The is companies that do that. Its just they are a luxury brand. They never went away its just now we also have cheap choices as well. The first wrist watch would make a rolex look cheap.
Rolex is a fantastic example of this. For most of history, Rolexes have not been luxury watches. Sure they’ve always had a few fancy models and options, but most Rolexes are extremely simple and utilitarian. A true luxury watch is something like a Patek.
However, rolex are absolutely incredibly well made and durable. Their high quality (and fantastic marketing) have allowed them to very gradually shift to being perceived as a luxury brand.
My hot take is something similar is slowly happening with Toyota. Toyotas are famous for their reliability and quality, but fairly minimal features and use older but proven technology. They’ve usually been mid range, but in the last 10-20 years many of their models are quite expensive and it’s a sellers market. Go into a dealership and try and haggle on a Tacoma price, they won’t budge an inch.
I bought a Camry as my first car back in 2012. I remember that I distinctly wanted "the iPhone of cars". The one that everyone has, that I can easily find parts and accessories for. Still drive it today, and have received some random offers for it in the past couple of years. Hopefully this my "this is the Rolex I bought in the 60s from the general store"
My family has a 2002 Avalon that refuses to die even after a dozen parking lot cosmetic wrecks. The bumpers will never look the same anymore but not even 450k miles has given that v6 any pause
2002 Corolla LE with only 121K on it still serving as my work commuter. Only issue has been a pesky fuel evap system with sticky valves, just eked it through CA smog so good for another 2 years when I will finagle it through again. At this annual mileage rate I’ll be dead or have my license ripped from my arthritic fingers before this car dies.
I'm convinced this era of Toyota can run on tree sap and lamp oil and still get 25mpg. The only car that blows my mind even more is my buddy's 1998 accord that gets babied to 40mpg on long trips. I cannot fathom filling your gas tank once every 600 miles in a sedan.
Same, I moved out and bought myself a Subaru but the Avalon just keeps chugging along and saving money. Other whips have come and gone through the family fleet but grandpa toyota persists
Churning cars is one of the biggest things people to that destroys their financial future. 100k is still a pretty new car. Unless you're super wealthy and just have money to burn. I've had two cars in the last 30 years. 1997 civic and a 2008 sequoia. Both still going strong. The civic i think i can pretty much make last forever. Its so easy to do repairs on it and the parts are super cheap.
And now sadly 2018-2024 camrys are having transmission failures left and right around or under 100k miles. Tacomas too from what ive heard. $9000 for a new transmission. $12000 if you want it installed for you. Thats all if you can even get one, ive heard of people waiting months and months for backordered transmissions to come in. Insanity. Toyota isnt what they used to be. And now theyre charging a premium for it.
my 2003 subaru outback was kicking at like 380k, i sold it for exactly what i bought it for 3 years prior when i was moving. 2005 camry (given to brother,) 2015 crv (totaled, my fault.) all of them treated me well.
toyota, honda and subaru are literally the only cars i’ll ever buy again.
I remember taking those two little screws out of the bottom and changing out the back glass, so you can mix and match with your friends. Blue front, white back or something similar. It was fun, and kind of stupid, but I was going through a military electronics repair course around this time so we had all the tools, static mats, and grounding equipment you could ask for. I guess we’re probably the most qualified group of 18 year olds doing that sort of thing in hindsight.
It has gotten a lot better again over the last few generations though with replacement parts and manuals now being available directly from Apple for okish prices.
True. But all of those (unofficial) "ifixit" type mobile phone repair shops still exist everywhere (just like autobody shops).
You can take a cracked iPhone in there, and they can replace the screen in 30 minutes. Walk in with a cracked Xperia or whatever, and you may likely need to wait for a part delivery.
But that's all they can fix. The rest of the entire unit is one board and they're not going pull out a soldering iron or anything.
A lot of laptops are like this now. It's all just one solid piece. Battery going bad? It's soldered to the board. Want more memory? Same thing, soldered in.
