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Originally Posted by JSH
Going by the statistics - cars are getting steadily more reliable.
From personal experience modern cars are far better than cars from even a few decades ago. My 2005 and 2009 were near flawless - just routine maintenance by the book except for the coolant 3-way valve that feeds the thermos. The 2014 TDI was a bit of a lemon but that is due to the dieselgate emissions fix. I took a gamble - it didn't work out but I sold the car for more than I paid so that isn't' too bad.
Computers - my $250 Chromebook from 2014 still works. I did replace it a few years ago when Google stopped providing security updates. Now it is just a garage computer for looking up things that can get dirty.
Same with tablets. My wife just got a new iPad so I'm using her old iPad Mini 4 in the plant at work to look up BOMs and assembly drawings. It still works fine but I won't use a device for regular use that doesn't get updates. If I drop it and destroy it at work - no harm done. It is from 2015 and got 7 years of updates.
Same with her old original iPhone SE. It dates to 2016 - it stopped getting updates at iOS 15 so it got passed on to my father who doesn't even text so there is no danger from lack of security patches. She now has an iPhone SE 2 - which I'm confident will work fine until it stops getting updates after 5 years.
Speaking of phones - 5 years ago they were super delicate and cracked with the slightest drop. I dropped my company iPhone XR off a motorcycle at 35 mph and it still worked and only had minor scratches on the screen.
I prefer Android to Apple products but I have to give it to Apple - they support their phones for 5 years minimum which makes them cheaper in the long run vs an Android phone that might only get 2 years of updates. I actually just traded a Google Pixel 5A for the new 6A because with the Christmas sale price and Google trade it was a direct spot. I paid $0 to trade in a 1 year old phone for a new one and the Pixel 6A will get 5 years of updates. Here's hoping other manufacturers step up and support their products.
So no - my electronics haven't broken. The problem is eventually they are no longer supported by the manufacturer. My phone batteries have also lasted years but I don't abuse them. You won't see my phone battery getting below 30%.
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To be clear, my only problem with my Avalon, as far as reliabilty goes, has been the infotainment center. Other than that I've only done the required maintenance and haven't needed to do anything else. And I don't even have to adjust valve lash or pack wheel bearings!
The computer was one I built myself and I just seemed to have ended up with a defective CPU. I got the CPU traded in for another one without any problem. But finding the fault was a pain as I didn't have another 12th gen motherboard, CPU nor DDR4 memory to try. So I had to send things back through mail and wait for replacements to them one by one.
But it upsets me to see what happens to other people, especially those who I'm close to. I just found out another friend ended up paying $27,000 on a 2009 Subaru Impreza with over 90,000 miles on it. It is the WRX version, but still, the MSRP on a 2023 Impreza is less than $20,000! He also had a part that got damaged that he's been waiting for for months because it's backordered. Maybe I shouldn't get all wound up about other people's decisions.
But the Ford Escape's transmission going out at just about 100,000 miles is still enfuriating in this day and age, especially after what the car had cost them in the first place.
As far as cellphones go, the one thing that I hate is that there are practically zero phones now that have FM radio. I've been in natural disasters where all cellphones, landlines and internet had failed for at least 3 days. The only way to get any helpful information in that situation is via FM radio. Android phones used to have FM radio, but now they don't. So now I can't rely on my phone for listening to authorities during a natural disaster. Add to that the infotainment center doesn't work in the Avalon. So when I'm at work at night cleaning toilets and the power, internet, phone service goes out I will have no idea what's going on or what authorities are asking to be done unless I brought yet another separate device just to listen to FM radio.