Well, I still feel the age of the platform, its use case, means that the B-52 is a good thing to point to. But, OK, fair enough... the rigors of military maintenance are indeed there, and of use. And as you've demonstrated, more rigorous than I thought.

I'll take another tact here.

https://forcedistancetimes.com/asymmetric-why-china-still-ca...

You may be aware, but it wasn't until 2017? that China could make a ball point pen from domestic parts. The tolerances of the ball, the machinery to make it, the quality of steel... just wasn't there.

Yet we've had that in the West for most of a century? Regardless, it's not about specific timelines, but instead about the fact that most of our modern world could not be crafted by hand. Modern molding, quality of steel and components, machine tolerances, all of this means we're able to make products to tolerances and specifications that were simply impossible before.

The reason I stressed the Volvo, the B-52, is because they are platforms known for fixing stress points, early wear, resolving manufacturing defects, and becoming far more reliable as a result. Unlike modern manufacturers, who mostly derive profit from full replacement of dead products, the profit motive for the Volvo and the B-52 aren't there in the same capacity.

I have nothing against profit, but in this case I do believe it has resulted in far less research into reliability. And the constant churn for 'new new', results in change with little benefit but a constant change to manufacturing methods, and so on.

It's so demonstrably bad, that Quebec (where I live) has passed laws stating that appliances such as fridges, are good not for a year, or two years, but instead a 'reasonable timeframe'. It's purposely vague, for example a single person buying a $1500 fridge, vs someone buying a $800 with a family of 4 might expect more wear and tear, and the warranty not quite as long.

But the reason behind this law, is fridges used to last a least a decade, meanwhile LG fridges often fail in just a few years these days.

Back to the main point, we have the ability to product parts with incredible consistence and to very finite tolerances. Modern failures are no more down to type of material (you cite rubber, and yes that can be an issue), or to unexpected wear.

What I've been trying to convey is, we have part manufacturing down quite well now. Longer term platforms without change, and constant improvement on unexpected wear points, would result in far better outcomes on that front.

This is a far cry from the original post I replied to, which felt robots would have little use from the overwhelming maintenance costs.

I was never arguing that we couldn’t make things more reliable, just that a fridge which lasts 40 years without any failures isn’t realistic