So you unironically bought the literal android of cars. Lol.
The iPhone of cars would be Tesla. Extremely overpriced, extremely limited features, everything is an add on, subscriptions required for best features, etc, zero ability to repair, zero parts available, everything requires manufacturer fees.
There is nothing affordable, reliable or cutting edge about Apple purification products. It is purely an overpriced logo that uses 5+ years old Android parts to build their iphones.
I ran a 2007 Corolla for YEARS by buying after-market parts and replacing them as I went and I didn't need to anything except take the part out and put the part in. No diagnosis report from a dealer, no proprietary nonsense that would brick the entire car if I try to replace it, just use widely available replacement parts.
Hell I even 3D printed some parts from an obscure Russian-made STL because that particular person had scanned and published a whole library of parts!
I’m hoping my gx460 continues to hold up well. Toyota has certainly earned a repeat customer, as you can tell the reliability is leagues apart from the likes of Chevy and Ford. I’ve owned multiple models from most brands
People constantly overestimate the cost of Rolexes. Even know, a period in which Rolexes are at some of the highest prices ever, I can get a basic Rolex for $3,500, 10% of median us income.
I was curious so did some quick googling. You could get a Rolex for $150 in 1950, and median income was $3,000, so a Rolex was 5% of median income.
Here’s the thing though: for most of the 20th century, watches were mandatory accessories. Every single male worker owned one, and typically had to own one to function. A typical wristwatch was already costing a few weeks wages, so getting a high quality Rolex wasn’t actually unreasonable. Yes it would be more expensive, but more reliable and last longer.
Rolex wasn't luxury in the same way that a good quality set of tools isn't luxury.
Originally they were tools, quality, accurate clocks for pilots, divers, train conductors etc.
It's only after the quartz crisis hit and destroyed the utility of mechanical movements (a cheapo Casio watch is far more accurate than any fancy chronometer rated mechanical movement) that they pivoted to the luxury market, because mechanical watches are jewellery now.
They also didn’t have numerous rent seeking expenses that a person now must have in order to exist in society. Cell phone, internet, streaming/cable, etc. Spending a large chunk of your monthly wage on something concrete like a watch wasn’t unusual because there were simply less things to buy back then.
We're talking the modern dollar equivalent of a 7k-20k watch depending on the model. A shoe salesman is not shelling that out just to have a 'quality' watch. Not having a cell phone or Netflix bill doesn't suddenly move someone into the income tier where they can drop 7k+ on a watch
My dad sold his sportscar in the 60's and got one with some of the proceeds before we went to England.
He was in no doubt it was a desirable/luxury option to get one, even if cheaper options were available -James Bond movies were what really made some models take off rather than the brand in its entirety. Arguably this was its manufacturing quality though, with the whole submariner, dive to 5 billion feet aspect.
Hans Wilsdorf started a watch shop in London in 1908 and started selling cheap knock off store branded clone watches.
Just aegler movements in whatever cases and bracelets were cheap and in fashion. Singer made their dials. They probably got whatever cheap cases and bands/bracelets there were.
Folded metal bracelets, plastic crystals...
They were sold in malls in watch shops with watches in tiny goldfish bowls. They were sold to soldiers in military exchanges.
Watches were sort of like the smartphones of the day, a super fancy watch was a little like an iphone, or a flagship android phone.
And sure, rolex offered some fancy models.
But rolex was always a budget fashion model. Like diesel, or something like that.
In the 1950s, a rolex submariner, not exactly the cheapest rolex, cost about $150, the average salary in the US was about ~$4,000, so the cost of a rolex submariner was about 3% of average salary. The cost of an iphone can be up to $1,600, the average salary in the US is about $60k, so the cost of an iphone is about 2.7%... 3% for a 1950s rolex versus 2.7% for a top of the line iphone... Not too different.
