I just replaced our 34 year old freezer that was still working well, just tired of defrosting. Guy did say though new ones average about 14 years now due to mandated energy improvements.
I don’t remember how old it was at the time but we did get a notice to bring our olds in to replace a rear seat belt. I got the impression that they covered seat belt issues for as long as practicable.
According to the Constitution tenth amendment, it’s all cases.
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
FWIW, my 30 y.o. Whirlpool top freezer refrigerator is going strong.
Only repair a new evaporator fan ~ 10 years ago.
Maintenance consists of cleaning the coils once a year and lubing the fans every 5 years.
Yes but in many cases, it’s not supremacy of the law, but what is referred to as coercion or persuasion. They cannot mandate many items but say if you want the money you have to do such and such. Education is a good example. People think it is mandated but they do not have the constitutional authority over state primacy. So take your money and comply or tell them to jump in the lake.
I once had an employee that refused to provide personnel with his ssn. They said fine but we can’t pay you. As an example.
I had a 40 y.o freezer-below version of that product, worked reasonably well until the day it caught on fire … lol … replaced mid-pandemic-lockdown with a new GE top freezer configuration. Computer controlled, holds fridge-compartment temperature within +/- 1 of perfect beer temperature, 38 degrees. It uses (a presumably) more eco-friendly refrigerant (iso-butane), which saves about 40 cents per day on my electric bill. The downside, it makes a lot of weird noises. The perfect beer temperature and the 40 cents per day more than makes up for the weird noises. To be fair to GE, I said I wanted the version that would be purchased by business, used by the employees in their office lunch/break area. I figured that version would have to be pretty bullet-proof, but no need to be particularly quiet.
That makes no sense. Old seatbelts may rip, old airbags might not deploy, defective airbags spray metal shrapnel into your brain. That’s the issue at hand here. And it’s a safety issue. You’re really okay with teenagers driving around 15-20 year old cars without a working airbag much less one that kills you??
I think that there are some things which won’t reasonably work after many years, but there’s things that should. We can design seatbelts that work for many years as long as they don’t sustain any damage or are not exposed to chemicals. Just like an engine block can last a million miles.
A computer with millions of transistors and tens or hundreds of components can fail in 15 years of heat cold cycles, and we’d say it’s reasonable, but a computer is infinitely more complex than a seatbelt or airbag. The issue with the airbags is that the propellant absorbs humidity and gets too explosive. Can our amazing human engineering skills make a propellant that is resistant? I think so. (Plus they tested one of the first airbag equipped cars, Oldsmobile with ARCS system, 20 or 30 years old and it worked perfectly)
Won’t matter until it happens to somebody you care about. Also your data is not the same as what I just read: As postulated early on, environmental moisture, high temperatures, and age as associated with the defect that can improperly inflate the airbags and even send shrapnel into the occupant. To date, there have been 26 deaths and more than 400 injuries because this problem in the U.S.
The safety defect in question here is not that the airbag wears, it’s that it can spray metal into your face and there’s no way to tell. That’s a lot different than wear and tear or whatever you’d call it
To be fair, the comment I was replying to was about seat belts, not the airbags.
But my sentiment remains the same. Expecting a company to warranty and recall an airbag for a 24 year old car is insane. I don’t care if the airbag erupts lava and then launches you airborne. An item that is twice beyond its reasonably expected lifespan is the sole responsibility of the owner.
If your 24 year old washing machine springs a leak and floods your house, is Maytag to blame? No, because the machine is out of warranty. If your 24 year old garage door opener quits…and so on.
Old seatbelts are made from the best material for the job. But that material does not have an infinite life. Exposed to chemicals and sun, even less life. In the event of an accident a 20 year old seatbelt may fail and cause serious bodily harm or death.
The same is true of airbags. Environmental issues cause the failure of the device. This latest is debris in the inflator. Driving is a risk in itself with 40,000 traffic fatalities a year. These are risks you accept when driving old cars.
But the car itself is a hazard after 20 years running around Detroit MI or White Pains NY or Pittsburg PA. The salt belt rust renders the cars unsafe in an accident. Should the automakers warranty this, too? Where do you draw the line?
Since we have 26 deaths from Takata airbags since they were installed in 2002 lets compare that to other things in our lives. There are about 400 drownings each year for kids under 15 in pools and spas. Should we outlaw pools and spas? How about cooking? 470 people die every year from cooking accidents, with 4150 injuries!
All tragedies, for sure, but life is a risk that cannot be totally eliminated.
Especially if they are not used correctly.
My old wacko boss’s Buick had shoulder harnesses that were not usable because they were twisted into something resembling a rope. In order to do that, he and his wife had to have used the belts–and retracted those belts–very inappropriately over a period of at least several months.
