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I heard that components from older cars (like the ones before '92-93) are more resistant than the ones from new cars. New ones are made from cheap elements, so if you push them to the limit they will almost certainly fail.

Is this true?

PS: my question is probably related to this light bulb conspiracy theory that's been floating around, which essentially says that newer products are produced in such a way that they fail after a certain period of time, so the consumer buys them again :)

To me sounds a little ridiculous that a bunch of companies agree together to make inferior products, but the fact that they are stuffing cheap things inside their products, sounds plausible, because they all want to sell them at the lowest price possible

Alex
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    It's probably unaddressable for cars in general, but let's see... – Sklivvz Oct 02 '11 at 19:26
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    It's certainly "easier" to maintain an old vehicle than a newer one: If everything is mechanical, you can fix it "yourself" with the right tools; if parts of the car are electronic, you have to rely on the manufacturer for a replacement. If the manufacturer stops producing the electronics for a specific model, it will be near impossible to keep the car running. In that sense, the old cars are indeed better suited to last a long time, even though they may keep breaking down. – Jonas Oct 02 '11 at 21:09
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    Not a real answer, but the fact that newer parts are more complicated will definitely have an effect. It's easier to maintain a solid block of steel than a computer. – Brendan Long Oct 02 '11 at 21:30
  • The „light bulb conspiracy” is not a myth. Dunno about that documentation specifically, but watched another one on planned obsolescence. It’s how it went. Companies separated the world marked of light bulbs amongst them and agreed to make theirselves the oligarchy. Then steadily reduce produce life expectancy. You can see that in history, the decreasing life expectancy. 1900: 2500 hours. 1950: 1000 hours. Other individuals/small companies with superior products were kept out of the market. – Kissaki Oct 02 '11 at 23:17
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    @Kissaki - do you have proof of the collusion (as opposed to everyone realizing the fairly obvious fact that it's a practice that's better for the EPS)? – user5341 Oct 02 '11 at 23:31
  • @DVK: Myself? No. The documentation linked to shows the internal documents from back then with a lot of information though. – Kissaki Oct 02 '11 at 23:34
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    @Kissaki, I think you'll find that simply repeating a myth and asserting it is true, without reference to any supporting evidence, is not a good way to convince people here on Skeptics.SE. – Oddthinking Oct 03 '11 at 01:18
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    @Kissaki: Wrong; the Philips QL bulbs are not kept out of the market and get 65.000+ hours. However, cheap bulbs are just a lot cheaper. – MSalters Oct 03 '11 at 08:31
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    @Kisaki just another conspiracy theory. – jwenting Oct 03 '11 at 08:46
  • as to lightbulbs: with different countries choosing different "standard" for fittings, it makes little sense for companies to sell all over the world. Price drops have accompanied the shorter life in order to make the total cost of operation of them come down. – jwenting Oct 03 '11 at 08:49
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    Lightbulbs: cheap bulbs are not only cheaper to buy, they also produce more light per electric power. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Light_output_and_lifetime. For special applications (traffic lights) this was acceptable (nowadays, LEDs take over). But already in the early 1900s, from an economic point of view, the higer-light-yield-shorter-lifetime bulbs were cheaper when considering replacement + electricity costs. IIRC, they weren't able to manufacture the wires precisely enough, though. This may explain the gradual change to more light yield and lower lifetime... – cbeleites unhappy with SX Apr 06 '13 at 19:27
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    ... [This museum](http://www.hessenpark.de/) has one of the old long-lasting bulbs on display. IIRC it is a 100 W bulb - you can easily see the red glowing wire, no strain at all for the eyes directly looking into the bulb... – cbeleites unhappy with SX Apr 06 '13 at 19:29
  • Probably is just too early to judge: how can you measure reliability over a long time of something new? Not an answer, but as I own a classic car I can say that it depends, especially at which part of "car" you are looking at. New cars clearly win in the subframe and bodywork: metal tech just got better in newer cars, noticeably. Old ones clearly win in the engine/powertrain. They are much less complicated (less stuff to break), they are over-engineered (every component in the engine was designed to withstand much higher forces), they need to withstand a much lower specific power output. – Lorenzo Dematté Sep 05 '13 at 07:59
  • If in the definition of "reliable" you put also the damage that people may receive in car accidents, then you'll see that old cars are **much** less reliable then modern cars. Old car's body was all rigid, so after the accidents the car (may) had just some little "bumps", but inside people died. Now cars may get destroyed but the body absorbs most of the energy and you may find people alive inside a completely wrecked car (source: my father has worked in an hospital in the last 20 years and *saw* this change. Pretty sure there are studies confirming this too). – Bakuriu Sep 07 '13 at 08:10
  • In Europe many modern cars are turbo-diesels, which been alleged that are less reliable than old fashioned diesels. There have been counterclaims that turbocharges are everlasting. – vartec May 27 '14 at 13:11