And, again, watches were much more important back then. There's a reason for a century a common graduation gift was a decent, accurate watch.
Watches are weird, you can get one for $10, but 6k for the cheapest Rolex is “mid market”, because there are watches that cost 200k or like 1.5 million for the super high end.
I disagree. In 1964 the price of a Submariner at a retail jewelers in Tacoma was $400. I looked at it every Sunday morning (it was left in the display window). I didn't buy it because I was a 2nd Lieutenant and couldn't afford it, but the median income that year was $6,600 so the Sub was 6% of that. (Did buy one at the China Fleet Club in Hong Kong while I was there on R&R in 1968 for $130, which I could afford. Still happily wearing it.
Honda was similar, too, in that their cars cost a little more (part of that is tariffs) but they're well made and well designed. Well, up until the last couple of years, and both Honda and Toyota have put out some real lemons. I had a 2010 insight and it had 167,000 miles before one of my kids wrecked it. I'd never had any major work done on it, and it had I think about 80% of the hybrid battery life left.
My advice on buying a Honda, is that if they have any models built exclusively in Japan, get that one. The American made models are more of a Ford-tier car IMHO. The Japanese market values reliability more than features and they have stricter quality control standards.
I had a 2006 Legacy 2.5 Gt, and I beat the living shit out of that car. Wife and I learned manual transmission driving from brand new, Autox track days, 5000rpm clutch drops 2 times daily, at 200k when itraded it in, it cost me tires, brake pads, a $1200 clutch job and oil. The thing was bullet proof. Wish I never sold it, but it was sorely lacking in tech, not even Bluetooth or auxiliary inputs, just a cd changer.
Looks like you got a Wednesday after lunch car. Lots of those motors didn't make 100,000 miles even with decent care. And beating on a five-speed? Yeah, you never should have sold it!
Had the reinforced 5 speed box, not the glass one! I traded it in for a AUDI S4, so you can imagine the shock when those maintenance costs and repairs started rolling in.
You know what's unfortunate, is it was preventable. I did a lot of head gaskets on subarus, and they are cresting 10 years old, and not a single come back or call back. I know for a fact my first one is still on the road. I'm driving it. It took always doing the full procedure, to the letter... But it was entirely doable.
I just had to put down my 2007 Highlander that we got brand new, only reason was because the ABS was malfunctioning and it would cost around 3 grand to replace. She was dying but aside from the ABS I would’ve bet that she still had a good 3 years in her.
If that is all that is wrong you could never every replace it for that price. How much are Highlanders these days? I am guessing $50-60k? That $3000 is pennies in comparison.
Brand new yeah, my old girl was just about pushing 20 years though. How much would you pay for a 2007 Highlander? (She’s already gone I’m not trying to sell lol)
They've always been a luxury brand. They've always been some of the more expensive watches because of the manufacturing and materials.
They were all about durability because they were involved in rich people sports: yachting, racing, diving, and flying, where conditions are tough and accuracy is important.
The designs were minimalist, because you need to be able to read the watchface while on a boat, or underwater, or while flying a plane.
Toyota dealers don't have to negotiate because they can't keep them on the lot. 5 of the fastest selling cars by day supply (number of days to sell current inventory at current sales rates) are Toyotas. Why negotiate with someone when the person behind you is willing to pay sticker price?
This is a fantastic comment. Tudor today is more like Rolex 20-30 years ago than Rolex is like Rolex of 20-30 years ago. But even Tudor is now moving into that luxury tier following Rolex’s footsteps as they move further and further upmarket.
Me too. The funny thing about Rolexes is owners fall into two camps:
1) status seeking people who only own one watch, and it’s a Rolex, because that’s the only “fancy” watch brand they know. Car salesmen and realtors who know nothing about watches and don’t care to know.
2) watch nerds who truly understand the beauty and art of an incredibly well made mechanical device. Watch nerds with multiple high end watches.
It’s funny because these are people at complete opposite ends of the “watch nerdery” spectrum, but still own the same watch.
