Sometimes it's more like $300 (dies after 10) and $400 (dies after 4). Why? The marketing trick to price a product higher to look like a premium compared to competition.

It's hard to disprove that it is sometimes like that, but I would be extremely sceptical towards any claim that it is generally like that. I think it is safe to assume that price and quality are correlated in most cases.

Apparently not, at least in the world of dishwashers and washing machines. The expensive model is often exactly the same as the cheaper one, but with extra buttons, cycles and so on. Prices for white goods seem to be based on what the market will bear, not on the cost of production.

When I was born, my parents had a hoover twin-tub. It was still working 20 years later when I left home.

The first washing machine I bought lasted twelve years (the control panel had to be replaced once). I think I eventually replaced it because I had moved house, and it didn't fir in the new kitchen. Nowadays it doesn't seem to be possible to buy dishwashers and washing machines that last longer than 4 years. I threw out my "old" dishwasher after just one year; it had broken down 5 times since I bought it brand-new, each time for the same reason: failed heater. Each time I had to wait several weeks for the mechanic to show (manufacturer's warranty, contracted out to a service company). Each time, I asked the mechanic if he could recommend a make/model that would be more reliable. And each time I was told that I might as well buy a cheap one, they all break down as quickly as one another.

These mechanics are seeing what I am seeing: machines that break down much sooner than they used to 15 years ago. Well, that's a market failure; it's what government regulation was invented for.

Expensive models are made on the same production line, usually owned by the same group multinational that makes the cheap and mid-range brands. The factory, knowledge and workers who made the premium one when it was independent are now gone. It's exactly as you say. Even the vanishingly few properly independent premium brands have come markedly downmarket quality wise, by using the same techniques.

In the 80s and 90s the distinction and spread across the market was real. The buyouts and takeovers hadn't consolidated into just a few mega groups. The expensive fridge or washing machine was built, and lasted very differently.

Now we have Samsung et al building £1,500 premium fridge freezers and £800 washing machines that are just as unrepairable as the cheap crap.

It goes far wider than just appliances though.

Between anecdotal evidence from your mechanic(s) as recounted by you and this article[1] which contains actual hard numbers, I find the latter to be the most convincing. Which is not to say I doubt that what you recount has been yours or your mechanics' experience, but simply to say that there are all kinds of reasons why those experiences might not signify the true state of affairs.

If I were you, I would rely less on my mechanic to recommend me a product, and more on something like Consumer Report, which has a much more methodical and rigorous approach to assessing and comparing the quality of the products they test.

[1] https://blog.yaleappliance.com/most-reliable-front-load-wash...

Washing machines have an extra cheap line too (the bottom model of a make), which is tooled even cheaper than standard line (whereas regular stock uses 10k RPM four-pole induction or 1500 RPM four-pole synchronous motors, 600 RPM spin model of the same brand uses 3600 RPM six-pole asynchronous motors). Dishwashers have no such extra-cheap lines.

Based on what evidence, though?

Only anecdotal evidence but in my experience price and quality (as in lasting) are only very weakly correlated. In the past I tended to buy expensive (in expectation of lasting). The older I get the less I tend to do so even though I have now more money at my disposal. You're getting crap all the time independent of the brand.

Try flipping it around. If I presented an product to you and were able to convince you that it was of significantly better quality (more durable, fewer bad surprises etc) than other products in the same category, would you be most surprised to learn that it was also more expensive or that it was less expensive than these other products?

While it might be true that a higher price doesn't necessarily entail higher quality, it seems to me that higher quality almost always entails a higher price.

There are certainly a lot of cheaply/poorly build appliances covered in some shiny stainless or whatever the fashionable appliance sheathing of the moment is. New luxury developments have been pretty notorious for doing that sort of thing with the household appliances.

I've noticed quality of ordinary things has been declining for a long time now. Some things are better due to new technologies. Lot of stuff has just regressed.

Don't know why you were downvoted; new technologies should make things both cheaper and more reliable, but it doesn't seem to be working, at least not for white goods.

