Is anything well made anymore? 0

[the blob]

9 hours ago, Bronty said:

I wouldn't call a $80 wallet (high enough price point as that is) 'luxury' per se... just nice. 

I'm thinking the 8k alligator handbags for the ladies, you know?

Furla is a "luxury" brand, or it was.  It would be $200 at Bloomingdales, I just buy at closeout stores.  Furla no doubt makes $2K wallets and those probably still are made in Italy and made well.  They have made in china lines for the rif raff like me.

[Foley]

15 hours ago, NoMan said:

Or you could buy a Grand Seiko that's completely handmade for around 5k.  Sorry, I'm a Grand Seiko fanboy

No problem with you being a fanboy, Grand Seiko's are very fine timepieces, I'd be proud to own one. If I had to choose a couple watches for (somewhat) reasonable prices, I'd probably go for an Omega Speedmaster Professional (Moon watch) for casual, and a Jaeger Lecoultre Master Ultra Thin for formal.

Even these are a stretch at 5k each, and chances are there will always be something more important to spend the money on, like actual necessities, or comics. 

[Buzzetta]

On 2/10/2017 at 1:52 PM, VintageComics said:

I'd say "NO" emphatically. They DON'T build things like they used to.

Remember all those companies that were known for outstanding quality? They no longer exist. And why? Because the general public doesn't want to buy a car or a piece of clothing and wear it forever. They want something new and shiny every week / month / year.

I worked for Mercedes Benz for 11 years and for 11 year prior worked alongside Benz / Porsche / BMA / Rolls / Jaguar, etc. Nothing is built like it was decades ago. You used to buy a car that would actually last a lifetime. Now it's designed to last 4 years. I don't care what the manufacturers say.

The general public 'say' they want quality but what they mean is that they don't really want to pay for it. They just want it at the cheapest possible price. The problem is that there is a direct correlation between price and quality. If you want better you have to be willing to pay for better, but most people won't. They'll just stop buying the more expensive product and then the manufacturer will have to drop the price by cutting corners to stay competitive and voila, back where we started.

We're a short sighted society.

My 2001 Mustang still goes Zoom Zoom

[ComicConnoisseur]

On 2/10/2017 at 1:52 PM, VintageComics said:

I'd say "NO" emphatically. They DON'T build things like they used to.

Remember all those companies that were known for outstanding quality? They no longer exist. And why? Because the general public doesn't want to buy a car or a piece of clothing and wear it forever. They want something new and shiny every week / month / year.

I worked for Mercedes Benz for 11 years and for 11 year prior worked alongside Benz / Porsche / BMA / Rolls / Jaguar, etc. Nothing is built like it was decades ago. You used to buy a car that would actually last a lifetime. Now it's designed to last 4 years. I don't care what the manufacturers say.

The general public 'say' they want quality but what they mean is that they don't really want to pay for it. They just want it at the cheapest possible price. The problem is that there is a direct correlation between price and quality. If you want better you have to be willing to pay for better, but most people won't. They'll just stop buying the more expensive product and then the manufacturer will have to drop the price by cutting corners to stay competitive and voila, back where we started.

We're a short sighted society.

Same with HDTVs and laptops.  In most cases it's cheaper to buy new ones than get it fixed.  

[Hamlet]

On 2/10/2017 at 0:52 PM, VintageComics said:

I'd say "NO" emphatically. They DON'T build things like they used to.

Remember all those companies that were known for outstanding quality? They no longer exist. And why? Because the general public doesn't want to buy a car or a piece of clothing and wear it forever. They want something new and shiny every week / month / year.

I worked for Mercedes Benz for 11 years and for 11 year prior worked alongside Benz / Porsche / BMA / Rolls / Jaguar, etc. Nothing is built like it was decades ago. You used to buy a car that would actually last a lifetime. Now it's designed to last 4 years. I don't care what the manufacturers say.

The general public 'say' they want quality but what they mean is that they don't really want to pay for it. They just want it at the cheapest possible price. The problem is that there is a direct correlation between price and quality. If you want better you have to be willing to pay for better, but most people won't. They'll just stop buying the more expensive product and then the manufacturer will have to drop the price by cutting corners to stay competitive and voila, back where we started.

We're a short sighted society.

