Did you not get accused of being a “Marketing guy” for Honda last week? Somewhat funny.
The front loaders are very frugal in water use. If you wash with hot water, and heat your water with electricity, the savings are very substantial. In our case, my wife washes with cold water, and the water savings from a front loader would take a long time to pay if we scrapped the current washer now. When the time come s to replace, front loaders will be cheaper and we will get that model.
Our previous 1976 Maytag lasted till 1997, and the current one at 12 years shows no sign of giving up.
To avoid the planned obselescence, buy everything in white; stainless steel or black/red/gold will look very tacky and dated in a few years.
“If people didn’t waste so much and spend, spend, spend, our economy wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“why not keep one’s working fridge and spend the money on insulation, better windows, etc.?”
Hmmmm…First, you tell us that people shouldn’t spend money, and now you are advocating that they spend money on insulation and new windows. Are you a stealth marketer for the infamous Insulation and Window Cartel?
;-))
Seriously, however, if people do not spend money, our economy will surely sink from its present recessionary status into a full-fledged economic depression with a double-digit unemployment rate. Surely you don’t want to see more people lose their jobs in manufacturing, retailing, trucking, and all of the other industries that are fed by the purchase of consumer goods.
Those who have the resources–apparently like the woman who wants to buy a new washing machine, rather than repairing her old one–should be encouraged to purchase consumer goods. Or, would you prefer to see further layoffs at Sears, Whirlpool, GE, GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc? When people are laid off, mortgages and property taxes go unpaid, people lose their homes, and in general, the quality of life in this country declines further than it has already.
Spending beyond one’s financial means is ridiculous, wasteful, and ultimately, self-destructive. Spending for consumer goods that are within one’s means can help to sustain the nation’s economy.
Yeah!
When you advocate that people exercise a sense of personal responsibility and that they face reality–as I did a few days ago with the “Honda Fit woman”, and when you post fact-based, logical information–as I did in this thread–the resulting accusations can be somewhat bizarre.
Lots of people simply aren’t interested in trying to fix their things. They’d rather simply replace them.
I think it’s great. I get lots of good stuff from those people, often for free…like my dryer.
Our town dump in Litchfield built a building with benches where people could leave used things for others to take home. There was a section for appliances, a section for electronics, a section for sports equipment, etc. etc. It was a great way to recycle. I got vacuum cleaners, TVs, exercise equipment, and other misc things there.
I even started taking bicycles home, stripping them down, painting the frames, mating up good parts, and giving them to kids who couldn’t afford bikes.
Exactly!
When those who can afford to do so, buy new consumer goods and also recycle the old goods that they replaced, the manufacturing, retailing, and trucking sectors benefit, and those who can’t afford new goods can acquire decent merchandise without cost.
This is a classic example of win-win.
There’s also a tremendous sense of satisfaction that comes from being able to give a refurbished bike to a kid who otherwise couldn’t afford one. I’ve repaired, refurbished, and given away other items but nothing gave me more joy than the bikes.
I wish all town dumps would build such buildings. It would go a long way toward true recycling, the old fashioned way.
There is a technical term call “repairability” or “maintainability” and the military normally specify this factor in new equipement specifications. The original Hummer I was easy to repair, since it had to meet the military spec of battlefield repairs.
Agree that some Ford products with air conditioning were extremely difficult to repair. The heater core went on both my Mercury Comet and my Ford Granada. In both cases the repair was very expensive since the whole dash had to be taken apart.
The standard time allowed by Motor’s manual was 5 hours, I believe. On some early Japanese SUVs such as the Mitsubishi Montero, the whole dash was assembled around the heater and evaporator cores. About 10 hours of labor was needed to fix these models.
The ultimate insanity in repairability was a British Morris Oxford station wagen my friend bought in the sixties. To replace the clutch, the whole engine had to be removed!
If the government legislated some military style repairability standards, I believe we would have more user-friendly vehicles when it comes to replacing parts. The only car I remeber being easy to repair was the Checker Cab, since it was a purely commercial model, and taxi companies provided their input into the design, which was not changed frequently.
The engine had to be removed to replace the clutch on a VW Beetle. However, removing the engine took less than half an hour for a VW mechanic. Replacing a clutch was far easier on the VW than it was on a Buick made before 1961. These cars had an enclosed driveshaft (torque tube drive) and the rear axle had to be dropped to remove the transmission to repalce the clutch. My 1965 Rambler Classic had this same set-up.