What did you last repair?

Bean counters trying to save money...cheap snap fit instead of screw, and gradually the plastic gets cheaper...from ABS to talc filled polypropylene, now their price difference is about 10%, was 40%.

As someone said: a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Step & repeat for MBAs.

The opening of Harvard Business School was a dark day for the world.
 
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Where I live we have long cold wet winters and I save up a few repair projects to give me a reason to get out of bed. This year I had a crackly Sony amplifier from the late 80s to fix and a box full of "cob" format LED bulbs. The sellers claim these things last tens of thousands of hours but that is a sad joke. Once I was told how to repair them, nothing could be simpler if you have basic soldering skills.

I read Naresh's posts with interest. The mindset in India for fixing things rather than instantly dumping to buy another new one. Here in France (and UK) labour rates are way too high to fix things so they go to landfill. I recently had to take my Peugeot van to the crusher. It was totally reliable and running like a Swiss watch but it failed the roadworthiness test due to chassis rust. I can weld but have no way to get a car up in the air to work under it safely and had no luck finding any garage here to even quote me a price for repair. But of course, they all wanted to sell me a new vehicle (that would probably last half as long).
 
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Well ... rust is a problem here in Ontario, Canada. Rot invades the entire car / truck. Once it is established you can't stop it without huge efforts. I let go of my otherwise good car earlier this year. A 2011 Malibu LT Platinum. But I had spent ~ $6K the previous 1 1/2 years repairing various things and it was solid. Once I saw rust in the doors, time to wave goodbye. I would have let it go a year or so earlier, but COVID drove the prices through the roof. I was hoping it would last just a bit longer. Bought a '24 Camry, I didn't want a new car but the prices on used ones (and lack of availability) forced the new one. The Malibu was better on gas even at the end, and it was more fun to drive. I got the XSE model, TRD enhanced which is much more fun than the 2023 models. I will say the Camry is better in the snow being all wheel drive. Build quality appears to be higher, much higher than the 2024 Malibu. I suspect it may last longer than the GM I had.

Back to stereos.
You know what though? Sure labour costs are high (guess why?), but older equipment is well worth repair. It often does perform better, is more robust (lasts decades) and it is repairable. I often hear "I can buy another used for "x"". Stupid. Great, go buy one and you may have something in the same or worse condition, but it isn't new and doesn't perform like new. It's sort of like rebuilding a car. What have when you are done with has no relation to other used cars of same make, model, year and mileage. Many times it can be (actually, measurably improved), so you end up with something better. Some of my earlier D/A converters sound way better than new ones. Very, very few new audio electronics sound as good as my old units, measurably too. You can't argue with that. Features? Who cares? Look at the primary purpose, does the new equipment fulfill that as well as it should? If not, keep walking. Fix the equipment that does work well.

My beliefs are in line with NareshBrd even though we come from different parts of the world. Throwing something away that can be repaired and will perform well makes no sense. I repair all kinds of household items, all the time. I'm not cheap and can easily replace things. My experience is that new items are not reliable or don't do a good job. I do professionally service audio equipment and also design some. A good tech is worth far more than what the general public believes. Too bad.
 
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Just repaired my wifes Alfa Romeo 147 TS 1.6. Had to change the whole rear break and handbrake cables. The car is 23 years old and just clocked 300.000km. Engine was never opened, first clutch. So much about reliable... only serviced by me, oilchange every 12.000km fully synthetic. If things are worn out, they get fixed, that simple. No repair backlog happening. The cheapest car we ever had, lots of fun to drive.
Calipers, brake pads, disks, hydraulic lines and two cables and oil and filter change took me 4 hours. All quality parts, all included €190.
IMG-20241226-WA0004.jpeg
 
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The Fed cameras were Leica derivatives, the first ones were assembled from Leica parts taken to the Soviet Union as war reparations, even the machinery was sent there, along with some skilled technicians.
The cameras were improved, and after 1955 or so, they got to be really good, as the Zeiss glass was replaced by harder, cleaner Soviet glass, with hard instead of soft lens coatings.
The mechanisms were also improved.
The story for Zorki (and later Zenit SLR cameras, same factory) is similar, lenses are brilliant. Mechanisms can be fixed in most cases with a pen knife, so says the marine engineer with the Zorki.

First two digits in the serial number are the year of manufacture, 64... means 1964, for example.
I own a Zenit TTL SLR, and another Zenit 12XP SLR, good tough cameras.

In fact, in a case of reverse snobbery, some Leica owners have used Soviet lenses, and are impressed with the results.

Soviet cameras and audio equipment quality was excellent, not very well known in the West, however.

Alfa Romeo...you are lucky, or the British motor press was biased about their quality.

Bucks Bunny, I use a 275V / 20 mm diameter MOV as a surge suppressor, has lasted about 20 years now, permanently across Live and Neutral.
Put a 1M / 2W resistor in parallel with your capacitor as a safety discharge measure, you can look it up and see if it is recommended in your area.
 
