in part one:
there were a few points i was meaning to make but ended up wrapping up without making them.
but since “Some Guy” seemed to take it well, i decided to write this part 2 to make some of those omitted points.
( continued below )
To recap: “Some Guy” claims that the primary driver of reliability is simplicity, whereas i claim that reliability mainly comes down to the WILL of the manufacturer to make the product reliable.
actually this shouldn’t even be debatable when you consider that Jumbo Jets have several decades of service life with almost 24/7 operation in extreme conditions ( speeds over 500 mph, temperatures below NEGATIVE 50 degrees and a large air pressure difference inside and outside of the cabin ).
likewise international space station has been up for decades and some of the military bombers are still in service after more than half a century ! ! !
remember this B-52:
from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove ? ( a 1964 film )
the last one was manufactured in 1962 and they are STILL IN SERVICE after more than 6 decades !
why is it that those things are able to last MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY while everything you buy needs to be replaced in 5 to 10 years ?
by the time you finish reading this article you will know …
( continued below )
even “Some Guy” understands “planned obsolescence”
but Planned Obsolescence is the extreme case when a product is designed to fail on purpose … for example my 3M ear muffs designed to protect hearing from loud noise have a headband that always breaks after about 2 years BY ITSELF. it SPONTANEOUSLY snaps.
it was CLEARLY designed to do this because it ALWAYS breaks after the same period of time and the earmuffs were in production for about 5 times longer than that time period so they could have fixed it 5 times over IF THEY WANTED TO.
i know it is deliberate because other models of Ear Muffs from 3M do not have this issue - but they have OTHER issues ( also deliberate ). i actually ended up disassembling two pairs of 3M ear muffs and building one out of the parts of both keeping only the good parts and discarding the bad ones. 3M could have done what i did themselves at zero cost - use only the parts known to be good and not use the parts known to be bad - except the bad parts are there ON PURPOSE.
despite this engineered design flaw the 3M Peltor X4A are still the highest rated earmuff on Amazon a decade after i bought my first ones. when you’re a market leader like 3M Peltor you can afford to ruin your products on purpose and still be considered the best, so that’s what they do.
likewise Adidas Pool Slides also always fail after about 3 years or so IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY - the strap always unglues from the sole. you might think why don’t they just stitch the thing to the sole so it can’t unglue ? the answer is THEY DID ! ! !
there is stitching there … but it is FAKE ! ! ! it doesn’t go into the sole ! ! ! it is only there to make you believe when buying these Pool Slides that they will last - but in actual reality they are DESIGNED TO FAIL. Adidas been doing this for decades with no change to the design with hundreds of millions of them sold … and they will never change, because idiots keep buying them.
in fact they are still the highest rated Pool Slides on Amazon after running this scam for decades - because idiot customers simply ACCEPT that they keep failing after 3 years. they are too dumb to understand the completely obvious scam with the fake stitching.
reality is when you sell $20 ear muffs or $30 pool slides you can only make so much money unless they keep breaking every 2 years. if those ear muffs lasted 50 years 3M would be out of business.
but Planned Obsolescence is rather an exception ( a luxury that dominant corporations like 3M or Adidas enjoy ) more commonly rather than deliberately engineering a point of failure that will necessitate product replacement at exactly the right time - simply no consideration is given to longevity at all - or just enough to avoid replacement under warranty ( most companies do not have design resources of 3M or Adidas ).
( continued below )
the reason Americans accept warranty terms like 1 year or 2 years is because they are FUCKING STUPID.
if they looked at military shit still in operation after 20, 30 or 50 years they would realize that actually almost nothing should ever have a warranty less than 10 years, and most things should have 50 year warranty.
things CAN BE MADE TO LAST REGARLESS OF COMPLEXITY.
nothing is more complex than space and military tech, nothing is subjected to harsher use conditions and NOTHING LASTS LONGER.
why ? because the government and military aren’t suckers.
YOU ARE !
( continued below )
anyway let’s get back to cars …
yes on average WITHIN THE SAME BRAND more complex cars will be slightly less reliable … but this doesn’t hold true outside of one brand !
for example if you were to compare an average car sold in India versus an average car sold in Germany or Japan it would be simultaneously much simpler AND much less reliable.
but neither me or you have ever been to India so let’s focus on examples from America.
Toyota is the most reliable car on earth - this is why Toyotas are used for arctic expeditions
and by Islamic Terror groups alike.
When your life depends on your car’s reliability - you use a Toyota - period.
