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Planned obsolescence. Charge half the price, but make it break and get replaced 4 times. Meanwhile, my 90 year old grandpa has a house and a garage full of solid well-made items spanning from the 1940s.
There is no shortage of consumers who think buying "disposable" goods is a good deal.
It is getting so bad that I am now saving every receipt and returning everything with a flaw. Just last week I bought a large pan, unwrapped it to cook, and the factory tooling machine torqued the pan so hard that is was not even a perfect circle and lid didn't fit at all. Return, return, return.
The more people start returning this junk and getting their cash back, the problems the stores will have with wanting to carry those brands. And after you return it, do not replace it with a better looking one, walk out of the store and go buy USA somewhere else.
Planned obsolescence. Charge half the price, but make it break and get replaced 4 times. Meanwhile, my 90 year old grandpa has a house and a garage full of solid well-made items spanning from the 1940s.
There is no shortage of consumers who think buying "disposable" goods is a good deal.
It is getting so bad that I am now saving every receipt and returning everything with a flaw. Just last week I bought a large pan, unwrapped it to cook, and the factory tooling machine torqued the pan so hard that is was not even a perfect circle and lid didn't fit at all. Return, return, return.
The more people start returning this junk and getting their cash back, the problems the stores will have with wanting to carry those brands. And after you return it, do not replace it with a better looking one, walk out of the store and go buy USA somewhere else.
It used to be that employees had a vested interest in making quality products. In the late 70's, when Business "leaders" decided they no longer had an interest in a workforce that would want to identify with the products, poor quality is certainly not a surprising result.
I have a pair of Igloo-branded minifridges that are about two years old. Same product number, ordered at the same time, both plugged in consistently from the time I bought them till now.
One of them generally works okay but the little freezer piece works too well and, if unchecked, will ultimately turn to a block of ice that will grow to seven/eight inches in thickness, as I found out... the other keeps things chilled, but sounds like a very small jackhammer in the process.
Both of them were made in China and cost under $100 each when I got them. I wasn't expecting much.
Other than them, everything else I've bought in the last decade has worked more or less as I expected, meaning no grief to speak of.
I bought a water hose nozzle and I was looking for U S but had to settle for made in China. I was looking for quality and looked the nozzle over and paid 11 bucks. I broke it the first week by giving the hose a tug, I am not talking about a super man pull it was just a tug. To my surprise my end lost pressure big time I look back at the spicket and water is squirting everywhere. I look at the nozzle and what was holding the gasket was 1/8 th plastic strips on four sides. I asked myself who was the genius that would put cheap thin plastic at a pressure point. There was no fixing it and it ended up in the trash, them bast***s.
The Economy Is In The Toilet...People Don't Care...Quality Control Is Going Down The Drain.
This is an especially relevant topic for Labor Day.
I see this situation as the inevitable result of American companies falling so deeply in love with the communist Chinese labor force. We all see the effects in the poor quality of materials and workmanship in products imported from Red China. The greater disparity in income and decreased opportunity for decent wages due to the loss of our manufacturing base is just the tip of the melting economic iceberg we're seeing since this Great Recession began 5 years ago.
We should all pay attention to how our elected officials have been behaving in response to this economic downturn, because a certain bunch seems determined to prolong the agony for 99% of us.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,082,780 times
Reputation: 3937
Quote:
Originally Posted by SRV BODYGUARD #1
Is it just me, or do any of you other folks seem to notice this? Lot's of defective or flawed goods slipping through. I've done a lot of recent ordering of various items and have never gotten so many defective, damaged or flawed items in such a short time.
One such item was an airbrush compressor. The first one was not even operable and wouldn't hold air because of a check valve that was missing parts. Clearly no one even bothered to test run this air compressor before it left the factory. A new replacement was sent, but it also had a defect. The pressure regulator was stuck (the needle jammed) and had to be repaired also for it to work by myself. Are you guys serious?? Kidding me?? Get outta here. This wasn't some Wally World $70 piece of crap either....it was a famous maker (I'll leave it out to avoid slander) and costs nearly $300. Um yeah, what's up with that?
Fast forward a bit further.....several broken other items that either did not work and had to be sent back or had a big flaw, scratch or dent in them upon opening the package. Also high dollar knives and other sporting goods items.
The way it's been going lately, I would be half afraid to buy a new vehicle right now. Obviously people just don't give a damn.
