Are OLD CARS more RELIABLE? Planned obsolescence and SUSTAINABILITY in the AUTO INDUSTRY

They just don't make them like they used to. I'm sure you've heard someone say this when talking about

cars

and other things, maybe you even think it yourself, but is it really true that old

cars

are better and

more

reliable

than new ones? Our car. Manufacturers use

planned

obsolescence

to ensure that their cars start falling apart right after the warranty expires to force us to buy new cars sooner than necessary. Today we are going to talk about all this and

more

, but before we start talking about this. important topic i would just like to quickly inform you that today's video was brought to you by atlas vpn now atlas vpn includes some really powerful features at extremely affordable prices now we all know that privacy is lost the moment you connect but atlas vpn uses the main encryption standards to ensure you can restore your privacy, but it does much more.

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And to enhance your security, definitely check out the ActorVpn links below. Well, now back to our topic and I would like to start by telling you my personal story of how I came face to face with

planned

obsolescence

. A few years ago, I had this car. It was a 2009 mini cooper r56, not the s1, just the basic naturally aspirated one, but it was still a very fun car and it was a lot of fun to drive around the corners. I enjoyed that car now, when I bought it it was still under warranty just under. I was three years old and had just under 50,000 kilometers on the clock, so I was driving and stopped to go to a supermarket, parked the car, got out and when I came back I noticed a big puddle of food right under my car. and like any

auto

mechanic, I had to put my finger in the ground to see what was and what was going, so I towed the car to the nearest authorized service because it was still under warranty.

Long story short, my thermostat housing had cracked and was leaking. There was fluid all over the floor so when I came back to pick up the car from repair I was a little curious and asked the mechanic to show me the thermostat housing because I had had a lot of different cars before but I had never actually replaced a housing of the thermostat. It wasn't really a service item before, so the mechanic agreed and showed me this, a big piece of old plastic. I was a little surprised because all the other thermostat housings I saw before were made of metal, I mean I have another car, it's a 1987 Toyota Mr2, so it's 34 years old, 250,000 kilometers on it and God knows how many previous owners, so there's a good chance it's also been timed a few times, but it's in its first thermostat case and has never been replaced before because it's obviously made of metal, it's a nice, sturdy unit that lasts basically forever, so I'll give it a try.

I thanked the mechanic, left and started thinking who in their right mind would make a plastic thermostat housing. I mean, it's exposed to many, many, many heat cycles. and it is exposed to chemicals, so isn't it better to make it out of metal to ensure it doesn't fall apart? I mean, it's obvious that pedro slash bmw designed the engine in my mini. We are saving money by manufacturing the thermostat housing. plastic, this is a clear example of planned obsolescence, the truth is that they are making things that fail, but in my case it didn't work because they had to replace it for free under warranty, meaning the service even paid for the tow, so they lost money.

In my case, curiously, some time later I sold the car to an acquaintance and about 50,000 kilometers later the thermostat housing cracked again, so it was clearly planned obsolescence. In my case, they just did their planned obsolescence calculations a little wrong and it failed under warranty, but it's obvious that it's an inferior part that keeps failing, so it's also pretty obvious that the

auto

makers are evil and that, since You know, they manipulate us and are probably also part of the world control scheme of the Freemasons and Illuminati, yes. I'm sure there are plenty of secret societies and clubs and some very influential individuals out there, but using them to explain everything is just a convenient simplification for people who don't seem to want to think rationally, so let's take a step back and think rationally here.

Do car manufacturers make cars? Obviously, why do they make cars well so they can sell them and make a profit? Just like any company that makes shoes, pots and pans, computers, whatever, makes things so they can sell them for a profit. That's all, if you don't make profits, then you go bankrupt and cease to exist, so profits for manufacturing companies are like air for humans, without them you die now, while they have to make profits, at the same time While car manufacturers also have to comply with government rules and regulations and to ensure their cars sell well, they also have to meet consumer expectations and must give governments what they want.

Car manufacturers have to make their cars cleaner and safer and to do this they obviously need to add extra parts to their cars. To give car buyers what they want, they again have to add parts to their cars because car buyers always want cars to be faster, safer, more comfortable, more attractive, more efficient. They know they want cars to always be better everywhere and while at the same time adding parts to achieve this, car manufacturers must keep costs low because the cars must be priced competitively against all the other cars on the market. , so at the same time they add pieces without being able to drastically increase the price.