Toyotas are simple cars … not as simple as cars sold in India but simple compared to the average car sold in America, and you may be tempted to assume that is why they are so reliable …
but what about Lexus ? Lexus is very nearly as reliable as Toyota while being far more complex. How is this possible ? The answer is - aside from Lexus being made by Toyota RELIABILITY IS A CORE BRAND VALUE FOR LEXUS.
( continued below )
Lexus brand was created when BMW and Mercedes were already well established. Toyota knew they couldn’t compete with Germans on prestige or driving dynamics so i suppose they read “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu and decided to hit the Germans where they are the weakest - reliability.
either that or reliability was simply the only thing Toyota actually knew how to do.
and then just to drive the point home further in addition to stellar reliability Lexus decided to also offer stellar dealership service experience, because if your car is under warranty you may not even know the difference between the two.
the most extreme example of this came when after switch to direct injection Lexus engines started to fail on older cars that were well out of warranty and Lexus VOLUNTARILY fixed them all AT NO CHARGE despite the cars being out of warranty. Lexus then created dual injection system that solved the problem of carbon buildup that was causing the engines to fail in the first place.
Lexus didn’t have to do any of this - they did it because they wanted to send a message that when you buy a Lexus reliability and service is simply not something you will ever need to worry about.
The message was received and older customers who didn’t care about German driving dynamics and were looking to keep their cars longer ( old people do not care much for new things ) have switched over to Lexus.
BMW, Mercedes and Audi continued to use direct injection and simply giving the middle finger to people whose engines died. Instead of using dual injection to eliminate soot the German automakers installed particulate filters on the engines which removed the carbon particulates from exhaust ( to comply with European emissions ) but still allowed the carbon to deposit inside the engine killing it just outside of warranty period.
You may think - perhaps Audi engineers were not smart enough to design a dual injection system like the one found in Toyota and Lexus ? EXCEPT AUDI HAD THAT SYSTEM. in fact quite likely they invented it before Lexus. But they later decided it was cheaper to use an exhaust filter and leave the customer with a ruined engine.
i had a friend who owned a mechanic’s shop and he told me “Audis self-destruct. buy a Toyota” … this was 20 years ago, before YouTube even existed let alone before Scotty Kilmer became famous.
( continued below )
so Lexus vs Toyota example proves that complexity does not equal poor reliability. that was an example from Japan.
now let’s look at an example from Germany.
Porsche and Audi are both made by VW and between the two Porsche is more complex … but also more reliable than Audi. How is this possible ?
The answer is again … CORE BRAND VALUES.
if you ask somebody what is Audi ? they will tell you that Audi is the cheapest German Luxury Car - cheaper than Mercedes or BMW And CERTAINLY cheaper than Porsche.
when you see it this way you will know why Audis “Self-Destruct” because if you want a German Luxury Car and you can only afford an Audi - you will buy it even if you know it is trash - because you have no choice.
Porsche … is another matter …
if you ask somebody what is Porsche they will say it is a legendary car company - they will tell you about Air Cooled 911s and how they have one in their garage that they inherited from their grandfather and that it still runs …
( continued below )
In other words - Audis are disposable - Porsches are collectible.
if you compare Audi RS7
versus Porsche Panamera
on the surface you will be hard pressed to explain why the Panamera is 50% more expensive when they are both about the same size and power, both have all wheel drive and double clutch transmission and so on …
BUT THE AUDI IS TRASH
while the Porsche is not
there is nothing stupider than buying a used or tuned German car and all these “RS” Audis are effectively tuned, even though they are factory tuned and come with a warranty.
performance should be intrinsic to the car, not coaxed out of it …
tuning a passenger car to try to turn it into a sports car is like putting little girls on steroids and making them cage fight on UFC - it is degeneracy
Porsche Panamera is the only ground-up “super saloon” ( the equivalent of a naturally big dude that can punch through a wall without any training - think Francis Ngannou )
everything else like BMW M5 is a bunch of taxi cabs swapped with supercar engines ( little girls on steroids - think how Paige Vanzant broke her own arm by hitting her opponent )
of course everybody likes to see pretty girls try to knock each other out and everybody likes to see family cars do power slides - but it is still degenerate
( continued below )
now you may be asking - but Dissident, Audi RS7 has the same Engine Block as Porsche Panamera ! And Porsche uses Direct Injection just like Audi does !
well to be honest FRENS i don’t know the exact details on every model but i will give you this example i learned from " I Do Cars " channel
in one episode he showed so called “low friction” piston rings that are known to kill engines because they don’t properly do their job but are widely used anyway because they help get better fuel economy ratings …
and as you may know all companies are required to meet CAFE ( corporate average fuel economy ) standards.
when a shit company like Audi has to choose between producing a crap product and paying fines to government for not meeting fuel economy standards they will produce a crap product every time.
companies will do crazy shit to meet CAFE standards. for example Aston Martin used to sell rebadged Mercedes Smart cars:
called Aston Martin Cygnet, 1 liter, 3-cylinder engine helped offset emissions of Aston Martin’s own V8 and V12 engines.