What say you?
$1500 fridge bought last november...repairman has been here 3 timesunder warranty and we've had to file a claim 3x for food loss..first repair was 6 weeks into it.
$485 dishwasher purchased a year and a half ago smoked the circuit board at 13 months.(replaced with one with a MANUAL TIMER!)
$1700 Plasma cutter that blows the side out of the consumables about every 30' worth of cutting
$1800 Lawnmower that eats belts like they are free even after several trips back to the dealer to have the pulleys re-aligned..its 3 seasons old and I've had to weld the deck 3x in different spots so far this year.
$500 paint gun that has been taken and exchanged twice due to the fact that you cannot adjust the pattern on it worth a crap(this is from supposedly the "top" maunfacturer of paint guns!
One sander after another-grinders and various other electrical tools-seals in air tools and these aren't junk import tools either.
$1600 air compressor that blew the oil dipstick out of it two hours into its first paint job and will not keep up with a paint gun,much less air files etc etc even though the cfm rating is way beyond what should handle two tools at once and because it runs so much its always full of water.
This wasn't some Wally World $70 piece of crap either....it was a famous maker (I'll leave it out to avoid slander) and costs nearly $300.
Why? Unless you are completely making up this story, then how is it slander?
I think you should list the company so that people can avoid them. Otherwise, what good is it to complain? The only way companies change is when their profits are affected. If they are making inferior products, people complain and get others to stop buying from them, then their only solution is to start making quality products - or go out of business.
If you find a company that makes poor quality items that are expected to be high quality, you should let as many people as possible know.
This is why online reviews are so powerful. If you buy something that turns out to be a huge disappointment, you should post it everywhere so that others can avoid having the same disappointment as you. Fortunately, a lot of people do this.
On the other end, if you buy something that is great, and you're very happy with it - you should also post it everywhere so that other people can feel confident ordering that product. Unfortunately, not many people do this.
The more info there is, the better it is for consumers to make the right choices, and they can spend their hard-earned money on good products from good companies, rather than waste it on inferior products from shady companies.
But otherwise, I think this "phenomenon" of "things seem to break easier now" is also due to how complex a lot of things are now.
The more moving parts you have, the higher the chance that one of those will break.
Take video game consoles for example. I've had an SNES, N64, xbox, and Wii.
Guess which ones still work and which don't? The SNES (from the early 1990s) and the N64 (also from the 90s) still work. The xbox lasted about 6 years and then the laser disc reader stopped working. The Wii lasted only about 4-5 years and then the laser disc reader also stopped working.
The SNES and N64 don't have laser disc readers, and they still work, despite being nearly 20 years old.
Coincidence? I don't think so.
I've decided I'm done with video game consoles until they get rid of disc readers and go back to cartridges. There is no reason not to, since you can fit a ton of data on a cartridge now. Look at the "memory cards" that we have for things like cameras and whatnot, you can get 8 GB or more on some of them. You can't tell me that a modern game takes up more than 8 GB of room on a disc. It could easily be put onto a card instead of its current, inferior, medium.
It seems like most modern companies have never heard the saying: "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Since most products today seem to include as much as possible, which just means it's more likely to break.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,082,780 times
Reputation: 3937
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoulesMSU
Why? Unless you are completely making up this story, then how is it slander?
I think you should list the company so that people can avoid them. Otherwise, what good is it to complain? The only way companies change is when their profits are affected. If they are making inferior products, people complain and get others to stop buying from them, then their only solution is to start making quality products - or go out of business.
If you find a company that makes poor quality items that are expected to be high quality, you should let as many people as possible know.
This is why online reviews are so powerful. If you buy something that turns out to be a huge disappointment, you should post it everywhere so that others can avoid having the same disappointment as you. Fortunately, a lot of people do this.
On the other end, if you buy something that is great, and you're very happy with it - you should also post it everywhere so that other people can feel confident ordering that product. Unfortunately, not many people do this.
The more info there is, the better it is for consumers to make the right choices, and they can spend their hard-earned money on good products from good companies, rather than waste it on inferior products from shady companies.
I would be more than happy to share info on bad companies and products
,but it IS against the TOS on here to mention company names because this isn't a consumer complaint forum..if I understand the TOS correctly
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The Economy Is In The Toilet...People Don't Care...Quality Control Is Going Down The Drain.
