Monday, June 26, 2006
Progress revisited yet again
A couple of days ago, this little windup revolving gadget I use in my microwave gave up the ghost. Geeze, after almost twenty years it broke. I don't understand. The microwave itself is a Kenmore that's about a year older than the revolver was. It's a simple over with a digital input and 600 watts of power. If I remember correctly, I paid well over $200 for it at the time.
In the last couple of years, I've bought a couple medium priced DVD players/recorders and they all break down after about a year. My first remote digital thermometer I bought a few years ago, just went belly up a couple of months ago - since then, I've bought two others. The original replacement only lasted a couple of months.
I have an Epson ink jet that's pushing ten years old, that works fine, but slowly. I have a new HP printer/scanner that's been an irritant since I bought it a few months ago. The best stereo in the house is one I bought so long ago, you can't even get parts for it and all-in-one remotes can't recognize it.
I have some Craftsman power tools that I bought probably twenty years ago, that are still working as good as they did when I bought them. They're a little dinged and dented, but still do the job. I've bought two palm sanders and two cordless drills from Craftsman, and all have been problems. The first palm broke the second time I turned it on and the second (which Sears did replace for me) didn't last much longer before I tossed it (now out of warranty). One of the battery packs for the first drill died about the second month I had it. I went back and found an identical drill model on clearance for less than the price of a new drill pack. One of those battery packs also petered out within months.
I owned my first VW (a Thing) from 1975 to 1985 and other than one engine change, it worked great until the very end when everything started to go bad. The next car I had was a Chevy Cavalier that I drove from 1985 to 1995 with no problems at all (the odometer went haywire around 51,000 miles). I replaced that with a Chevy S-10 pickup that spent more time in the dealer's garage than it did in mine, until I totalled it. I replaced that with a 1995 Saturn Wagon. In the five years I had that, I went through 3 sets of brakes, 5 headliners, along with assorted other problems. My latest, a 2001 VW New Beetle has spent way more time that it should have in another dealer's garage. It took them until just past the warranty (surprise, surprise) to finally get it running correctly.
So why does stuff crap out now so much sooner that it used to? It's not me. I am much more gentle and responsible with stuff than I was in my twenties and thirties. Back in those days, I'm surprised I lived, let alone having stuff survive that long. I buy something today and I'm really-really happy when it lasts a year. You can't fix stuff - you pay more for the labor than you do for a new piece of crap - and you still have the old piece of crap. I find that most of my handiest and useful stuff is stuff that's so old, you can't get them anymore. Anything new is going to break before it gets familiar. What is wrong with you manufacturers out there - make some good stuff -- OK?
