In other news (apolitical thread)...

[betarhoalphadelta]

Seems heat is worse for battery longevity than cold, if the internet is to be believed. Counterintuitively, batteries don't WORK better in cold, but they might actually last longer. 

https://scottsauto.com/the-effects-of-heat-and-cold-on-car-batteries/

[utee94]

Seems heat is worse for battery longevity than cold, if the internet is to be believed. Counterintuitively, batteries don't WORK better in cold, but they might actually last longer.

https://scottsauto.com/the-effects-of-heat-and-cold-on-car-batteries/

Yeah I'd never thought about it until badgerfan just stated how long batteries last in Illinois, comparatively.

They definitely don't work better in the cold.  Both yesterday and this morning, with temps around 15 degrees, my truck had a difficult time starting.  I should note that it sits outside, while my wife's and daughter's cars get to stay in the warm comfy garage.

[FearlessF]

2015 Silverado - Delco original was good for about 4 years, replaced with interstate, about 5 years, I put a cheap one in a year ago.
we shall see..........

2017 Impala - replaced the original last year, 7 years!!!

[MrNubbz]

15° in Austin???? Weird indeed

[utee94]

2015 Silverado - Delco original was good for about 4 years, replaced with interstate, about 5 years, I put a cheap one in a year ago.
we shall see..........

2017 Impala - replaced the original last year, 7 years!!!

Man you'd be lucky to get 3 years here in Texas.   You definitely don't want to move here.

[utee94]

15° in Austin???? Weird indeed

Yeah we get a few days like this each year, and usually some of the worst are toward the end of February.

[FearlessF]

15° in Austin???? Weird indeed

cover your pipes!

[utee94]

cover your pipes!

I cover the outdoor faucets, and I drip the only interior one that's against an exterior wall, plus open the cabinet doors to that one.  It made it through the week-long freeze back in 2021 so I guess it's good enough.

[FearlessF]

[MikeDeTiger]

Interesting.  I don't think I've ever had a battery last more than 4 years, even the very best ones.  3 years is pretty average here, as well.

For much of my life, my car batteries lasted right at 5 years, almost on the dot.  In the last ~10 years I'm getting not-quite-3-years out of them.  People tell me the humidity (or heat?  or both?) of our climate is hell on batteries.....I don't know anything about that.  But the humidity in Louisiana is even worse than southeast Texas, so I don't think that's the significant change. 

More of that planned obsolescence BRAD tells me isn't happening. 

[utee94]

For much of my life, my car batteries lasted right at 5 years, almost on the dot.  In the last ~10 years I'm getting not-quite-3-years out of them.  People tell me the humidity of our climate is hell on batteries.....I don't know anything about that.  But the humidity in Louisiana is even worse than southeast Texas, so I don't think that's the significant change. 

More of that planned obsolescence BRAD tells me isn't happening. 

I think bwar has mostly made the point that it's not intentional, but rather a result of manufacturers producing cheaper and cheaper crap because that's all that the market will tolerate.  I'd tend to agree with that.  They don't need to plan for shorter product lifetimes and earlier product failures, when the customers are already insisting upon it through their buying choices.

[MikeDeTiger]

I thought about him last weekend when my water heater was out.  He asked me, seemingly incredulously, which of my appliances didn't have a good track record, I told him all of them, and then I think I was out for the holidays and didn't see his response.  But I'm certainly not imagining having to do work (or pay to have work done) on a slew of appliances that aren't but a few years old.  

Don't think my water heater was on that list, but at 1.5 years old, it quit working over the weekend.  Fortunately, whatever glitch it was having was just a computer glitch, and a quick flip of the breaker off and back on fixed it, and it began heating the water again.  

The old one I replaced was ~18 years old, and in today's world, I feel like that's more than I could've expected from a water heater.  Lot of people have told me theirs don't even last that long.  

[MrNubbz]

 They don't need to plan for shorter product lifetimes and earlier product failures, when the customers are already insisting upon it through their buying choices.

So asking for fair performance at a fair price is asking for it? Maybe they've been misled to believe that spending more than you use to would at least get them as far as the same class battery did previously

[MrNubbz]

The old one I replaced was ~18 years old, and in today's world, I feel like that's more than I could've expected from a water heater.  Lot of people have told me theirs don't even last half that long. 

FIFY