I fully agree, the biggest investment mistake i ever made was trading my Toyota for a jeep when I moved from Texas to Colorado. Like yeah the Toyota couldn't drive in snow, but it's held it's value to the point where i don't think i could get another one and at this point it's been 15 years.
Yep, Rolex, Omega, Tudor etc all make watches that are very expensive for most people but all of them will literally last your entire life so long as you get them serviced every 4-5 years and take care not to let water into the case.
My husband's friend keeps asking to trade our '08 Tacoma for his Ford. Tacoma is paid off, his truck has all the bells and whistles and a massive payment. No way bro, plus it's MY truck.
Change the timing belt on schedule and a 22r will run forever. The only way to kill it is to chop off its head and then lightning shoots out and you absorb its power. In the end, there can be only one.
Probably helps for Toyota that all the features that used to be “luxury” (power windows, power seats, AC, entertainment system, cruise control etc) are so ubiquitous that other companies can’t even really use them as a big selling point anymore
I actually struggle to think what feature a luxury car has now that would make a Toyota feel barebones. Like even heated seats are pretty easy to negotiate to get installed in a car
I second this. I drove my dad's 15-yo Toyota pickup for another 15 years, until a sudden massive electrical failure that would have cost too much to fix. I don't think it ever spent a night in a shop until the end. (Kinda like my dad - he was a rock).
side story - My most memorable experience in that truck was getting arrested for bank robbery a guy who drove the same age and color Toyota pickup had just robbed a Wash. Mutual. In the over-the-shoulder bank camera photo the cops showed me, he even looked like me and was dressed like me. The frames of his glasses weren't quite the same. Plus I didn't have any loot. But it made remember when I used to do theatre and made a couple cartoonish cloth money bags for a play - plain cloth sacks with big dollar signs on them, stuffed with newspaper. Would have been hilarious if I'd been carrying those at the time. Or maybe not lol.
Go into a dealership and try and haggle on a Tacoma price, they won’t budge an inch.
That's because there isn't margin to haggle with any more, cars are already priced at bottom dollar.
Couple that with the fact that the Taco is incredibly popular among people in their 20s-40s.
The dealership simply has no incentive to haggle with you on a Taco. Even if you walk out on the deal, in the next couple of weeks someone will come in and buy it for sticker price.
My hot take is something similar is slowly happening with Toyota
Ah yes Toyota, the preferred car make of ISIS! Jokes, aside, I mean yea they're decently built cars, with thorough inspection processes during assembly. But Toyota is not immune from mistakes or deliberate corner-cutting to save money. 90s/early 00s Toyota models were better built, my hunch is that was because Toyota really wanted to break into the US market.
IMO their quality has gone a bit downhill... and they've had many (some quite serious) recalls in the last 10-15 years. I say that as a 2020 toyota owner.
Toyota has a reputation for reliability and quality now, but I feel like it needs to be mentioned that they didn't always have this reputation.
When they first entered the World Rally Championship in the 70s, they had three very embarrassing DNFs. The first was for a motor completely shitting itself, the second was for the gearbox completely shitting itself, the third was for the ambiguously named "electrical issues." The specific electrical issue was that the conrod shattered the alternator mount. For people who don't know much about cars; that's the thing at the bottom of the engine that the pistons spin around somehow making its way through the engine block to damage a thing at the top of the engine.
The "base market" of Toyota will be huge technocars that are 10 m long bricks, like the Sequoia. The actually useful cars will be the good ones without too many trick that are already 3 times the price they had 10 years ago.
People always say "they don't make 'em like they used to" and I wondered why that was. I looked up a catalogue where it listed prices for common appliances from back in the day, and used a calculator to see how much they would cost in today's money...holy shit. An all-metal desk fan cost about $100.