Porsche had to spend a fuckload of money to create the Taycan electric car
which you probably think they made to compete with Tesla … but really they made it to offset the fuel economy of all of their gas guzzling ICE cars.
in fact Panamera Hybrid has the same fuel economy as Range Rover Full-Size SUV …
can you imagine the temptation to cut corners with hacks like low friction piston rings instead of spending BILLIONS to develop electric cars ?
reality is even the higher-end Audis like A7 and A8 are still cars built to a price point that cut many corners. even entry level Porsches like 718 and Macan cut corners. You really need to step up to 911 or Panamera to get a properly built car.
( continued below )
same with direct injection. not all direct injection automatically results in engines failing due to extreme carbon deposits. reality is you can tune things like injection timing and exhaust gas recirculation to optimize this. but what are the downsides to such tuning ?
we know VolksWagen got carried away with exactly that and paid $15 BILLION fine for so called Dieselgate
in Dieselgate VW basically detected emissions test and used different engine tunes while driving and while being tested for emissions.
direct injection is similar to diesel and can likewise be tuned and while i don’t know the specifics i assume it can be tuned for emissions, for power or for reliability.
Porsche clearly tunes for power and ends up with a hybrid sedan having the fuel economy of a full size SUV.
Audi clearly does not tune for reliability.
Whether it is fuel injection or piston rings or other things there are trade offs being made and different brands have different CORE VALUES that will affect those trade-offs.
the moral of the story though is that in the end it is not complexity but TRYING TO SAVE MONEY BY CUTTING CORNERS that ends up biting you in the ass.
( continued below )
ultimately the real problem is UNREALISTIC CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS
i am guilty of this myself and most people with limited budgets are. we look at cars we can afford and wonder why they aren’t perfect. the answer is because there are cars we can’t afford ( made by the same corporation ) and nobody would buy them if they were no better than cars we CAN afford.
the difference between me and other people is i can actually face this unpleasant reality while most people can not. most people insist that their old, fat, ugly wife is beautiful and that their rusted through civic is the best car ever.
when these people go to shop for a new car they simply can’t accept that any car they buy will be trash because that’s all they can afford - so what do they do ? they focus on things that are harder to ignore ( what is on the surface ) and ignore things that are easier to ignore ( poor quality that will result in problems later on ). they CHOOSE not to look for problems because they can’t handle the truth ( that they are buying trash ).
Military is the opposite. They buy stuff that looks like absolute dog shit but is actually built to very high standards and lasts for decades. Because military equipment is designed to win wars not to inflate your ego.
( continued below )
there is currently a mini holocaust happening online where BMW fanboys are all slitting their wrists because the new i5 / M5 has the top of the dashboard in regular plastic rather than in stitched leather like before … they argue that a $100 thousand car must have stitched leather dashboard …
that’s funny because an F22 costs $350 million
and doesn’t have any decorative leather stitching in the interior … neither does any other military aircraft or vehicle … nor does International Space Station that costs $150 BILLION ( with a B ).
the problem is then that the average poorfag believes that for 0.01% of the price of military / space technology they are entitled to 100 times the level of luxury and that if they then get a product that is all show and no go ( leather, wood and Swarowski crystals on the surface and self-destructing engine on the inside ) then it is because of “too much complexity” …
so the average poorfag thinks the way you “fix” modern cars is by throwing out “unnecessary” engine parts ( their definition of unnecessary is parts whose function they can’t understand, which is 90% of parts in a modern BMW )
on other hand they are adamantly opposed to and fight tooth and nail when BMW tries to throw out decorative leather stitching from the top of the dashboard … which is of course 100% and totally necessary because they can see it ( even though it literally has no function ).
( final conclusion below )
in conclusion - you are stupid and poor and should kill yourself
thank you for coming to my Ted Talk
or did you think part 2 would have a different conclusion than part 1 ?
sorry but reality is immutable.
it won’t go away just because you don’t like it.