Is technology getting less reliable or is it just me?

[Isaac Zachary]

There have been lots of great improvements in reliability and longevity, in some aspects. But then there's the frustration of stuff that doesn't work no matter how hard you try.

Like I said in a couple of other posts, I have some friends who bought a car, a 2017 car for a lot of money. Well, the transmission is dead and it needs another one and it's not going to be cheap to fix either. So what now? The car has less than 100,000 miles on it. Do they put another, potentially, $6,000 into it. They had it towed to a dealer. They could try towing it to other places and shop around but their tow insurance allows for only 3 tows per year and they've already used up two of them.

I decided to build a computer as the old one, from 2011, was having some USB and freezing issues. I did a real simple computer without an accessories or graphics card. Just a new Motherboard, PSU, CPU, a M.2 Drive, and only one stick of RAM. Well, the thing would keep freezing and freezing to the point I couldn't even install Windows. So I replaced the Motherboard, the PSU, and tried 3 different drives and finally replaced the CPU. Troubleshooting took me 2 months! After that it seemed to work fine until today, only 3 weeks later, it now won't recognize the M.2 drive. Mind you I both used only parts off of the Motherboard's qualified vedors list and I even splurged and got a fancy Samsung Evo M.2 drive, which was on the QVL. But nope, I'm still battling with and will once again have to start returning parts for new ones.

At work we used to get Winsor equipment and never had any problem with them, until Kartcher Group bought them out. Now every single last piece of equipmet we get has a problem and needs to be sent back. And the time to get a replacement or get it fixed under waranty sometimes takes months. We got a whole pallet of fans, of supposedly high quality, and every last one of them does not work!

Even my own cars have problems that I just don't understand. The Avalon's infotainment center is buggy and does not work correctly. I know it's a minor problem, but it's already been fixed at a dealer. I hate that I can't get the ice and snow pack off from around the wheel wells in the Avalon as the rear wheel wells are made from some sort of fabric or fiberous material on this car. I can't even change my own brake fluid in the thing and I'm fed up with mechanics around here.

And don't get me started on problems I've had with cellphones!

Sometimes I feel like giving up on technology. It seems like it doesn't matter if something costs a huge percent of my paycheck and is brand new and highly rated, it will just stop working and then I have to call and get the waranty going and several months later get it back only to discover it still has the problem.

[redpoint5]

I put in a service call to Dell to replace a customer's failed SSD middle of November. The web portal kept updating me every few days saying the part was backordered. Finally I called to inform Dell this wasn't just someone's gamer PC, but used to calculate patient treatment, and that I needed it to be either replaced or repaired. They informed me that the service request had been closed a couple weeks ago, despite the website informing that it was still open and the part backordered.

I asked why the case had been closed, and they informed me that it's normal to close a case when parts are shipped. Since no parts had been shipped, I asked why the case was closed, and they pretended I didn't ask a question.

No problem I was told, now that warranty had expired 2 days ago, they could replace the failed SSD as paid service. This was 1hr into the "conversation".

I told the foreigner to transfer me to management, and was then transferred to a support line above the basic level, where people speak English natively and don't read a script like a mindless robot. The rep said he would speak with management and they might make an exception to replace the drive despite being out of warranty. I stated that they will replace the drive, and kept to myself the internal dialogue that I was making an exception by allowing them to anything but "yes sir".

[freebeard]

I occasionally pass by Main Strret Auto Sales and they always have an interesting inventory. Most recently. a turqoise 1961 Ford Falcon two-door and a 1951 Plymouth four-door among the others.

Has anyone else got plans yet for the 2023 Portland Roadster Show? It's March 17-19. I've arranged so my brother will do the driving and parking in Portland.

edit: My computer needs are small, it's the size of a deck of cards. I had a hiccup in the operating system (Ubuntu) so I swapped out the micro-SD card it lives on.

Realizing I only had one level of redunancy, I went to Best Buy and got a 64Gb card for $15 and imaged that and set it aside.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by freebeard

I occasionally pass by Main Strret Auto Sales and they always have an interesting inventory. Most recently. a turqoise 1961 Ford Falcon two-door and a 1951 Plymouth four-door among the others.

Has anyone else got plans yet for the 2023 Portland Roadster Show? It's March 17-19. I've arranged so my brother will do the driving and parking in Portland.

edit: My computer needs are small, it's the size of a deck of cards. I had a hiccup in the operating system (Ubuntu) so I swapped out the micro-SD card it lives on.

Realizing I only had one level of redunancy, I went to Best Buy and got a 64Gb card for $15 and imaged that and set it aside.

I learned to drive in a 1951 Plymouth 4-door Cranbrook. That car was sweet! I loved the three on the tree. It sure threw me for a loop though when I tried to drive my sister's 1973 Chevy Malibu with an automatic. I went to hit the clutch but instead slammed on the wide brake pedal and shoved the shifter up into park at the same time after I had hit about 10mph. I almost refused to ever drive an automatic ever again!

I got my computer working again. I reseated the M.2 drive. I love this thing as I got a 3.5" floppy drive as well as a blu-ray/dvd/cd drive. I need to add a TF and SD card slot reader, but I'm going to have to make my own as I don't have anymore room for front I/O. I'm soldering my own front audio jacks but don't have them up and running quite yet. Evenutally I want to add a multi-cart reader that I'll build to put on the side.

