Are OLD CARS more RELIABLE? Planned obsolescence and SUSTAINABILITY in the AUTO INDUSTRY

they just don't make them like they used to i'm sure you heard somebody saying this when talking about cars and other things maybe you even think this yourself but is it really true are old cars better and more reliable than new ones our car manufacturers using planned obsolescence to make sure that their cars start falling apart right after the warranty expires to force us to buy new cars sooner than we have to well today we're going to talk about all this and more but before we begin talking about this important topic i'd just like to quickly let you know that today's video has been brought to you by atlas vpn now atlas vpn packs some really powerful features at extremely affordable prices now we all know that privacy goes out the window the moment you go online but atlas vpn uses the leading encryption standards to ensure that you can restore your privacy but it does a lot more are you sick of regional restrictions on hbo amazon prime video netflix bbc iplayer disney plus and other 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corners i enjoyed that car now when i bought it it was still under warranty just under three years old and it had just under 50 000 kilometers on the clock so i was driving around and i stopped to go into a supermarket and i parked the car i left and when i came back i noticed a big puddle of food right underneath my car and like any car guy i had to dip my finger into the floor to see what it is and it was going so i had the car towed into the nearest authorized service because it was still under warranty long story short my thermostat housing had cracked and leaked fluid all over the floor so when i came back to pick up the car from the repair i was kind of curious and asked the mechanic to show me the thermostat housing because i had a lot of different cars before but i really never replaced a thermostat housing before it isn't really a service item so the mechanic obliged and he showed me this a big old chunk of plastic i was a bit surprised because all the other thermostat housings i saw before were made from metal i mean i own another car it's a 1987 toyota mr2 so it's 34 years old it has 250 000 kilometers on the clock and god knows how many previous owners so chances are high it has been clocked a few times as well but it's on its first thermostat housing it has never been replaced before because obviously it's made from metal it's a nice chunky unit that lasts basically forever so i thanked the mechanic and i drove off and i started thinking who in their right mind would make a thermostat housing out of plastic i mean it's exposed to many many many heat cycles and it's exposed to chemicals so isn't it better to make it from metal to ensure that it doesn't fall apart i mean it's obvious pedro slash bmw who designed the engine in my mini we're saving money by making the thermostat housing out of plastic this is a clear example of planned obsolescence right they're making stuff that fails but it didn't work in my case because it had to be replaced for free under warranty i mean the service paid even for the towing so they lost money in my case funnily enough sometime later i sold the car to an acquaintance and about another 50 000 kilometers later the thermostat housing cracked again so it was obvious this is clearly planned obsolescence they just got their planned obsolescence calculations a bit wrong in my case and it failed under warranty but it's obvious it's an inferior part that keeps failing so it's also pretty obvious that car manufacturers are evil and that they're you know manipulating us and they're also probably a part of the freemasons and illuminati world control scheme [Music] yeah i'm sure there's a lot of secret societies and clubs and some very influential individuals out there but using them to explain everything is just a convenient simplification for people who don't seem to want to think rationally so let's step back and think rationally here what do car manufacturers do they make cars obviously why do they make cars well so they could sell them for a profit just like any manufacturing business shoes pots and pans computers you name it you make things so you would so you could sell them for a profit profit is everything if you don't make profit then you go bankrupt and you cease to exist so profit for manufacturing companies is like air for humans without it you die now while they have to make profit at the same time car manufacturers also have to abide by government rules and regulations and to ensure their cars sell well they also have to meet consumer expectations and needs to give governments what they want car manufacturers have to make their cars cleaner and safer and to do that they obviously need to add additional parts into their cars to give car buyers what they want they again have to add parts into their car because car buyers always want the cars to be ever faster safer more comfortable more attractive more efficient you know they want the cars always to be better all around and while they're at the same time adding parts to achieve this car manufacturers must keep costs down because cars have to be competitively priced against all the other cars in the market so at the same time they're adding parts while not being able to dramatically increase the price so this explains the plastic thermostat housing as well as plastic intake you know manifolds plastic valve covers plastic water pumps plastic everything car manufacturers aren't doing this because they're evil they're doing this because they have to they have to cut costs somewhere they're forced to do this well yes cars have become more complex over the years and of course being more complex it means that they have more parts and having more parts of course increases the chances of failure but there's another thing that we have to understand and that there's an illusion when it comes to the reliability of old cars we have to remember that most modern cars can easily make it to 150 000 miles without major servicing or overhauls back in the 60s and the 70s a car that did more than 100 000 miles was considered over the hill at the very end