- Henry Ford famously quipped, You can have a Model T
in any color you want, as long as it's black. And something as simple as car paint became the first step backwards
in automotive progress. An entire industry designed
around engineering innovation began to slow down and take
some of the best it had to offer off the table. How did car paint make the
market worse for the customer? Well it all comes down to a little concept of planned obsolescence. Shout out Gojira. ♪ Designed for failure ♪ - Huge thanks to Omaze for
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'cause I don't surf, man. I just surf life. (smoke hissing) (bell chimes) - Planned obsolescence is the practice in which a product is designed
to one day be replaced. It happens in almost every industry, consumers don't just buy a product once, but again and again and again, as needed. In the automotive industry,
this concept takes many forms. Some are more obvious than others, but let's start with
the most basic examples. A car is a complex machine and eventually parts are just gonna break. That's nothing new. We have a whole industry centered
around automotive repair. But faulty parts become a problem when replacement parts are not available. In the U.S. there is technically no law that requires a manufacturer
to continue making parts for any model of car. Now, most manufacturers see the benefits in supporting older models. It's great for their brand image and it's an added revenue stream. Replacing parts is the kind
of planned obsolescence most people think of. I wanna fix a thing,
but I can't fix a thing, so I have to buy a new thing. But planned obsolescence
in the automotive industry is a little sneakier than that. And just to be clear, I'm
not talking about things that end up breaking after awhile. I'm talking about things
that would work totally fine if the world hadn't moved on. For example, in 1990 Mazda
was the first to introduce a built-in GPS unit. From there, the built-in GPS showed up in just about every other car. But the issue with most GPS systems was that only the actual location data was being transmitted back and forth. For the map data you needed
to load a CD or USB device to update for newer maps. The tech in your car,
literally, went out of date. Updating was a pain. Sure, you could argue it was a limitation of the technology at the time. What was a limitation though, was the eventual loss of support. Oh, sorry, we can't give you a
new map for your seven series 'cause we thought you would
have bought a new seven series 10 years ago. Then there's tech like OnStar, GM's hands-free calling system from 2002, which is being turned off in 2022. Even though the functionality
has been replaced with a common cell phone, the system was also designed
to call 911 automatically in the event of a collision. And that safety feature
is a big part of buyers getting OnStar equipped in their cars. And that's still something
a cell phone can't do today. But GM's proprietary system
lived and died on their terms, and there's no way to continue
using the life saving product you paid for. Even radios are a form
of planned obsolescence. I know technology moves pretty fast and there's no way car makers in the '80s could have predicted CDs
or MP3s or satellite radio or Apple CarPlay. But at the time they
had a system that could, the DIN system. In 1984, the German national organization for standardization came
up with the DIN 75490 as the standard international size for any car mount head units. Eventually every car had a single DIN or double DIN head unit. And as the technology progressed, you could upgrade your stereo and keep jamming out to whatever
was popular that decade. But today the DIN
standard is being replaced in more and more cars with large touchscreen center consoles. This started with Tesla's
iPad-dwarfing center console, in the Model S and became a trend in many other modern cars. Sure, these touchscreens are cool now, but the upgradability is no longer there. Not only are these consoles
heavily integrated into the car, but the standard sizing is gone. Hey, if you're liking this video so far, please go ahead and hit that Like button. Now, before we get too much further, I wanna say that none of these things are things that are gonna stop you from driving an older car. If you're a car enthusiast
with even a little bit of skill or determination, you can get around most of these headaches. But the point is, is that
they're all little hang-ups, ways for manufacturers
to nudge the common folk away from an older car and
into a new car dealership. But it's not always the small nudges from one company's
marketing team or another. Sometimes the industry
plays the long game. Many people believe that
the best time to sell a car is before 100,000 miles. Like it's some magic number
that triggers the failure of everything in your car. And while it's true
that 60 to 100,000 miles is usually the end of a
manufacturer's drivetrain warranty, there are plenty of cars on
the road with more miles. But here's the thing, the actual people making
the car, the OEMs, are only guaranteed to make
money off the car once, when the first buyer buys it. And once that buyer
has driven off the lot, the OEMs want to sell that buyer, a new car as soon as possible. And if that buyer's conditioned to believe that 100,000 miles is
all a car is good for, they'll be back in the showroom sooner, 100,000 miles was the
life expectancy of cars as early as the 1950s. My car, the Mustang, has 160,000 miles now and it's still running strong. Nowadays cars can last much longer, but the 100,000 mile mark still continues to have a
big effect on the market. A lot of used car lots, won't
sell cars over 100,000 miles. Most banks won't give you a loan for a car over 100,000 miles. And the stigma is perpetuated partly so you'll go into a
dealership and buy a new car. As a result, the average new car buyer only keeps a car for about six years. That's pretty wild. Sure, just about anything
can be repaired these days, but for some, dumping
money into their old car isn't worth it. It's served them well, and now it's time for something new. For manufacturers this