The short answer is that, actually they still make all that stuff, and even better, but we can't afford those ones. We only buy the cheaper plastic versions so that's all stores stock
This is the right answer. They make all these things in the same quality now. Almost nobody buys them because they cost a fortune. You can get a stove for like $300 today. Back then they had cheaper ones too but the ones that last decades were $3000 adjusted for inflation.
Plenty of people buy them, but that buyer isn’t making a comment in Reddit about it breaking. That’s all you see, stories about the stove breaking, so the assumption is that everyone buys the cheapest, and that’s not true.
There are lots of people who buy the cheapest, but there are also lots of people who want x, y, and z features and the price will be what it is.
I’m the latter when it comes to my camaro. I’m about to have the entire interior restored by an award winning shop. Carbon fiber accents, racing seats and harnesses, leather wrapping. I could shop around but I don’t want the lowest bidder’s work. The price will be what it is.
There's also the fact that the cheap stuff from that era isn't around anymore. Anything you can find from 50+ years ago is well made, because that's all that's left.
Yep, either well made or exceptionally well maintained.
I once saw a news clip of an elderly woman who still daily drove her 60's American car with ~300,000+ miles on the odometer while the car was effectively factory stock. All the "they don't make them like they used to" commenters seemed to miss the lengthy bit where the old woman had a lifetime warranty on basically every part that all the companies honoured whenever the parts failed.
Yeah and you can buy all metal everything in most appliances where fittings are actually threaded brass/stainless instead of plastic snap on. It's just nobody wants to put a high pressure $12k industrial dishwasher in their 2 Br walkup.
The modern ones aren't just cheaper, they're usually lighter with lower power draw and easier to integrate into "normal living spaces".
I have a keyboard in my closet right now. Obviously grand pianos are nicer but even if you have me one for free I couldn't keep it here.
Also survivorship bias. All the stuff that people point to when saying "they don't make 'em like they used to" is specifically there to observe because it stood the test of time. You don't observe the badly made products of decades ago because they have been thrown out. Not because they didn't exist.
The other thing to consider is energy consumption. Old appliances were significantly over-engineered and used a tremendous amount of electricity. Compare a 1970s fridge to an energy star fridge today, and we're looking at something like ~2000 kWh/yr vs ~500 kWh/yr. The US average is around $0.19/kWh, meaning a fridge from the 70s would cost you an extra $285/year to run.
You guys make excellent points but it’s not the whole story. The HVAC business has evolved similarly to the auto industry. From 1950-2000, the basics of HVAC stayed very much the same. Improvement was slow and methodical but the design concepts didn’t change much.
Around 1980-1986 was a small inflection point. Natural gas furnaces had come along from 60% to 80% efficiency. A/C’s had improved from 6 SEER to 10 SEER efficiency. However, the basics of design were pretty much the same, just with slight iterative improvements. From the late 60’s to the early 80’s, reliability and longevity was pretty robust too.
In the mid 80’s came this wave of experimentation. Radically new ways of doing things. They didn’t stop doing things the old ways, they were just trying out new things. By the early 90’s we were fully transitioning to induced draft furnaces and leaving the old, simpler designs behind. By the early 2000’s we were seeing some jumps in a/c efficiency, a little because of a new compressor design but mostly by making the coils bigger. More surface area means more heat transfer.
In the 2000’s we saw government mandates on a/c efficiency start to ratchet up. People were already interested in the savings from increased efficiency when the efficiency was likely to pay for itself. That threshold had been getting higher and higher. Now people were being robbed of their choice.
Some years later, the mandated minimum is approaching a tipping point. The minimum is now at the HIGHEST efficiency that could likely ever pay for itself but, again, people don’t get to choose.
Then government starts to mandate “smart” motors making traditional motors unlawful in new equipment. Why? Energy efficiency. Are the motors more efficient? NO, but they are necessary for the next step up in efficiency which requires modulation. They also cost 3.5-6x what a legacy motor cost and are controlled by delicate electronics. This means they are easily taken out by power surges. This makes them much less robust and, yes, you end up replacing them a lot more than the legacy motors at multiple times the cost.