of its lifespan i mean they had five digit odometers that would re revert back to zero when they carded over 100 000 miles but by the 80s and 90s technology and quality control had become so good that it made it possible for manufacturers to make some truly memorable machines that seem to just refuse to die these cars seem to be indestructible and even 30 and 40 years later many of them seem to be going strong and you know they're on the roads racking up miles but we have to remember that many of these vehicles are enthusiast owned and exceptionally well taken care of today whether it is vehicle rarity vehicle value emotional attachment or something else many of these cars are exceptionally well and constantly maintained to keep them road worthy for example the amount of money i had to spend to make and keep my 1987 toyota mr2 road worthy would be completely unacceptable for a new car now the most rational explanation why some cars from the 80s and 90s seem indestructible is that conditions were optimal for them to be like this back then safety and emission standards weren't nearly as high as they are today which means cars didn't have to be as complex and as we already said technology and quality control was more than high enough to enable manufacturers to make some really robust vehicles but there's another key factor why some cars from this era were so good and so reliable and that key factor is something that is readily available today but something that wasn't nearly as powerful accurate or usable back in the 80s and 90s and that something is computer simulations so why do computer simulations even matter well they matter because today they're so powerful and so easily accessible that they enable engineers to design parts that last a certain amount of time they can simulate the number of heat cycles and duty cycles and they can see with pretty decent accuracy when a certain car component is going to start to deteriorate and function or just completely fail and this means that they can make car parts and components that don't last much past the average mileage covered within the warranty period off that vehicle now back in the 80s and 90s this wasn't really possible computer simulation did exist but it wasn't nearly as powerful accurate or accessible as it is today it was pretty time consuming and complex which meant that it wasn't cost effective so car manufacturers couldn't use it to the extent that it's being used today and this forced them to play it safe they obviously didn't want to risk brand image by having parts fail prematurely so they made parts a bit more robust than they needed to be to ensure that they go the distance so wait does this mean that today car manufacturers are actually evil now that they have access to this powerful and accurate technology they're actually using it against us they're using planned obsolescence to ensure that their cars start falling apart right after the warranty expires well let me ask you something what do you think who's behind planned obsolescence who determines how much planned obsolescence gets put into cars well the answer might surprise you because it's you and me and all of us it's the car buyers because governments may set emissions and safety standards but buyers ultimately determine what sells well so obviously nobody can force you to buy a car and once you do buy it nobody can force you to sell it this means that car buyers not only determine what sells well they also determine how long they hold on to something and this is very important it's important because as a civilization we are still at the stage where we believe that the material things someone owns uh can increase their status in society and their value as a human being and this is why most car buyers replace their cars very often for many cars aren't just a utensil they're a instrument of joy a way to impress peers and obviously car manufacturers know this and warranty periods aren't made based on some arbitrary rule they're made based on the average number of years the average person holds onto a car and what's interesting is that we can't be swayed by extended warranty periods when kia introduced their 7 year warranty they didn't suddenly become the best selling car brand in the world many people continued to buy cars with 3 and 2 years warranty despite the fact that these cars aren't more affordable than kia cars and this means that the planned obsolescence that car manufacturers are doing actually makes perfect sense let's remember car manufacturers are profit driven and that's okay so is everybody else that's how our world works at this time now car manufacturers are only responsible and legally required to fix the car during the warranty period they also only make money from the first sale this means that there's zero legal requirements and zero incentives for car manufacturers to make cars more durable and more reliable than they need to be developing car parts that are more robust than they need to be would be wasteful because developing robust car parts requires more cost and more energy than developing car parts that are only as good as they need to be and this brings us to the elephant in the room sustainability sustainability of the car manufacturing industry as well as of many other manufacturing industries now our society the world we live in is a reflection of ourselves humans didn't reshape the world based on some external inputs we didn't nobody told us what to do we built our world based on our wants and needs our governments are the reflection of the human majority our car brands are a reflection of our wants and needs and the problem is that the majority seems to be two-faced when it comes to sustainability we're all talking big about sustainability nowadays and we're all gonna go and buy that eco-friendly toothbrush but also the next day we're gonna go out and buy a brand new car because our neighbor also bought a brand new car and who would want to look bad next to their neighbor never mind the fact that our old car was totally okay and could do many more miles and we do this with many other things we replace many of our material possessions not when they have come at the end of their useful lifespan but many