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I wonder if a good suitable under body coating can be done to reduce rusting in cars, to protect from salt, for example.
I used two part polyurethane primer paint as the undercoat (under body paint, applied by brush), no problem at all for 5 years on what was a famously rust prone car.
It was a locally made Fiat 1100, and I needed only about 1 liter...

The rest of the car was sprayed with regular auto paint, which is called NC paint here, they say it means nitrocellulose...the thinner is called NC thinner, chemically it is methylene dichloride.
 
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First they have to design drainage properly so water doesn't sit, and you can wash out things like salt. Metals can be treated and alloyed to be more corrosion resistant. After you get the basics right, you can try coatings. Part of it is also making it heavier, like body panels. Fords have a long history of rusting quickly, they also had very thin body panels. We used to laugh at how flexible and flimsy they were. They still had poor fuel economy despite being lighter than the competition. Their car bodies also flexed.

So build the quality in first, then patch or improve it.

My 1967 Cutlass F85 had polyurethane paint, they switched to enamel afterwards. My brother owned a body shop and explained the differences to me. If you have a choice, go polyurethane.
 
No, I wasn't lucky with my Alfa Romeo,Lancia or Fiat. We never had any surprising faults on these cars. They are well constructed cars, much better than VW in fact, only wrecked by no maintenance and ignorance to repair. A huge thing is the cam belt, that people refuse to change, ending an engines life around 100.000 km. Rust only happens when the zinc plating is destroyed.
Then there are ignored oil changes and cheap mineral oil. Alfa Romeo had a factory fill of semi synthetic oil, starting at 1970. So called speacialists often rant about these cars needing mineral oil. Which leads to premature engine wear. How can anyone be so stupid to belive, a liquid made from rotting plants, pumped up to the surface and destilled, what mineral oil in fact is, could be the right stuff to power a high performance engine. Engine wear can be reduced to hardly zero with clean, fresh synthetic oil.
Owners of so called "cheap" Italian cars often don't even do the first inspection at the dealer, but chose unqualified DIYS or unqualified service like gas stations, free workshops and the like. Then they complain about the unreliable Italian car. I once bought a Fiat with an engine failure. It broke down after 55.000km without an oil change or top up since new. That is how such owners care about their cars. I spend about 1.000 € on synthetic oil and filter changes on my Alfa Romeo car. Leading to 300.000 km without a single engine problem. How much is that compared to any engine repair, while saving maybe 500 € on late oil changes with cheap mineral oil? We talk about 0.2 Cent saved on service per KM, compared to multi K Euros for an engine repair or even unrepairable car sent to scrap.
 
Diesel and gasoline / petrol are also made from that rotting plant stuff...

And here the synthetic oils are showing up in gear oils, engine oil is 6x mineral oil price, so a forced choice if not insisted upon by the maker.

I use long drain Mil-C / API SJ / API-CI-4 mineral oils in my petrol car, and change around 8-10,000 km. those long drain oils are good to 18,000 km in diesel engines.
 
Yes, you are in India, driving Indian cars as long as they last in India with Indian oil. I'm in Europe, driving an Italian car with the synthetic oil the Italian engine designer has choosen for it and high quality fuels. If you knew only 10 Cent worth about engine oil and fuels, you would not write such nonsense. Just because you, your father and your grand dad ruined dozens of engine with cheap oil, it is not the best you can use. Heard that just a little to often from people buying cheap and trying to not admitt they used shoddy oil and fuel. In my hometown is the largest engine test facility for oils in Europe. Guess how I know about oil and fuel?
 
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Well, the oil was chosen by the Japanese who designed the car, and it has lasted 150,000 km so far, the one previous had lasted 275,000 km when I crashed it, had to be scrapped.
Fuel is CNG, old one was LPG, not much chance of bad fuel.

I have an engineering degree, and have enough tools to dismantle and rebuild things from watches to cars, and the practical knowledge about that apart from the theory.

Europeans are not the only ones who know about fuel, Japanese and American fuel is better, Benzene is not allowed outside Europe as it is considered carcinogenic.

You need to be a chemical engineer to blend fuels now, the mix for Denver (high altitude) is different from Texas (hot, humid and low altitude mostly).
California...don't ask!.

I know a bit about fuel as well...one of the world's largest refinery sets, about 78 million tons annually, is in the Jamnagar area, in Gujarat State, India.
German oil refining capacity is 2.12 million barrels daily, India does 5.01 million barrels daily, as of 2021.
That is more than twice what Germany has in place...and some more capacity has become ready or been commissioned as well after 2021.

Enough show off...back to topic of repair.
 
The Reliance plants were designed for Euro 5 right from the start, they made huge profits at that time (2005 IIRC), because it was one of the few plants capable of Euro 5 quality, the fuel commanded a huge premium at that time, demand was much more than supply, particularly in Europe and North America.