Given his binary driving habits (maximum gas pedal use alternating with very strong brake application), I chose to NOT ride in his car, so after a few rides when I wasn’t able to secure myself against his bizarre driving habits, it just became a lot easier to say… “Let’s take my car, Jerry”.
I would also volunteer to drive that guy. I am sure we all have friends we’d rather chauffer than ride with. I hate following drivers like that.
Some of us from day one suspected the dangers of air bags and simply wanted on off switches.
What I failed to mention was his reason for sudden, strong brake application. That guy loved to talk while driving, and every time that he opened his mouth he would look at the front seat passenger–while simultaneously braking. Then, to compensate for the extreme braking, he would hit the gas–hard–when he looked back at the road.
Riding in his car was just not safe, but one of my co-workers would get car sick from the constant deceleration/acceleration. Of course, driving in back of him would be maddening, but riding in his car was even more likely to make someone sick–or dead.
And the odds are astronomically low that will ever happen. That’s the whole point. There are many other things in life that are more likely to kill you.
That is total for all manufacturers. The data I cited was for the most recent recall effort. The number of airbags then goes up as well. The fact is, the statistics show an exceptionally low incident rate compared to the fielded population.
What if we were to look at the number of people that would have died if not for these airbags?
Airbags by design don’t go off unless there is a significant risk of severe injury or death. 2.6 million deployments. I suspect there have been quite a few more people saved by them versus injured by them…
Without a doubt far more would have died without the airbags!
Same for the pre 1998 not depowered airbags. The ones where a full grown man could crash at 35 MPH and have minimal upper body injury even with no seat belt. Those saved a lot of people, but some people did die from them in minor accidents when their bodies were too far forward when it deployed. That and people would set child car seats in the front seat with no seat belt, where it would slide forward up against the airbag in pre accident braking. So the requirement was removed for all cars.
Looks like there haven’t been any recalls of the 1st generation full power airbags that I know of.
The seat belt winch on my boat trailer is still able to drag the 2000 pound boat forward on the trailer and half of the belt near the end has been torn away! It’s been outside in the sun for decades too!
There absolutely is. Just pull the fuse. My last car was a 99 Chevy Monte Carlo. I had the steering wheel off at least 5 times. Once to fix horn, then the ignition switch, etc.
Back in the mid to late 90’s, a few early 2000’s, I used to swap damaged (grip) steering wheels while listening to the car radio and running the A/C full blast and never pulled a fuse or had a problem… lol
But yeah if you unplug them they don’t work very well…
The bag status fir my passenger seat always says off when no one is sitting there. Must be just a switch in the seat. Must be the same fir the drivers side or could be, but the insanity continues with people that insist they be safe at all times.
Maybe 20 years ago I read a draft report that proposed eliminating all injuries in minnesota. I just laughed at the insanity of it all among serious people but then I see what has transpired. Believe me there are people intent on fostering in utopia regardless of the consequences. You will be safe and like it if we have to kill you in the process. Couple the attitude with low math scores and reading ability and here we are. A well known historian said recently we now have a generation of jacobins.
That is understandable. I just don’t recall hearing much about old seatbelts ripping, even though you should take care of them. (replace when worn, and don’t use unapproved chemicals/cleaners) I watched 1970s crash tests where new seatbelts ripped in a crash. It makes me think more recent seat belts are over engineered since I haven’t heard much about them ripping, but I don’t have proof of it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SUC6wLQdSMk&t=489s&pp=ygUaNzBzIGNyYXNoIHRlc3RzIHNtYWxsIGNhcnM%3D
When the airbag itself is catastrophically defective rather than non functional, like killing you with metal fragments, it’s different to me. And the catastrophic failure may have been caused by a design defect (hence the punishment for Takata). You or your family might die from the airbag when you had every chance of walking away from the crash. (The Volvo airbag recall was initiated after a driver brushed sideswiped another car at 25 mph, causing the airbag to go off and painfully kill him with piercing fragments)
I’m glad that the benefit of airbags has greatly outweighed the cost even with the danger of defective airbags. True, life has many risks. If it was impossible to design an airbag that works for many years, then that’s how it is, but if it is possible for a good airbag design to last many decades, it should be fixed. (Not just to restore the significant safety benefit of airbags, which is surely part of why driver/passenger deaths have dropped) Even Volvo used to put stickers recommending SRS replacement after 10 years, but they decided it was unnecessary.
Even worse is that the older the airbags get, the more humidity exposure, the more they’ll start killing. With crashes being the leading killer of teenagers, I hope that we’d advocate for their cars to be the safest possible. My 2 cents though.
They did that so if a kid was sitting in the front passenger seat (which is not recommended), the airbag won’t go off since it has a higher chance of killing them. Or perhaps a very light, small person.