Junk????

Did you hear about the guy who has his first volvo, he has 3 million miles on it. When asked how come it works so long, he said "well you start with quality and you follow the owners manual".
Now if all the "junk" would be quality to begin with and people took care of stuff (another big key) then land fills would be less. Ahhh, but that means less jobs to make "junk" (stuff),to replace the first junk that broke, so now what is a human to do? So do we purposely make junk to fill land fills, so to have humans have jobs, to kill the environment, to hurt the animals. So now we need groups to convene, and get charities started to fix the stupid stuff humans do. Dam I can certainly go on. Sounds like a huge horrid circle we are in. Also if we actually go for knowing what we "really" need and not what we "want" (thats is not a need), there again less stuff would be about. And why do we tear down perfectly good buildings to yet build another in its place. Again, making jobs. So thoughts?!!!??

 

Volvo have the 'Volvo High Mileage Awards', where any Volvo owner can declare the mileage of their car and have it placed in a league table. There are two such tables. One is just a bit of fun among owners club members, the other is more serious and has to be independently verified.

If I remember right, up at the top of the league (probably the same guy you're on about) is an early Volvo 940 (same model as my Gothilda) at over 3 million miles. If I remember wrong, then its definitely a 200/700/900 series. Thing about them is, they are a quality build, but for many people they would not be a popular choice of car for one simple reason. In terms of technical specification, they are quite frankly rubbish cars. You only learn otherwise when you actually drive one It is their rubbish specification that makes them capable of such high mileage. For example, the engine block is made mostly of cast iron, making it heavy and inefficient, but it doesn't wear out like softer modern lightweight alloys do. The suspension is very basic, so there aren't a million parts to wear and seize, and the 'electronics' is about the most basic there is. There's no artificially intelligent crazy supercomputer in there waiting to go wrong, just very basic stuff on the 940, and even less on the 700 and less still (I think none) in the 200 series.

When you pop the bonnet on a modern car, you see panels and conduits of electrical cables, and science. When you pop the bonnet on a 940, you see an engine. You see an inlet manifold sticking out of one side, an exhaust manifold sticking out the other, and a big lump of motor in the middle. These cars last forever because they are so basic, and at the same time over engineered. Remember that like Saab, every Volvo has to pass the Elk test. The basically means it has to be tough enough to not fall apart if it hits an animal the size of horse at 70 mph.

By modern standards, we would say that there was a lot of wastefulness if the build of the pre-Ford Volvos. More metal than is technically necessary went into them, and components were built to last instead of wearing out after a few months. If modern cars were built the same way two things would happen. The EU would have a thrombo, because pre-Ford Volvo didn't rate fuel efficiency as very important, and a lot more of us would be walking because cars would be so much more expensive, because more material would be going into them.

 

If you can hit an elk at 70 without damage, I'm guessing they would not pass the pedestrian "knock down" regs of today.

 

Recalling a sweater I got for my husband from a good company, Lands End. And in one year the neckline had frayed off looking horrid. He is not hard on clothes, nor is my washer hard on clothes. Anyway, I did contact them, and sent it back to them. And they did send me a new replacement for free. But that's it, a replacement. Had it been done "right" in the begining, it would have not had to be replaced.

 

They don't have to survive the collision without damage. Quite the opposite in fact. They are supposed to bend in all the right places while ensuring that the occupants of the vehicle stand the best possible chance of getting away with it. That's part of the reasoning behind the unusually long bonnet and strong roof. Then of course its no good surviving the impact if the car is then too bent in to be brought to a safe stop, as opposed to becoming a high speed out of control wreckage, hence all the emphasis on good strong chassis

Here's a bit of Elk testing



Of course nowadays things have moved on a bit. Volvo still include the Elk test, but as the following clip shows, they've moved on from building something that can withstand a crash, to something else now.

 

A New Word! I like it. I like it a lot. Is it a clueless1 original? Must look out for a chance to throw that in at some point today.

As I understood it, capitalism needs constant growth to function properly, so that has to be encouraged by whatever means. (I'm not condoning it, by the way, those are the times we live in.) If we all went round infinitely mending and recycling, it just wouldn't work.

Bear in mind, that in the less-developed world, where they have been mending and recycling for many years, and not out of choice, they can't wait to get away from it and have loads of lovely new stuff. So capitalism will get a fantastic burst of growth just as soon as they can afford it but at a high cost to the planet.

Some of us in Europe are acquiring a taste for old stuff ( because as has been pointed out, the quality is usually far better, from clothes to cars) but I can't see it as being more than a minority interest. The human psyche is adapted to thrive on the new and novel - that's partly why we have evolved so far as a species. Also the acquisition of stuff is bound up with issues of culture and status, which again, are an inbuilt feature of human thinking, and not likely to disappear soon, having been around for 50,000 years or so.

Where will it all end? Either the system will implode, probably with catastrophic loss of human life and reversion to a mainly pre-technology way of life, living hand to mouth with whatever can be found or new technologies will emerge which will totally bypass the need for anything like as clumsy and inefficient as a combustion engine.

If I'm still around I'd like to be ready for either!

 

We trashed our own manufacturing, buy buying the cheapest.
If the west had put a levy on stuff coming from the Far East, some years ago, our companies just might have been able to compete with sweat shops and child labour.

But we didn't and now we pay the price, cheap rubbish, from abroad, because we dont make it anymore.

We have free trade and basically we just cant compete on price.
I'm pretty sure we import much more from them than they buy from us, and now China is going to get involved in our nuclear power programme.
God help us.

 

I'm surprised Top Gear haven't done a programme recording various cars being dropped onto moose(s?)/elks from a great height.

 

Here is another example of the waste of people. Just happened now. Yesterday the receptionist in the front was crying poor mouth about how she can't save money for to rent her own apartment and has to live with her daughter, who can't make her house mortage payments.

So today I notice a banana just sitting there on the other receptionist desk, and I know she is not going to return until next week Wednesday. So I say to the poor mouth receptionist, wow this "good banana" will go bad by the time the other girl returns. So the poor mouth receptionist says: Oh, just throw it away. I just look at her thinking, well I know why you can't save any money.
And I took the banana and had it for lunch, saved me a trip to get some lunch and it is good for me. But, I realize it is a trivial thing, but in the bigger picture, if you use everything and not toss things you save money. I saved gas in my car and my time today, because of a lowly banana.

 

I'd love to take the credit for it, but alas, that honour goes to that greatest of fictional secret agents, Austin Powers.

 

True as far as build and looks go, but it may have 100 times the functionality of the old stuff, in the case of electronics. If it's a jumper, well, it's a jumper, and the worsening of quality is plain to see.