1 Answers1

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It looks like modern cars really are better when you adjust for survival bias

My subjective impression is that modern cars are much more reliable than older cars. But I can see one reason why fans of classic cars might disagree with this impression and it is one of those factors that can seriously bias someone's' perception. It is simply that any old car that is still on the road today is, by a process of natural selection alone, likely to have been on the reliable end of the reliability spectrum when new. The owner of a classic car doesn't see an unbiased sample of all the cars that were produced: she just sees her own car which has survived well (or perhaps the other cars owned by other enthusiasts).

The only way to make a sound judgement is to ask the question in a way that eliminates that survival bias. For example, "how many breakdowns occurred in the first 3 years". With this question you could compare, for example, the original Mini to the current Mini in an unbiased way.

There don't seem to be very obvious places where this history is accessible (but let's see what car-loving skeptics can find: perhaps someone can find the J D Power raw stats on reliability from 10 or 20 years ago). But there is some accessible evidence that points to the conclusion that modern cars are more reliable.

How Stuff Works has a summary which concludes:

...the general consensus seems to be that modern cars don't break down as often as older ones.

The evidence comes from maintenance costs:

The cost of maintenance has also fallen sharply as cars have become more reliable.

Supported by evidence about how long users keep cars before replacing them (which depends partially on their reliability):

A new vehicle-dependability study, from J.D. Power & Associates, agrees, claiming that the average age of a vehicle at trade-in has increased to 73 months in 2009 from 65 months in 2006.

J D Power themselves confirm the importance of this:

Automakers have improved long-term dependability by an average of 10 percent each year since the inception of the study, which is a testament to the industry's commitment to continuously improve and sustain quality, especially long-term quality," David Sargent, vice president of automotive research at J.D. Power and Associates, said in a statement.

I'd like to see longer term data on a consistent metric, but it looks as though the evidence says modern is better.

matt_black
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    could you please put the executive summary (TL;DR) at the top of your excellent answer? – user5341 Oct 02 '11 at 23:33
  • I think the first paragraph would count as such, DVK :) – jwenting Oct 03 '11 at 08:48
  • Using the idea of natural selection here was brilliant. – Kamran Bigdely Oct 07 '11 at 14:29
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    The study by JD Power & Associates is too short-term to measure anything, and probably has more to do with a certain recession between 2006 and 2009, which caused people to hang onto their cars en-masse for reasons *other* than reliability. – Ernie Nov 18 '11 at 18:59
  • Cars before the '90 were built with "indefinite lifetime" in mind. Nowadays, they are built with the idea that they will last for a given amount of years. Unfortunately, I have no evidence on this claim; it was explained to me in this way while chatting with a BMW engineer in Munich. The first evidence you give can be read in this light too: building to last requires to think about scheduled maintenance, to prevent wearing and keep it running. If you build with another focus (resistance does not matter, you have to reduce cost and maintenance) you are naturally going towards longer maintenance – Lorenzo Dematté Sep 05 '13 at 15:20
  • In short: relate maintenance costs to quality and reliability is not straightforward – Lorenzo Dematté Sep 05 '13 at 15:25
  • @Lorenzo Dematté If that is true, then in my mind the proper response is not to buy BMWs. There are certainly car manufactures that don't rely on planned obsolesce -- at least when it comes to the drivetrain. – Chuu Apr 30 '14 at 20:38
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    Consumer reports may have some relevant data - they send out surveys every year to members and compile info about the current reliability of used cars. – Michael Kohne May 26 '14 at 18:40