attention to it?

Ma8ee 3y ago

There are fewer car models, and people tend to do more research before buying a car than a fridge. That means that if a model gets a reputation for being unreliable, it actually costs the manufacturer lost sales.