of us very often replace them when there's a strong enough emotional incentive to do so in other words we replace our wardrobes our smartphones and our furniture not when they're old or broken but when we think that they have gone out of fashion or when we simply get bored of them in fact at their disposal car manufacturers had the technology to make a car that could be very durable very reliable and very very long lasting they could probably even make it have user repairable and user replaceable components but apparently nobody would buy such a car how do i know well here's an example from another pretty wasteful industry smartphones we replace them what every year every other year we replace them just because we like the new phone even though our old phone is totally okay now somebody thought this was a bad idea and they wanted to give everybody an alternative and thus the fair phone 2 was born not only is it made from fair trade materials it also has user repairable and user replaceable components you like a new a better camera that came to the market there's no reason to get rid of the entire phone you can replace easily just the camera on the phone now from 2015 to 2019 115 000 fair phones were sold do you know how many samsung galaxy s6 phones were sold in the first month of the phone's release 10 million much of the world around us is a reflection of the majority of us currently government laws and regulations only concern themselves with vehicle emissions while the car is running while the vehicle is on the road there is nothing forcing car manufacturers to make cars reliable durable easily repairable and thus more sustainable this means that car manufacturers are free to make things like this a alternator that costs a small fortune but cannot be repaired when it goes faulty they're also free to make components that are made by fusing multiple different components into one single large component only one part of it fails the other two parts work but you have to replace the whole thing the whole thing gets scrapped and they can easily justify this by saying that apparently these things contribute to a 0.5 reduction in fuel consumption and emissions fact is that car emissions are only a fraction of our overall emissions and environmental footprint the outbreak of the coronavirus demonstrated this very obviously and in many places around the world people were staying at home nobody was driving so the number of cars on the road was dramatically reduced but somehow air pollution wasn't reduced that much at all and this is because people were still alive they hadn't disappeared and this means that everything else was running power plants factories processing plants everything was running and creating emissions recycling cars obviously consumes energy and creates emissions and cars just like many other things can't be recycled 100 making new cars to replace the old ones also consumes energy and creates emissions this means that recycling something that didn't need to be recycled and making new things to replace them is wasteful no matter how you look at it but our current government regulations only concern themselves with vehicle emissions while the vehicles are on the road and this is why we're getting a big push for electric vehicles because electric vehicles have zero emissions and i get a lot of comments on my channel from people saying how electricity is the future how electric cars can save the world and how there's apparently this big clash between internal combustion engine cars and electric cars and what this sort of debate is really doing is that it's drawing attention away from the important issue from the actual problem and that is that electric cars will really do nothing for sustainability in fact in the worst case scenario they might actually make sustainability worse because electric cars obviously need very large battery packs and the useful lifespan with current technology of these battery packs is around 10 years after which they need to be recycled at this point in time a new battery pack is going to cost a lot more than the value of the used vehicle which means that also that the car is going to be recycled as well even though most of the things on it work properly this means that electric cars at as things currently are don't really have a hope of lasting more than 10 years and the scary thing is that currently we're ex we are recycling only around 5 of all the electric vehicle batteries for example right now many countries in europe are giving financial incentives to their citizens to purchase battery electric vehicles interestingly enough if we roll back 20 years before many countries were also giving financial incentives for the purchasing of diesel vehicles because at that time it was taught that diesels are actually more environmentally friendly than petrol cars because diesels have a lower co2 output 20 years later the plant obviously backfired so let's hope the same mistake isn't made twice so let's try and wrap things up is planned obsolescence real yes is it evil not necessarily nor are car manufacturers car manufacturers are profit driven and they must be profit driven because that's the way our world currently works if they're not profit driven then they cease to exist and planned obsolescence is necessary because it wastes energy and it's cost ineffective to develop things that are more robust than they need to be but the flip side of this is that recycling things sooner than they need to be recycled and making new things to replace them is also wasteful obviously this is an extremely complex and very important topic and it's impossible to sum it up in a single video so what i really want to do is scratch the surface of this topic or debate if you will and i really wanted to hear your opinion on this so what do you think is change on the horizon are we going to be more sustainable in the near future are electric cars going to help or are we doomed and are we going to try and fix things only when the consequences become too painful so let me know what do you think as always thanks a lot for watching i'll be seeing you soon with more fun useful and maybe slightly concerning things in the future on the d4a channel

