klein432 t1_iqt34g6 wrote on October 2, 2022 at 9:55 PM

Reply to comment by Carvemynameinstone in My mother's ~33 year old Whirlpool dryer. Still works amazing! by vocke

How do you figure? Most things break down eventually and need repair. Older appliances were much more repairable. I have had lots of success repairing older, simpler appliances that did break and need repair.

And contrast that with some horror stories about newer appliances that are near impossible/cost prohibitive to repair. There is a clear winner for reliability and longevity. As long as you are content with older feature sets and technology, its a clear winner. I have had many appliance people tell me this as well.

Carvemynameinstone t1_iqv2e6t wrote on October 3, 2022 at 9:11 AM

Isn't that what I said though? Mechanical based appliances are easier to fix.

Survivorship bias means that you have the ones left that still work, a ton of the older appliances are broken which you don't see anymore.

klein432 t1_iqwfee9 wrote on October 3, 2022 at 4:25 PM

If anything, the survivorship bias is in the OPPOSITE direction. People are dumping old appliances for some new shiny hotness, only to find out that it failed 4 years later and the repair will cost over half of a new machine.

Historically, appliances WERE repairable. Cars were repairable. That is the bias. The bias is for appliances that have failed and been repaired and still work in spite of a previous minor malfunction. And now, homeowners are all surprised pikachu when then new one doesnt last, and costs a fortune to try and repair or replace.

In my experience, old appliances are disposed of not because of they failed, but because people didnt want them anymore. I do home remodeling and I have pitched so many working appliances because the homeowners didnt like the way they looked, or wanted some programmable function. They worked fine. In fact , I try to make sure they find a new home because pitching old working appliances kills me inside.

I had an avocado green dryer once. I bought used for $50. It was probably 20 years old then. I used it for another 20, and sold it for the same $50 when I couldnt take it with me. Looked like shit. Ran great. I spent $35 on a new belt and rollers when they died. Took me 2 hours to fix. I have thrown out dryers in way better condition because the homeowner didnt want them. Not because of any functional problem.