Honestly, people seem to have complete rose-colored glasses about the past.  American cars from the late 70s early eighties were expensive pieces of junk.  That is why the Japanese cars became so popular.  100k miles used to be a lot for a car, and people had to get new ones every 5-7 years.  Now even the worst cars last ten years on average.  I bought a 2008 Kia Rhonda, the definition of a disposable car, and it has 100k miles on it and shows no sign of major issues.  Are there any major car models these days that aren't likely to be good for 10-15 years?

My uncle has sold cars for nearly 40 years, and he talks about when he started selling them, you almost always had the customers bringing them back for (minor) repairs in the first month because the quality control was so hit and miss.  These days that is rare.

 

[VintageComics]

16 hours ago, Hamlet said:

Honestly, people seem to have complete rose-colored glasses about the past.  American cars from the late 70s early eighties were expensive pieces of junk.  That is why the Japanese cars became so popular.  100k miles used to be a lot for a car, and people had to get new ones every 5-7 years.  Now even the worst cars last ten years on average.  I bought a 2008 Kia Rhonda, the definition of a disposable car, and it has 100k miles on it and shows no sign of major issues.  Are there any major car models these days that aren't likely to be good for 10-15 years?

My uncle has sold cars for nearly 40 years, and he talks about when he started selling them, you almost always had the customers bringing them back for (minor) repairs in the first month because the quality control was so hit and miss.  These days that is rare.

 

You make some interesting points. IMO the 70's and early 80's where when the American companies took a turn for the worse and their cars went from being world class pieces of art (the 1950's and 1960's cars were some of the most beautiful cars ever mass produced and also reliable) and with the looming oil crisis and rising interest rates in the 70's/80's, for some reason the Big 3 decided to produce junk that was a shadow of it's former self.

Mercedes and the German manufacturers still provide bulletproof cars during the 1980's and even into the early 1990s.

I think it was Chrysler's short merger with Mercedes in the mid/ late 90's that turned the German industry on it's ear. In a desire to save money, Mercedes took a play from Chrysler's 1980's playbook and what and they changed their philosophy for building cars. That's  when they came out with their ML SUV (built in the US) and changed the way the built their German cars as well.

The result was that we had more recalls for each model in the late 1990's than Mercedes had previously in their 100 year history.

A specific example would have been the way they treated their body panels. Mercedes would dip their panels for corrosion protection and their cars up until the mid 1990's had spectacular corrosion resistance. For some reason, an executive along the way decided they could dip ten times as many body panels in the same solution. The result was that the solution was watered down and they had monstrous corrosion problems in the late 90's and early 2000's which resulted in many recalls and customer complaints. They went from building legendary Benz's to having 1990 Hyundai levels of problems (not to pick on Hyundai but their entry level cars were initially terrible - they build great cars now)

I think manufacturers like BMW and VW/Audi tried to keep up with Benz's sales volume and so they also lowered R+D costs and just began pumping out lower quality junk as well. Like the 1970's and 1980's for the Big 3, the 90's were the turning point for German cars who up until the mid 1990's were still solid cars.

I saw problems in the 1990s on Porsche cars that a grade school student wouldn't produce (like battery acid venting right onto an AC condensor - lol)

The Asian manufactures likely saw this as an opportunity and stepped in to fill the void but doing the opposite of what they had been doing. They initially came to the American markets with throw away pieces of junk in the 60's/70's/80's but by the time th e90's hit they were selling reliable cars. Some of their models were actually bulletproof. Cars like the Toyota Avalon, Camry, Corrola (short of corrosion issues, which are always a problem where there is snow/ice/salt) became the million mile cars that the 60's American cars and 80's German cars represented.

From what I'm hearing now, even the Japanese cars have their problems currently and the Korean cars are taking the spot that the Japanese cars had in previous decades. When I rent a car (which is often) I tend to gravitate towards a Hyundai and I really like them currently.

So it's really cyclical. Each manufacture had it's best years, depending on the decade.

Now don't ask me about watches. I know nothing about those.

Edited February 13, 2017 by VintageComics

[VintageComics]

Oh, and I gre up in a car family. My dad had one of the earliest transmission repair shops in Toronto in the 60's and I was in the auto industry myself for over 2 decades. Most of my family still is.