Channel: driving 4 answers

Views: 364,235

Rating: 4.8470964 out of 5

Keywords: planned obsolescence, sustainability, circular economy, plastic car parts, engineering explained, w123, w124, volvo, volvo 240, honda civic, honda accord, toyota camry, toyota corolla, car warranty, mercedes, toyota, honda, 1000 hp, tesla, bev, electric cars, auto industry, car buying, buy a car, new car, driving 4 answers, fast cars, bmw, vw, audi, mini cooper, mx-5, miata, lexus ls400, volvo 750, volvo 740, saab 900, crown vic, buick, 240d, 300d, ford, jeep, what is planned obsolescence

Id: SeMZGICNSMg

Length: 21min 3sec (1263 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/mist_VHS]

Mmm fino a un certo punto, fidati. Anch'io apprezzo le vecchiette, ma non erano così indistruttibili come si pensa. Semplicemente adesso le auto le butti via perché l'elettronica va a farsi benedire, mentre una volta le buttavi perché gli inverni ti mangiavano via tutta la carrozzeria. Oppure perché cadevano letteralmente a pezzi.

[u/Seigmas]

Ho voluto postare questo video, sebbene inglese, in questo subreddit perche' l'ho trovato di estrema informazione e utile ad intavolare una discussione riguardo a consumismo, obsolescenza programmata e sostenibilita' nel panorama automobilistico moderno.

Penso faccia riflettere moltissimo sul numero di problemi che ci facciamo riguardo all'inquinamento visibile delle nostre vetture, senza considerare minimamente tutta l'obsolescenza programmata che e' stata introdotta sulla componentistica dell'auto e all'inquinamento da esso generato.

[u/randyran80]

Più che riflettere a riguardo da qualche anno è una certezza che porta alla rassegnazione. Anche i big data in circolazione riguardo le dichiarazioni dei redditi, le innovazioni sul digitale che inconsapevolmente cedono frammenti della nostra vita privata che diventa un dato di analisi, e, quest'ultimo porta alle impennate sul consumismo. Il consumismo a sua volta porta ai costruttori a vincolare l'obsolescenza

[u/Baffoforever]

Tutt'altro, ora qualsiasi auto con la sola manutenzione ordinaria se trattata bene campa oltre 20 anni e supera agilmente i 300mila km al netto del fatto che esca dalla fabbrica già con problemi. Poi l'obsolescenza programmata esiste in tutti i campi e l'elettronica potrebbe essere isolata molto meglio per avere meno problemi, ma carrozzerie mangiate e motori da rifare a 150mila km ora non esistono più

[u/MrPhil17]

Ci sarebbe anche un altro punto da toccare, che ritengo interessante. Le parti di ricambio delle auto, dopo molti anni vengono ancora sviluppate col criterio originale o, grazie a nuove tecnologie, vengono valutate nuove revisioni dei pezzi, andando a migliorarli/peggiorarli?

[u/iMattist]

Dipende molto dal marchio e dal modello che non da un progetto mondiale di obsolescenza per le auto. La Micra di mia madre 250.000km del 2001 (1.000cc) non ha avuto mai un problema nemmeno gli alzacristalli elettrici si sono mai rotti, mente la Ford Fiesta (1.600cc) di mio nonno si è fusa il motore a 140.000km.

La mia Mini ne ha 70.000 di km e sta una bellezza a differenza di quella del tizio nel video quindi è difficile a dirsi a priori quale auto avrà successo e quale no, tranne le Toyota quelle sono immortali.

[u/TrenItaglia]

converti all'elettrico e passa la paura