This is the case I put it in:
http://www.evercase.co.uk/index.php?...product_id=120

[Ecky]

I expect this is only part true.

In the 90's, cars (supposedly) needed frequent spark plugs, wires, distributor caps, valve lash, 3,000 mile oil changes, etc. so people were frequently under the hood, keeping an eye on things. The maintenance needs were much higher. Toyota made 4 speed automatic transmissions that would outlast their frames (lol) but if you look at most any other manufacturer (aside form maybe Honda), reliability has mostly gone up, while maintenance has gone down.

In the 90's and early 2000's, computers had an expected lifespan of 2-4 years. Maybe they'd continue running longer, but hardware was improving so rapidly, people hardly held on to them for longer. Plus, Windows installations would "rot" and you'd basically need a reformat every few years, even if you didn't replace the machine.

The last couple of phones I've had, I've kept longer than any (smartphone) I've owned before, so the reliability expectation is much higher. Plus it may not be fair to compare a flip phone with a modern smartphone, as the functionality is not 1:1.

I'll admit that I'm a bit wary of things like heat pump dryers, even if, on paper, they make a lot of economic sense, even assuming they fail every few years. I don't love the consumerist disposable device culture we have, but it exists for a reason - societal incentives create this.

[rmay635703]

Everytime I tell people I can’t own automatic transmission cars because they break

I get a mile of the transmission never breaks and lasts the life of the car and automatic cars always get better fuel economy .

Yet my own experience is that any automatic can fail at any time and the one transmission rebuilder in the area always has a lot full of mini-vans, Cuvs and SUVs waiting for a transmission.

I have had manual transmission swaps done on 2 of my vehicles (that couldnt come with one from the factory e) over the years with good results.

As an aside…
What 2017 are we talking?

I was always good at finding a 3rd party hillbilly to fix, occasionally if the vehicles transmission is otherwise rock solid (usually) you can risk one from a wrecker.

Occasionally an older or newer transmission from the same vehicle will swap in and provide an improvement

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

What 2017 are we talking?

2017 Ford Escape AWD

[freebeard]

How about a technology that was lost in the 20th Century? I've been learning more about Florida. Not the current politics, but it's Pre-Columbian history.

In the early 1900s Rockefeller, Ford and Henry Flagler were interested in the oldest city in the USofA. St. Augustine, FL. There in 1833 Franklin W. Smith built a house of slip-formed concrete using a mixture he'd learned from the locals.

The Ponce De Leon was built in in the 1800s and other buidling in the city, but Flagler stiffed Smith is a real estate deal and he died in poverty, the people he worked with passed and th erecipe for his 'coquina mix' concrete was lost.

Those buildings still look brand new today. They will outlast all that Brutalist architecture from mid-Century.

I think this has to do with the recent discovery of the secret of Roman concrete, which is the ratio of quick lime and slaked lime. So we can build infrastructure to last thousands of years.

[Ecky]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Everytime I tell people I can’t own automatic transmission cars because they break

I get a mile of the transmission never breaks and lasts the life of the car and automatic cars always get better fuel economy .

Yet my own experience is that any automatic can fail at any time and the one transmission rebuilder in the area always has a lot full of mini-vans, Cuvs and SUVs waiting for a transmission.

I have had manual transmission swaps done on 2 of my vehicles (that couldnt come with one from the factory e) over the years with good results.

As an aside…
What 2017 are we talking?

I was always good at finding a 3rd party hillbilly to fix, occasionally if the vehicles transmission is otherwise rock solid (usually) you can risk one from a wrecker.

Occasionally an older or newer transmission from the same vehicle will swap in and provide an improvement

As a counterpoint, the ND MX-5 (what I own) has a notoriously fragile manual transmission, whereas the automatic has no such reputation. It's probably a result of Mazda pulling too much weight out of it, combined with replacing the original 1.5L engine the car was designed around with a 2.0L (the US only ever got the 2.0L). Cars driven spiritedly are commonly known to blow up 2nd and 3rd gear. There have been 5 revisions of the transmission, making it stronger each time, and it's still not entirely a non-issue.

They did, of course, manage to pull 46lbs out of the transmission (based on what I've read) and 440lbs out of the car in total, which I find rather impressive. On the flip side, it's still heavier than a Honda FWD transmission, which includes the differential and can survive 500hp, vs 155hp.

[Isaac Zachary]

Originally Posted by Ecky

As a counterpoint, the ND MX-5 (what I own) has a notoriously fragile manual transmission, whereas the automatic has no such reputation. It's probably a result of Mazda pulling too much weight out of it, combined with replacing the original 1.5L engine the car was designed around with a 2.0L (the US only ever got the 2.0L). Cars driven spiritedly are commonly known to blow up 2nd and 3rd gear. There have been 5 revisions of the transmission, making it stronger each time, and it's still not entirely a non-issue.

They did, of course, manage to pull 46lbs out of the transmission (based on what I've read), which I find rather impressive. On the flip side, it's still heavier than a Honda FWD transmission, which includes the differential and can survive 500hp, vs 155hp.

It always seemed that Nissan manual transmissions always die an early death. But it seems that Nissan transmissions die an early death in general. I do wonder how well their high performance CVT toroid transmission lasts.