It's probably the opposite in many cases - new technologies allow to build things that are significantly cheaper, but also less durable. For example, thanks to precise numerical simulations, you can be much more precise in designing the elements so that they are as thin/light and use as little materials as possible. Before the CAD era, you just did it "by feel" and, to be safe, made things much more sturdier (and more expensive).

I have an example of that. In the late 1980's early 90's read an fluff piece in Product Design News or some such about a team of engineers at GE that got an award for designing a washing machine tilt sensor. The article then gushed that the reason this was wonderful was the tilt sensor would allow GE to replace expensive metal washing machine drum bearings with inexpensive plastic ones.

Without a tilt sensor they needed to use metal bearing because an out of balance load would break plastic bearings. But now with the tilt sensor plastic ones could be used.

New technologies add complexity. That always decreases reliability. Replace a robust button or mechanical timer mechanism with a touchscreen and now you have dozens of new components that can cause a failure.

I think in many areas it is just a race to the bottom, lowering prices at the expense of quality.

There's an (imperfect) cure for that - reviews.

That helps, but a) review are gamed extensively, b) a review usually can tell you that something has worked for a few days to a week after buying it.

If you want to know whether a product has an high chance to work in 2-3 year time you are out of luck, especially with SKUs changing all the time.

Yep. I'm fairly certain that companies change their SKUs all the time because they know that whatever they make will get a bad reputation (or neutral at best).

Can you provide an example?

Arguable. Nothing prevents manufacturers from offering 10 or even 20 years of warranty, except of course the market reality that few people would buy it when such a wareanty's costs are priced in.

And then that manufacturer declares bankruptcy after 3. Limited liability makes it impossible for corporations to offer a credible 10 or 20 year warranty.

When was the last time an appliance manufacturer went bankrupt? I can't think of any. There are some that aren't around any more, but it's because they were purchased by or merged with competitors (hence, in America, Whirlpool, Roper, Maytag, Frigidaire, etc., are all the same company now).

MFI's bankruptcy was just over 10 years ago. Hotpoint are now owned by Indesit who won't honour a warranty from ~8 years ago. And those are just the ones I've experienced myself.

An insurance company could offer it, however. They'd want to make sure the produce is of sufficient quality, and if it breaks, they'll provide replacements/repairs until the end of the warranty period.

Insurance could only provide a repayment, not repair.

They could contractually state a non-monetary compensation, i.e. fixing/replacing the broken appliance. Similar to a B2B service contract, where you pay a monthly rate in exchange for updates or even hardware fixes.

Insurance company would not have sufficient means to provide repair if no one is willing. Replacement might be possible, but is always costlier than repayment as you have to test the replacement product, too.

That's kind of the point. The consumer doesn't just get his money back, he gets what he ordered. Maybe allow a lump sum payout that's like 5x what they consumer payed just to cap the losses the insurer could incur, while keeping a strong incentive to repair/replace as that's less hassle for the consumer and thus his preferred option. It saves time otherwise spend on shopping for a replacement as well as getting accustomed to said replacement.

The consumer can, they just need to look at the length of the warranty.

For example, these are washers made to last and be fixable:

https://speedqueen.com/products/home-products/front-load-was...

This is an issue.

Further complicated because whilst there are companies that build reputations on quality, that reputation can stick around long after the quality has gone down, so there's a constant temptation to cheap out for short term profits.

I suppose the classic example of this is Mercedes Benz in the 90s.

Also, the consumer usually thinks that $399 is closer to $300 than to $400, which is the exact reason why prices ending by 9 are used. The first step toward consumer friendly marketing should be abandoning such ignoble psychological tricks.

If someone can't do simple subtraction, especially with computers in their pockets, then either they need a 1st grade education, or they don't care about that amount of money. Either way, there is no need to put any restrictions on a clearly transparent price.

I can't classify pricing with 9s to be a "trick". No one is being tricked, the price is right there.