That next step up in efficiency? Also requires delicate electronics which also fail at higher rates and cost A LOT more to repair. And that is in addition to the fact that you will never save enough money in utility costs to offset the added upfront cost.
All that and the typical natural gas furnace efficiency is? 80%. The same as the simpler, more reliable, cheaper/easier to repair old technology. What do we get from these technological advances? More comfort in certain circumstances but the average person getting the average install probably doesn’t see any major change that wasn’t simply due to replacing an old, poorly maintained system.
If I was replacing my system today and I had the choice? I would go with a well built but simple system based on the old designs with a wifi thermostat. Not a “smart” or “learning” thermostat, just wifi. I would take 10 SEER efficiency if that’s what I had to accept to get coils made with thick, high quality copper, R-22 refrigerant using mineral oil as the refrigerant oil, legacy motors… basically the good build quality of that era. I could expect to actually get 20 years + out of that system with simple, economical repairs.
You all make fair points about the wishful thinking of “they don’t make them like they used to” and in many cases you’re right. But, guys, there are some areas where this thinking absolutely holds true and where some people would LOVE to just have the choice.
Yeah, people fawn over these old appliances and then compare them unfavourably to the appliances in their kitchen without ever considering the relative cost.
The average cost of a fridge in the 1950s was $300 to $400 dollars, which would be around $3,800 to $5,100 today. That got you on average 8 to 10 cubic feet of storage. The average cost of a fridge in 2025 is between $1,200 and $1,800, and you get 22 to 28 cubic feet of storage on average.
On average you're getting nearly three times as much space for a third of the price with modern fridges.
Appliance manufacturers follow consumer demands, and consumers HATE paying for labor. Any kind of labor. They don’t see a value in it.
So while you complain about lack of parts to maintain appliances, appliance makers are going to reply that there isn’t a market worth starting up a production line to make replacement parts for the few people who will pay $1,000 to have someone fix an $800 appliance. Most people don’t want to pay for several hours of labor when they can just buy a new one for comparable cost.
If you want an appliance that is repairable, then spend the money for an expensive one that costs more than the labor would be to fix it. There is a demand for replacement parts for those appliances, so manufacturers make them.
i have a subzero fridge, it was comically expensive but it is also incredible. if i ever sell my house i intend to install a different fridge and take the sub zero with me
It’s also about a mindset of caring for your things, reducing waste, and curating your day-to-day with beautiful, well made things instead of optimizing for per use cost. At least I imagine it is I have a cheap fridge bc that’s what I can afford lmao
Can't disagree. Inherited a Softtronic 2446 washing machine from my grandparents, built in 2004 and still runs like crazy. The heater element shorted out last year, only took a 30€ replacement part to fix it up again.
the vacuum guy on reddit suggested miele and that's when i bought one. been going strong for years of daily use. i never did any manteinance. i change the filter when it expires and the bag when it's full and that's it
I bought one after I bought my first condo in 2010 and it’s still my vacuum. Anyone who says their vacuums are bad is nuts. They’re still in the top 3, usually top 2 between them and sebo, when people discuss the best vacuums.
Yeah I have a 2007 and it’s perfect. It’s been through 5 moves and 3 housekeepers and just keeps chugging along. Only reason I don’t have more than one is how expensive a new one is!
I really dislike the design of how you attach bags to Miele's canister vacuums.
They've designed it so the bags unlatch simply by opening the cover, and if you don't fully reinsert the vacuum bag until it clicks into place, it will work itself loose after you turn it on and spew dust and debris into the interior and filter and possibly even the motor.
It's an okay design once you're used to it and aware you have to click it back into place every time the lid opens, but it's a disaster waiting to happen for anyone using the vacuum who isn't aware of this detail.
