My father used to replace the control thermostat in our refrigerator about every 5 years and the compressor somewhere between every 10-15 years.
I expect there's some survivorship bias at play here.
I don't necessarily think that's why people aren't buying this fridge but those are reasons why new products can still be successful even when they're worse than the old ones.
Are you kidding? You must not live in the US.
People buy new phones despite the old one working. My phone is almost 6 years old. No one I know keeps phones around that long. Becoming rare to see anyone keep one for even 4 years.
I lived on cheap, used furniture. There's a glut of it, because people buy new furniture despite their old ones being just fine.[1]
People often change their cars even though they're not even 10 years old.
They change their shirts even though the old ones are not worn out.
And so on. There are not that many things people keep till they break down.
[1] They cost about 10% of a new one. Heck, do this experiment: Buy an expensive table/bed. Don't even assemble it. Immediately put it on the used market. Note how know one will buy it for even half the price. I have one that I can't sell for 20% of the price. Unless it's some fad item or office chair.
Do you think other cultures don't have consumerism? (they do). Or maybe other countries have old stuff more often?
I like cheap, used furniture. But I also understand that furniture wears out. I've had legs break, arms split, cushions lose comfort. Beds get lumpy. Finishes wear off. Drawers come apart and dovetail joints break. Some of it becomes unreliable or unsuited for daily use. Fine, keep your linens in that old dresser, but using it daily will hasten its end - that one drawer is barely together, after all.
Not to mention that some of these things are just not usable in modern society. An old desk might be pretty, but it wasn't designed with a computer in mind. Good luck fitting your great-grandmother's dining room table in your small dining room. It was made for 8, and you have a family of three. Beds with a metal boxspring built into the frame aren't as comfortable to sleep on as you might imagine and can be quite squeaky. Some old furniture just won't fit in your abode either - and boy, oh boy is some of it absolutely filthy.
Sometimes you can fix this stuff, if you have the time and space and equipment to do so. Many folks don't.
And of course lots of folks replace cars. In most places in the US, you can't survive without a vehicle. A vehicle that breaks down is a vehicle that can get you fired. It is much easier to keep up with an older car if you don't have to rely on it. And again, you still have issues with having to be able to have the time, space, and tools to work on it - and you might need to have enough strength.
And so on.
The only one that’s survived longer than a few years for me? The new one. Going 6 years strong.
Not everything on my new one is perfect—I managed to break the built in water jug—but I feel a lot of the replies here need to take into account survivorship bias.
The fridge in the kitchen, however, has various features, some of which would cause me to throw it away even if it was still functioning as a fridge/freezer - for example, if the ice maker died, I might just replace the whole thing, instead of spending $300 to replace the ice maker, especially if it's a metric pain in the ass to do so.
I try to take a look at repair prices and parts now before buying, because a $500 appliance where the likely breaking parts cost $500 is unlikely to be something that lasts long-term.
Never had a "modern" fridge except as a kid. All looked like low budget fridges from the 80's or 90's.
The newer apartments and house I’ve lived in as an adult have been decent in that regard, probably because they’re closer to being up to spec electrically and have newer lines running to them thanks to being in urban areas, but one of my childhood homes out in the countryside which is now approaching a century in age had a “habit” of killing computers every so often.
And if you have appliances/computers die, you should get your electricity monitored to see if it's out of bounds.
In fact, anytime an appliance dies you should do a post-mortem to try to identify if something about the house may have contributed to it (hard water, electrical spikes, etc).
IMO, most "failures" are from failure to replace relays and door seals.
And same in experience. At large, the doors that are getting opened and closed repeatedly by my kids are far far more likely to get broken than any others. Which leads to door seals that are not up to where they should be. And will not surprise me that we run those compressors harder than we would otherwise. Which will lead to those failing.
The impact of surprises… bad components, variances in operational conditions, etc can have a big impact. Also, the quality improvements that emissions controls had on cars didn’t happen for white goods. Cars were hit with emissions AND safety standards, which raised prices.
For appliances instead they incentivize things like all electronic controls (more prone to failure with rough service or high heat), and undersizing components. Old appliances were all mechanical and easily fixed, the electronics tend to turnover quickly and are difficult or impossible to get from a 3rd party.
I've had one fridge fail on me in my life. The compressor (I think) failed and no longer cooled the fridge. The difference in replacing the compressor or getting a new fridge was negligible.
Other than that, I've only changed fridges when I moved. The house we bought didn't come with a fridge, so we had to buy one.
One the compressor died & would have cost about 5 times the value of the fridge to replace. One a coolant line cracked (guessing just age). One the seals on the doors failed. One actually started HEATING things… that was ODD. One just… stopped, no idea what was wrong but nothing obvious.
Old stuff breaks.
Something seriously wrong with your houses electrical supply is the obvious explanation but it’s far from the only possibility.
Nothing statistically strange about that.
Luckily most were either “came with the place” ones or cheap 2nd hand ones. The point being: old fridges also fail, in fact they’re more likely to as they get older!
You might get something that lasts for a few years. It might last 8 months.
It might have roaches, too.
EDIT: Ah, misunderstood.
> all from this supposedly better age
is in reference to _old_ fridges; I'd read it as being a complaint about _new_ fridges. All these failures were old fridges.
I've got a fridge that uses 1Kwhr/day whihc places it near the bottom of the current energy start guidelines and it's about 15 years old.