Or 55, using the comma in place of the period as the decimal point, as is common in Europe?

Think about it more carefully. If you want the piston rings to last forever, what do you do? You beef them up. More material, stronger material. Now you have to beef up the cylinders as they get more wear. Which means you have to go back to the rings... Eventually you're getting into exotic coatings because that…

Substitute Android for iPod. Or PC if you want.

Imagine if you had designed 70s land yachts to last forever. They'd still run, but they wouldn't be able to compete with modern cars in safety, efficiency, or comfort. You would have spent a small fortune on that car, but would have been better off with periodic…

Have you ever tried to design an engine? A transmission? Suspension? The body doesn't actually contribute that much to the overall cost.

No, Lutz (and others here) were suggesting it was an attempt at part sales.

I would argue that they switched to a softer metal knowing that wear could be an issue, but they thought that it would still be ok. That's a pretty common decision in the industry - choose the cheapest metal you can get away with. But I'd…

Provide any evidence that particular decision was the result of trying to increase parts sales...

Go ahead.....

Have you wanted an iPad that will last 30 years?

No, because it will be obsolete in 5. So why spend $3000 to get something to last 30 years, when you can buy something for $500 every 5, and enjoy a better product every 5 years?

Explain why. Other than saying sales weren't that high.

I wouldn't go that far. I sincerely doubt that they designed it knowing that premature failure was likely. Having been in on engine design teams, I've never seen even a hint of that behavior. I have seen screw-ups where they find out later that premature failure was likely. But those problems have always been…

I used to work in the auto industry, but now I'm engineering elsewhere. :)

I've seen countless people refer to public statements from the auto industry on design life and they somehow think that the part or car will only last x years... or y miles... Quite frankly, the auto industry hurts itself even releasing these…

Well, it does boost the "as-tested" price when you add the option.. but then you get hit in the review for having too high of an "as-tested" price. It's a totally fair thing for the manufacturer to offer up the high-end model if they want to, IMO - it isn't completely without a cost in terms of the review.

No car company practices planned obsolescence in this way - and none ever has.

Do they have planned obsolescence in that they want the next year's model to be appealing and make your current car look and seem outdated and unfashionable, thus driving sales? ABSOLUTELY.

But that's completely different than designing a…

Where do you see that the Volt is having headgasket problems?

Consumer Reports gives it marks that indicate that their respondents have seen a less than 1% problem rate with the engine - statistically as good as any Honda or Toyota on the road.

Money.

LOTS of money.

"By contrast, Chrysler, the auto industry's sixth-largest player, has demonstrated a deft ability to outmaneuver larger rivals and ranks as the world leader in profit per vehicle. Its low-cost Dodge Neon subcompact sells for $12,000."

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/07/ne…

Proving my point:

"By contrast, Chrysler, the auto industry's sixth-largest player, has demonstrated a deft ability to outmaneuver larger rivals and ranks as the world leader in profit per vehicle. Its low-cost Dodge Neon subcompact sells for $12,000."

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/may/07/ne…

Their products weren't great by any stretch, but their sales were steadily increasing and at the time of the takeover, Chrysler was making more profit per vehicle sold than any other mainstream manufacturer in the world - by far... it wasn't even close. That was an enormous profit stream Daimler used to fix itself…

Well, you're sort of wrong, too. :)

Some of us want the car to last forever. But the cost of doing so is so prohibitive that no company striving for that would stay in business. The cost curve isn't linear or logarithmic - its exponential.... that makes it much more reasonable to buy something new now and then at a…

It was Ford, actually. They actually fixed the problem, but it isn't the same thing as what most people think about designing cars to break down. Most people think that car companies actually design cars so that they fall apart at a certain age - which would, quite honestly, take a tremendous amount of engineering…

Everyone makes mistakes, but I'd just like to point out that a certain automotive publication named the 2002 Ford Thunderbird Car Of The Year. Just think about that for a minute.

Yep - there is a *huge* difference between tuning a car to get optimal performance under a set of conditions for a press test vs offering up a standard factory- optioned vehicle. In one case, you're basically rigging the test. The other you're showing what the car is truly capable of. The fact that most people won't…