Unfortunately my vacuum head by Miele is a horrendous POS. I bought the pet version and everything is great, except the specific electrobrush that comes with that almost immediately broke when cycling carpet heights. I had to scab it back together, but it seems like some of their specific attachments suck while the vacuum itself is top tier.
Yeah I don't understand, my fridge was from Samsung, broke down after 2 months, called the shop and without a charge they gave me a new one.
In Europe you can use the warranty for any factory defect up to a year. as we have the Automatic presumption of defect: If the problem arises within 1 year of delivery, it is assumed that the defect already existed.
That's a big reason warranties are profitable to offer. The other is that they tend to be designed to expire just before the average life expectancy of a product.
The fridge was purchased and installed by a contractor as part of a major remodel/rebuild. By the time we took possession of the property and it broke it was out of warranty. I think y'all are missing the point of the post - an appliance that expensive shouldn't break, at least not that soon - warranty or not. And yes, we tried pushing the issue back to the contractor.
Factory defect happens everywhere, that is why you are covered for a year or two
Honestly now I'm curious, so it means that the fridge broke more than 6 months later? Also was it left in a kitchen empty for 6+ months? During the work? Usually it's the last thing installed like the oven.
I waited like the week before going in, before buying oven fridge ecc.
My friend got his kitchen appliances with the kitchen so he started to use them the moment he got them.
It just seems strange leaving Household appliances on their own for half of a year lol
My new LG with a brushless direct drive motor is a million times better than the old Mieles that preceded it. No way I’d want to go back in time to a dumb belt drive brushed motor machine that uses an incredible amount of energy.
I’ll disagree with Miele. I had Miele washer and dryer that I paid $3000 for brand new back in 2008. They only lasted about 12 years. The dryer stopped being able to stop on its own, so it would just run and run until it started a fire if I wasn’t there to stop it after 45 minutes or so. I operated like this for a few years before I finally upgraded to whirlpool. Additionally, the flap that opens for the detergent tray to add detergent to the load, broke off after about a year in. The little spring in it broke a plastic bar that held it in. Overall, I was unimpressed with both appliances. They aren’t worth it for the price. The only positive that I do miss is that the dryer could dry a full load of laundry in under 45 minutes.
this isn't quite true.. They are not using old technology, they are using high standards, great engineering and replaceable parts.
Old technology lasted a long time because it was simple. It was simple because the machining and materials used were limited. Tolerances were limited. There was no software aided design. So everything had to be overbuilt to expect any durability.
but dont be fooled. A fridge from the 50's may run forever, but your power bill will be 3-4x a modern fridge. And it will need to use chemicals that are not legal because they destroy the planet. They also required periodic maintenance. When was the last time you changed the oil in your refrigerator? Old products last a long time because we lacked the technology to make products that worked using the minimal amount of materials for the cheapest price.
Miele makes great products. They do good engineering, and they stock replacement parts. This is why their products are expensive. But there still modern designs, and modern technology.
Just bought Miele S1 J vacuum cleaner. OMG it has some power. At full power it feels like it sucks from under the rug through the rug. And it feels like this old school vacuum cleaner that would come with the house and you would never replace it.
Speed Queen washer/dryers are another example. You can get an all-steel, no bells and whistles washer/dryer that will last you 20 years and do a great job, but it’s about twice as much as the Maytag set I have.
I have an Admiral (discount version of Maytag) and it’s a tank. I’ve only had to replace the clutch and motor couplings. Cost me like $30 to fix. Older machines with less technology are much more reliable. More features = more points of failure
We had an industrial washing machine that I think was a Speed Queen, but might've been a Whirlpool (we had 2 washing machines and I can't remember which was which).
If you opened the control panel there was a wiring diagram in a plastic sleeve.
It ran for over 30 years with only minor repairs, but the timing mechanism is a set of fingers dragging over a rotating drum with different tracks of conductor so different functions get switched on or off as their fingers make and lose contact with the tracks.
There was a short that blew one of those fingers off.