So this explains the plastic thermostat housing as well as the plastic inlet, you know, the manifolds, the plastic valve covers, the plastic water pumps, all the things that automakers aren't doing this because they're evil, they are doing it because they have to, they have to cut costs somewhere. They are forced to do it well. Yes, cars have become more complex over the years and of course being more complex means they have more parts and having more parts of course increases the chances of failure but there is another thing we have to understand . and that there is an illusion when it comes to the reliability of old cars, we have to remember that most modern cars can easily go 150,000 miles without maintenance or major checks back in the 60s and 70s, a car that did more 100,000 miles were considered beyond the hill at the end of their useful life, meaning they had five-digit odometers that reset to zero when driven over 100,000 miles, but in the '80s and '90s technology and Quality control had become so good that it made it possible for manufacturers to make some really memorable machines that seem to just refuse to die, these cars seem to be indestructible and even 30 and 40 years later many of them seem to be running strong and you know they are on the roads racking up the miles, but we have to remember that many of these vehicles are enthusiast owned and exceptionally well cared for today, whether it's a rare vehicle that values ​​an emotional attachment or something more, many of these cars They are exceptionally good and are constantly maintained to keep them roadworthy, for example.

The amount of money I had to spend to make and keep my 1987 Toyota MR2 in condition would be completely unacceptable for a new car now the most rational explanation for why some cars from the 80's and 90's look indestructible is that the condition was optimal for Back then, safety and emissions standards were not as high as they are today, meaning cars did not have to be as complex and, as we already said, technology and quality control were more than enough. to allow manufacturers to actually make some. robust vehicles, but there is another key factor why some cars of this era were so good and

reliable

and that key factor is something that is available today, but something that was not as powerful, precise or usable in the 80s and 90 and that something is computer simulations, so why do computer simulations matter?

They are important because today they are so powerful and so easily accessible that they allow engineers to design parts that last a certain amount of time. They can simulate the number of heat cycles and duty cycles. and they can see with pretty decent accuracy when a certain car component is going to start to deteriorate and malfunction or just fail completely, and this means they can make car parts and components that don't last much beyond the average mileage covered by the warranty. period of that vehicle in the 80s and 90s, this was not really possible. Computer simulation existed, but it was not as powerful, accurate or accessible as it is today, it was quite time-consuming and complex, which meant it was not cost-effective, so automakers couldn't use it to the extent they could. is used today and this forced them to play it safe.

They obviously didn't want to risk the brand image by having parts that failed prematurely so they made parts that were a little more robust than they had to be to make sure they went the distance so wait, does this mean that nowadays car manufacturers They are really evil now that they have access to this powerful and precise technology, they are actually using it against us, they are using planned obsolescence to ensure that their cars start falling apart right after the warranty expires. Well, let me ask you something. What do you think? Who is behind planned obsolescence?

Who determines how much planned obsolescence is put into cars? Well, the answer might surprise you because it's you and me and all of us. It's the car buyers because governments can set emissions and safety standards but ultimately it's the buyers who determine what sells well so obviously no one can force you to buy a car and once you buy it , no one can force you to sell it. This means that car buyers not only determine what sells well they also determine how long they hold on to something and this is very important because as a civilization we are still at the stage where we believe that the material things someone owns can increase your status in society and your value as a human being and that is why most car buyers replace their cars very frequently as many cars are not just a utensil, they are an instrument of joy, a way impress their peers and obviously car manufacturers know this and warranty periods are not based on some arbitrary rule, they are based on the average number of years the average person keeps a car and the interesting thing is that We can't get carried away with extended warranty periods when Kia introduced their 7 year warranty, they didn't suddenly become. the best selling car brand in the world many people continued buying cars with 3 and 2 years warranty even though these cars are not more affordable than kia cars and this means that the planned obsolescence that car manufacturers are doing in It actually makes a lot of sense let's remember that car manufacturers are motivated by profits and that's fine, just like everyone else, that's how our world works right now.

Now car manufacturers are only responsible and legally obliged to repair the car during the warranty period. Also, they only make money on the first sale, this means. Since there are no legal requirements or incentives for automakers to make cars that are more durable and reliable than necessary, developing auto parts that are more robust than necessary would be a waste because developing robust auto parts requires more costs and more energy in rather than developing auto parts that are as good as they need to be and this brings us to the elephant in the room

sustainability

sustainability

of the manufacturing

industry

of automobiles as well as many other manufacturing industries now our society the world we live in is a reflection of ourselves humans do not reshape the world based on some external input no one told us what to do we build our world based on our wants and needs our governments are a reflection of the human majority our car brands are a reflection of our wants and needs and the problem is that the majority seem to be two faced when it comes to sustainability, we all talk a lot about sustainability nowadays and we will all go to buy that ecological toothbrush, but also the next day.

