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After reading this article, it puts the recent comments and rebuilds of simple water pumps in perspective.

Take note of the future & what is being recalled and what it does...Like so much else, it's only a matter of time before something similar trickles down to the everyday level.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/02/autos/rolls_royce_ghost_recall/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn5

Howard, if I understand your direction then the talk revolves around the wish for reliability and simplicity or even reliability through simplicity. On the other hand today's customer wishes are refined and when it comes to RR customers the wishes are even most refined and it is almost impossible to meet suchlike market requirements with simple build products. Especially the innovation-hostile recent past of RR is a period which wasn't golden.
I for one enjoy simple designed devices when they answer a well-defined purpose intended. Form follows function.


Kaiser Idell 1931; today $927.50 (?672.00)


[picture source: www.manufactum.de]

Guscha that lamp is a steal at $927! I'll take two thanks.

Larry, being an eccentric (aka having an individual taste) was always a costly affair.

BTW The shown lamp is a lamp for life. One is enough.

PS The mentioned Rolls-Royce starts at $245,000.
PPS Not seldom people buy such lamps because of its price (snob effect: "...This situation is derived by the desire to own unusual, expensive or unique goods. These goods usually have a high economic value, but low practical value. The less of an item available, the higher its snob value. Examples of such items with general snob value are rare works of art, designer clothing, and sports cars...Collectors within a specific field can suffer from snob effect, searching for the rarest and often most expensive collectibles. Such examples are classic automobiles, stamps and coins...."[wikipedia]).
In the last twenty years the selling company is on a steady course for growth. The picture below shows one of more than a dozen of its local affiliates. Longing for the good old days is a money machine.





[picture source: www.hamburg.citysam.de]

Bauhaus Packard?

Stephen, words of a connoisseur! --> Bauhaus


317 North Broad St., Albert Kahn

Howard, after using the creative leeway now we are back.

[quote]After reading this article, it puts the recent comments and rebuilds of simple water pumps in perspective.

Take note of the future & what is being recalled and what it does...Like so much else, it's only a matter of time before something similar trickles down to the everyday level.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/02/autos ... source=cnn_bin&hpt=hp_bn5

I was just amused that cars have apparently changed or are changing so drastically in yet another area. There had just been the discussion on rebuilding and changing a seal on the old pumps--a relatively easy and inexpensive chore.

Going from the simplicity of that mechanical water pump that ran off the engine to something else that will be very expensive to fix-- and I don't mean just because it was on a RR or BMW..

Cars with turbos have seemingly been able to manage with circulating oil and water that was provided when the engine was running to keep them cool (and maybe some convection circulation when engine was stopped). It seems another bit of relative simplicity has gone to something using an electric water pump with undoubtedly some complex control circuitry associated with the operation which has to run after the fact to accomplish the same thing.

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Yeah, including web connection and installed game console. Wanna feel old? Open the hood of a 7series BMW!




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But complex or simple, nobody has to repair a circuit board. Exchange after identification is the modern way of mechatronics.
Howard, in our "good old days" we repaired a radiator by using blowtorch and muriatic acid and coated them with tin. After two days the work has been done. Today the secretary calls for a spare radiator while varnishing the nails and the car is ready after two hours (the use of exaggeration exemplifies the author's intent).
Yes, not seldom it leads to additional costs when the authorized repair shop exchanges the complete head-lamp housing to fix a blown light bulb but in total it is faster and cheaper. Criticize me but I believe in market forces.

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Howard, I know. The BMW 7 series was introduced in 1977. Never ever I have seen such a car using breakdown service.


[picture source: www.tecchannel.de]

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Believe me, I know--faster and cheaper for the manufacturer or shop, not the customer. Spent 40 years working on equipment that when I started, was frequently able to be fixed by changing a switch or relay or something simple & cheap. A few dollars for parts I could sometimes even buy at a local store and the customer shelled out that amount plus an hour or two of labor.

That evolved to small sub assemblies still reasonably priced but had to be ordered from the warehouse and again a hour or two of labor. Gradually the beancounters decided it was too expensive to inventory and provide warehouse space for multitudes of small parts so those eventually went away.

By the time I retired, that hour or two of labor had a fixed minimum charge up front just to show up plus the actual repair time -- usually rounded to the next hour. The simple switch change had morphed into a complete 10 or 20 thousand dollar assembly. Forget about a relay because there were few used and those few had morphed onto a complete circuit board that was not field repairable -- again at many thousands of dollars. Hopefully changing out that circuit board didn't involve something that would cause a need for a complete re-calibration because that could take a full day to do--all of which the customer was charged for.

It's actually a little depressing to realize that cars are heading that way and will be even worse than they are now. Autos may not break down or need service as often but when they do, forget about any relatively small repair cost. It will be mortgage the first born for the least little thing--like that headlight bulb.

I think that

1) ... it has to be faster and cheaper for the manufacturer to be faster and cheaper for the customer - the other way around it wouldn't work.

2) ... if the today's repair process would be more slowly and more expensive as necessary then a startup company would do it faster and cheaper. That forces the established company to reconsider or to go unsung. An authorized repair shop makes money because of being instead of one golden shot.

3) ...the proverbial breakdown susceptibility of electronics doesn't have to hide from the default rate of simple designed water pumps. My last breakdown in a modern car was at Christmas Eve 1991 when my stopgap measure to avoid oil loss and reduce oil consumption failed. A bottle cork to close the casing exhaust was catapulted through the carb ... That is almost twenty years ago. It perhaps takes guts to state on PackardInfo.com that the lifetime of installed electronics outlasts the normal lifetime of cars but in the light of my experiences it is true.

Howard, for the avoidance of doubt, I would like to mention that every user of PackardInfo.com knows and appreciates the wealth of your experience. But I've learned that innovations are cash cows whose price doesn't necessarily reflect the costs whereas prices of repair shops have a lot to do with costs.

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That is the reason why I was talking of total costs.