The existing refineries in the UK, Spain, Rotterdam and Germany had constraints in coming up to that quality, and some did not have that much capacity for the project to be viable.

You have to modify the reactors, control and catalyst systems, among other things, to upgrade fuel quality, and doing that in an existing plant, in operation, is difficult.

The Jamnagar plants are all green field sites, state of the art, better in many respects than German plants.
Now we have gone onward to Euro 6 gasoline and 15 ppm sulfur quality diesel fuel, they have 2 plants in Jamnagar, the third one there now belongs to the Russian entity Nayara.

And by the way, Reliance sells a lot of refined product to Europe, you are probably using Indian fuel in your car!
Can I then say you are using shoddy fuel, because it is Indian?
The cold hard fact is that it meets your quality standards, so does the fuel that is sold here. So come off your high horse.

I have no ties to these entities.
 
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Like much in the world, in any country you can get very high quality - or complete garbage. There are stereotypes, but these days we should step back first and look first.

China proves this daily after a history of junk. You can still get junk easily there, but they can make first rate stuff too. Maybe the world needs to all get on board and stop making garbage no matter where they are.

Stereotypes fade slowly.
 
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See, because of personel and professional ties to a large oil and fuel company, I only use Shell fuels. When I open working engines for special reasons, I see what some fuels and oils can do to them, first hand. Normal "engineers" only open defective engines, giving them a very different view.
Just do what you like best, but accept that some know why they only put certain fuels and oils into their cars, may it be a Fiat, Alfa, Ferrari or Porsche. Not only into the engine, also into gearboxes, power steering or brake system. By the way, the car manufacturers advice which quality to use, what to change and how often (life long gear box fill anyone?) today is not always best for the life expectancy. In fact some, like VW, intentionally limit the cars possible life time by using to low quality or not changing it as often as needed. But you sure know better.
 
Shell engineers blend the fuel for their stations at the Nayara refinery, they do not have a refinery of their own in India, and their volumes are not enough for them to import and distribute fuel from their own plants, which are of lower or similar quality.
Their price is higher than the competition, sales are nothing to write home about, they have been here for about 20 years IIRC.

It is not straight octane, you have oxygenates, iso -octanes, and a lot of other things to mix to get the right result.

Some lubricant company used to offer engine oil analysis services for main line pipeline engines in the USA, where big diesel engines, some running on crude oil, were used to pump oil in cross country pipelines, both crude and refined oils.
They could find traces of wear metal from the bearings and piston rings, and tell how the engine was doing in terms of wear.

They are slow to medium speed engines, 400-800 rpm, and are generally run for a month at a time, two of three installed are run, third as standby / maintenance spare.
So they better be reliable...and the oil analysis helps.
 
We use oil analysis for about 20 years, just to check the engine condition. It started with generators and ship engines. For example when you buy a car that would cost 50.000 € for an engine rebuild. Also race engines, where you can see what internal parts have to be changed soon. Such a test starts at 50€. If I see an increased lead content, I change the bearings instead of running the engine until it breaks.
Shell is the world leader fuel additives. It is not just like you pouring some STP additve in your car, it is about engine cleanliness, combustion behavior, reduced wear and lower friction. Such an additive can transform a raw refinery fuel to a much better product. I know all these idiots that tell you "it is all from the same refinery, the Shell guy just puts a bucket of color into the tank". The basic DIN fuel in Germany, sold by "cheap, free" stations, is of quite low quality and not suited to engines that on average have 100 HP per liter. With direct gasoline ignitions things get even worse. You can save one cent per liter of fuel and have your inlet rebuild after 50.000km or use premium fuel and drive on for ever. So for 50€ saved on fuel, you get a 800€ repair bill. A lot of people think "fuel is all the same". You may not care if you lease a new car every 4 years.
When I look out of my window and vision is limited, it is just fog, maybe because we care about such stupid things.
 
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Here 90% fuel (gasoline) sale is for bikes and scooters, 91 Octane. Cars account for only 10% of the fuel sold.
93 Octane is maybe 2%, mostly cars.
And very few pumps sell 97 and 100 Octane fuel.

I have known about oil analysis services since the 1980s, it is normal for marine and main line engines to be checked thus.

Now in India, even bikes and scooters have to meet Euro-6, meaning fuel injection is essential.
So your fuel quality must match the needs of the engines.
GDi has a lot of challenges, I personally prefer a big slow engine to a small fast running one. The slow engine will always be more durable.

In any case, the fuel must be blended and meet the quality standards specified, as I have said in my earlier post, here Shell has projected itself as a high quality supplier, and their engineers control the flow of different ingredients into a central tank, from where it is dispatched.
The Nayara people are not allowed to know the formula used by Shell, they leave the control room when the Shell guys are working, at least that is the story...

Anyway, this is getting a bit away from repair and audio, I think this discussion must stop now.