Let's go out and buy a new car because our neighbor also bought a new car and who would want to look bad next to their neighbor, regardless of the fact that our old car was totally fine and could go many more miles and We do this with many other things. We replace many of our material possessions not when they have reached the end of their useful life, but many of us replace them very often when there is a strong enough emotional incentive to do so. In other words, we replace our cabinets, our smartphones and our furniture, not when they are old or broken, but when we think they have gone out of style or when we simply get bored of them, in fact, car manufacturers had at their disposal the technology to make a car that could be very durable, very reliable and very very durable, they could probably even make it have user serviceable and replaceable components, but apparently no one would buy a car like that, how do I know?

Here's an example from another pretty wasteful

industry

: We replace smartphones every year. every two years we replace them just because we like the new phone even though our previous phone is totally fine, now someone thought it was a bad idea and wanted to give everyone an alternative and thus the Fair Phone 2 was born which is not only made from fair trade materials, but also has user-replaceable and repairable components. You like a new camera, a better one that arrived. In the market, there is no reason to get rid of the entire phone. You can easily replace just the phone camera.

Now, from 2015 to 2019, just 115,000 phones were sold. Do you know how many Samsung Galaxy S6 phones were sold in the first month of the year? The launch of the 10 millionth phone in much of the world around us is a reflection of most of us. Currently, government laws and regulations only care about vehicle emissions while the car is running while the vehicle is on the road, there is nothing forcing car manufacturers to make cars. reliable, durable, easily repairable and therefore more sustainable, this means that car manufacturers are free to make things like this, an alternator that costs a small fortune but cannot be repaired when it fails, they are also free to manufacture components that are made by fusing multiple different ones. components into one big component, only one part fails, the other two parts work, but everything has to be replaced, everything is thrown away and they can easily justify this by saying that apparently these things contribute to a 0.5 reduction in fuel consumption .

And the fact of emissions is that car emissions are only a fraction of our total emissions and environmental footprint. The coronavirus outbreak showed this very obviously and in many places in the world people were staying home and no one was driving, hence the number of cars on the road. was reduced dramatically but somehow the air pollution did not reduce as much and this is because the people were still alive, they had not disappeared and this means that everything else was working power plants factories processing plants everything was working and creating emissions recycling cars obviously consumes energy and generates emissions and cars, like many other things, cannot be recycled 100 making new cars to replace old ones also consumes energy and generates emissions, this means that recycling something that did not need to be Recycling and making new things to replace them is wasteful no matter how you look at it, but our current government regulations only care about vehicle emissions while they're on the road and that's why we're getting a big push for electric vehicles. because electric vehicles have zero emissions and I get a lot of comments on my channel from people saying that electricity is the future, that electric cars can save the world, and that apparently there is a big clash between internal combustion engine cars and cars. electric cars and what this type of debate is really doing is that it is diverting attention from the important issue of the real problem and that is that electric cars won't really do anything for sustainability; in fact, in the worst case, they could worsen sustainability because electric cars obviously need very large battery packs and very long lifespans.

With current technology these battery packs are around 10 years, after which they must be recycled. Right now, a new battery pack will cost much more than the value of the used vehicle, which means the car will run, too. to be recycled too, although most of the things in it work properly, this means that electric cars as they currently stand have no hope of lasting more than 10 years and the scary thing is that we are currently ex we are recycling only about 5 of all electric vehicle batteries, for example, right now many countries in Europe are giving financial incentives to their citizens to purchase battery electric vehicles.

It's quite interesting if we go back 20 years earlier, many countries were also giving financial incentives for purchasing. of diesel vehicles because at that time it was taught that diesel vehicles were actually more environmentally friendly than gasoline vehicles because diesel vehicles have a lower CO2 production. 20 years later, the plant obviously failed, so let's hope the same mistake isn't made twice, so let's try to fix it. things are real planned obsolescence yes it is bad not necessarily nor car manufacturers car manufacturers are driven by profits and they should be driven by profits because that is how our world works currently if they are not driven ​​for profits then they cease to exist and planned obsolescence is necessary because it wastes energy and it is not profitable to develop things that are more robust than necessary, but the other side of the coin is that recycling things earlier than necessary and making new things to replace them is also a waste, obviously.

This is an extremely complex and very important topic and it's impossible to summarize it in a single video, so what I really want to do is scratch the surface of this topic or debate it, so to speak, and I really wanted to hear your opinion on this. What do you think is the change on the horizon? Will we be more sustainable in the near future? Will electric cars help or are we doomed? Are we going to try to fix things only when the consequences are too painful? So let me know. What do you think? As always, thank you very much for watching.

I'll see you soon with more fun, useful and maybe a little related stuff in the future on the d4a channel.