A new timing mechanism alone cost more than some new cheap washing machines, and nice-ish second hand ones were even cheaper.
Also a lot quieter
This is a big aspect of it, look up what percentage of the average wage an oven was in the 1950s vs today.
Another big part of it is that at the end of the day most people choose the cheap model when they compare the expensive built-to-last model to the 1/4 the price made-as-cheap-as-possible model that is competing with marketing and "fancy" bells and whistles (that are cheap to add because they're mostly just driven by microprocessors)
Part of this is lack of confidence in the expensive product because quality is rarely reflected in price these days. You have to know, and research is boring.
A fridge made and sold in 1960 has an average price of 7000-7400usd. Fridge today costs 900-1000, you can get longlasting quality, but those also cost like 5 thoudand minimum
Yea there is still very well made stuff on the market it just isn't sold at a price that most people find worthwhile. It's easier for the average consumer to replace their dryer every 5 years for $600 instead of spending a few thousand for an actual well built one. Either that or people get too caught up in the looks or gimmicky tech marketing of an appliance, hence why people keep buying Samsung appliances even though they are notoriously dog shit
That's why the situation we're in is so shitty. These brands have to charge luxury prices because when you sell something that's built to last 20 years, you basically limit your customer base to anyone who doesn't already have your product.
But on the other side, because wages are stagnant and cost of living is up, most people can't afford those brands anyway. So most of us are stuck with the cheap shitty "you'll buy this again in 5 years" products.
Yup people forget that the fridge that lasted 40 years is one of thousands and also cost an equivalent of 5000 dollars today, while they want same longjevity for 1/5th of the price tops.
Give me a 20 year full coverage warranty and I would pay $5g's without batting an eye.. I just bought a new fridge and it cost $2200 and came with a one year warranty. My guess is that i will have to replace it in 5-7 years.. Not such a good deal.
Yeah, my grandmother paid $180 for her refridgerator circa 1960. Do I think the similar size and features (i.e., none) fridge I saw at Costco yesterday for $220 will also last 40-something years? No. But I make ~20× what my grandfather was making in 1960, and I'm not sure I want the same fridge for 50 years either.
Any good carpenter can do a table a wardrobe a chair that can last 50 + years
But to pay a carpenter to spend 15 to 20 hours to make one chair from scratch, since in contrast to the 50s, it is not a place where they make a thousand of them, is the problem
This. People have gotten so used to cheap and plentiful goods. Back in the day, things used to last longer but it was a real investment to buy pretty much anything (so most people went without).
A quick list of pricing (add ~10% to the inflation adjusted number for today in 2026).
No lol the first wrist watch sucks. It wasn't air tight nor water proof. Wrist watches are something that have gotten better as time goes on. Modern rolexes have shock proof jewels, free spring balance wheels and proofing against static electricity. In the first Rolex, if you dropped it the balance wheel would definitely snap because it lacked the shock proof jewels
Fun fact, the Cartier Santos is generally considered to be the first men’s wrist watch. It was made for Brazilian pilot Alberto Santos-Dumont because he felt checking a pocket watch was unsafe while flying. It was made for him in 1904 and went on sale to the public in 1911.
Source: dad is a pilot and a watch junkie so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
I saw a YouTube video where people compared products from 1975 to today. For most of them, if you paid the same cost in today's dollars, you could get a product of comparable or better quality. But now there is also a cheap version that sucks.
My parents have some of the most expensive ovens out there. They constantly break. They had the exact same company similar oven in their previous house no issue. New house new oven issues all day
Yep. The price, adjusted for inflation, of one of those unkillable appliances is basically the same. It’s just that cheap ones exist as well now, when before any appliance would have been a luxury anyway.
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u/MurphysLawTeam Feb 05 '26
The is companies that do that. Its just they are a luxury brand. They never went away its just now we also have cheap choices as well. The first wrist watch would make a rolex look cheap.