is a delicate balance. They need to avoid over-engineering a car, spending money on reliability that their customer will never need, but they also can't make a car too frail. This is the kind of thing
that caught out VW in 2016. Their 1.8T engine was having
timing belt tensioner issues as early as 50,000 miles and they had to pay out
up to $2,500 bucks per car in a class action lawsuit. Take a hurt. One of the places we've seen
planned obsolescence go too far is in the world of consumer electronics. I'm talking about non-swappable
batteries in cell phones. Over time batteries lose
their ability to retain charge and become less effective. If you can't swap the battery,
you're essentially forced into buying a new phone. Now that battery technology
is becoming a big part of the automotive world, could
we see the same thing happen? Maybe, a battery swap on an older hybrid is cost prohibitive,
but it's not impossible. Chris Fix has a great
video on how to do it and that's just with common hand tools. But earlier this year, Tesla gave details about their new Model Y and it's structural battery pack. Basically, we could be seeing a battery that can't be swapped because it's part of the chassis and I don't think that's right. Planned obsolescence is
the manufacturer's way of making sure that they
have repeat customers. But if you remember the
beginning of this video, you might be wondering,
Nolan, how the heck does paint fit into all this? (upbeat music) Back in the early '20s,
the American auto industry had a small problem. Manufacturers had made their cars so good and so reliable that almost anyone who was planning on buying
a car already owned one. At the time paint manufacturer, DuPont, owned the controlling
share of General Motors. Do you see where I'm going with this? What could a company that made paint do to get people to buy more cars? Well, General Motors started
releasing limited edition runs of cars in unique paint schemes. Before this, your paint
really wasn't a selling point. Most people just wanted a
utilitarian piece of machinery to move around. Now that all of a sudden new paint schemes were being offered, the older cars of Ford and even GM's own models
looked outdated by comparison. Since then car paint has
been changing in style and availability in an
effort to entice people into the showrooms. For a more recent example,
take a look at the Scion TC. Over the single decade it was produced they had two generations
with only one upgrade in performance and overall design. But in that same time, it
had 11 Special Edition colors that are available for
one model year each. True planned obsolescence
is when something absolutely stops working and it can not be repaired. Luckily, there are moves being made to combat planned obsolescence right now. Right to Repair laws are being
introduced here in California as a way to keep tech companies supporting older phones and computers. But there's another kind
that can't be legislated, it's how a simple paint color
can affect a whole market. It's called perceived obsolescence. Perceived obsolescence
is a crucial lifeline of the automotive industry. It's the idea that even though
your car isn't inoperable, you still need a new one. Otherwise, how will people
know how well you're doing? How will you look in the parking lot? How will you be able to
look the valet in the eyes without a new car? I know this kinda sounds like the ultimate first world problem and I agree, I've never
bought a new car in my life. Although, hopefully, that
changes when the Z comes out and it's affordable. But you can't deny that
the first buyer's opinion has an affect on the manufacturer and therefore an affect on the market. Something that is added
to a car to make it trendy will also one day make it dated. Headlights and taillights, for
example, change constantly. Not just because they
get better necessarily, but because they look newer
than what came before them. Sequential turn signals look
futuristic and fancy now, but we used to have them in all kinds of cars in the '60s. Headlights and DRLs
started pushing towards wider cooler LEDs and now some cars have
these orangy yellow DRLs and they all of a sudden
looked cool again. They didn't get better
necessarily, but they look sick. On the one hand, it's
part of the ever-changing ebb and flow of style, but on the other, it's all designed to
make you want the new car that you might not actually need. But this is the beauty of being
part of the car community, these mind games employed
to sell more cars, don't have any effect on you or me. Okay maybe a little, that
K5 does look pretty sick. But if you want a Special Edition color, you can get your car painted
or wrapped or do it yourself. Want to update your infotainment? You can do that thanks to the aftermarket and awesome videos like ours, or any other number of YouTubers. And if you're looking to
update your car's look, no matter what the new trend
is, there's a good chance that the car enthusiast
community can provide. And if you're like me, and your
car is more than just a box that you commute to work in, it's something that you love and it's part of who you are, something that stresses you out. If there's a Right to
Repair bill in your area or something similar, support it. Planned obsolescence isn't it as big in the automotive industry as
it's become the tech world. And thanks to the awareness
being raised there, it looks like we'll be
safe to enjoy older cars as long as we can. Thank you very much for
watching Wheelhouse this week. If you're a Donut Super Freak and you wanna chat with
other Super Freak Donut fans, check out the Donut Underground, you get access to behind
the scenes videos, extra content, all that good stuff. Hit that Join button down below, if it sounds like something
you'd be interested in. Planned obsolescence worked on me, I got a purple phone
'cause it came in purple. I did have a very old phone, so I don't feel that
ripped off, but it worked. Follow Donut on all
social media @donutmedia. Follow me @nolanjsykes. Be kind, I'll see you next time.
