LOL, I just noticed it today really. It seems to me that when it is time for your warranty to run out, thats when your problems start. I am 1300ish miles out of my powertrain warranty (and beginning my 10 year, 100k HondaCare coverage) and in the last 1000 miles I have had:


-Wheel bearing replaced.

-CV Boot crack (DIY'ed)

-Front brake pads AGAIN (second time in a year...my fault, i have slotted and drilled rotors LOL, and this is a maint. item not really a repair).

-slightly clunky front suspension due to damper bushings catching on the bumpstops...going in for warranty.

-CEL as of this morning for Coolant Temperature Sensor 2 voltage high (p2185). I unplugged and reconnected both sensors today and the light went out, but ill be watching it closely. It will be back knowing my luck. LOL.

-I have a squeaky wheel...literally. the right rear is squeaking intermittently...unless I am braking. Brakes arent covered under warranty so I will watch it LOL.

Anyways, my point here is, I think these newer cars have timers on them . While not terribly expensive to fix if you know what you are doing, if you were to take this car to the dealer this is easily over a grand in repairs without the warranty. But other than that, its all little crap that I would expect to go wrong, but its conveniently happening JUST beyond my factory warranty.

I am going to bank on the fact that A) I can do all these repairs myself and save an a$$load of cash when the warranty does run out, and B) that fixing these problems now while they are small will head off larger, more expensive problems later. Basically banking on the fact that its a honda, and like most other honda's with a little TLC it will run for a LONG time.

But sitting back looking over the last month at my time I have put into the car it made me chuckle. I have put more time into this car between 60,350 and 61,350 miles, than I have on it any time in the past.


Again, I love my car and hope to have it for my children to drive someday, but I just found the coincedence kinda funny. Do cars these days have timers? LOL
[/end rant]

 

In Arthur Miller’s 1949 classic play, “Death of a Salesman”, the central character, ***** Loman is heard to complain . . .

I think *****'s onto something there . . . we can build things to run for a hundred years, but when they do, they cut into the manufacturer's future sales. Today, they engineer products to outlast the warranty, that's all. It's a sad fact of consumer capitalism.

 

I think its more like the engineers design a wonderful product.

A new team of engineer comes in to find the cheapest possible way to build it based on their available supplier sources and cost cutting techniques.

A new team of engineer comes in and calculates all the stress factor of the components and most probably duration before parts fail.

Then the finance guys comes in and figures out how to structure a warranty that makes the most money out of you

 

For the most part, I think cars are now built to be "disposable" within 10-15 years.

With rapid changes in technology and engineering, 10-year old cars can be considered obsolete...

 

Could it be the other way around? They design a warranty that fits within a threshold of supposed 'no issue' and expires when multiple issues are supposed to occur? Statistically speaking.

 

that's what he said.

i believe lil4x was saying that the product is engineered well enough to just have to last past warranty terms.

 

^That's the opposite of what I'm saying. The Item is designed, and then the warranty is built to expire prior to the item. Instead of item built to warranty standard, the warranty is built to the item standard.

 

I am reminded of Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem, "The Deacon's Masterpiece, or the Wonderful One-Hoss Shay" . . .

"Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then of a sudden it — ah, but stay . . . "

The cautionary tale can be read here: http://www.legallanguage.com/resourc...s/onehossshay/

From Holmes' own notes in the Preface:

". . . There is a practical lesson to be got out of the story.
Observation shows us in what point any particular mechanism is most
likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where
the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times
out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs.
The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then
find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically
at the perfect result attained by the deacon."

Passionate pursuit of perfection?

 

I hope not. My warranty is up in 2k miles

 

i had an Acer laptop break down a couple of weeks after the warranty was over. 5 different computer repair people couldn't fix it. piece of junk.