Allen Edmonds dress shoes for men. Spouse has a pair that’s over 10 years old and still looks good.
I had a Revereware stainless steel brownie pan that I never got back from a bake sale at the kids’ school. It was sturdy and wonderful and I didn’t realize that stainless steel bakeware would be hard to find. Everything is coated with Teflon, or its thinner aluminum, or its glass which brownies stick to more. IKEA has stainless baking pans but they’re not nearly as sturdy.
@greenwitch Try Calphalon Classic bakeware. I have a few pieces and they bake well and are incredibly sturdy.
Carhartt, Timberland, Wrangler . Indestructible stuff.
Thumbs up for Carhartt! Indestructible, or almost.
There are a number of things that are still made well, but it takes some looking, some things are better than what they were years ago.
Speed Queen appliances are built like the proverbial brick outhouse, they don’t have all the fancy settings and eco mode and so forth, but I can tell you from personal experience that they aren’t going to break down, the drive on it, rather than plastic crap, is direct drive with bronze gears and bearings. The controls are a mechanical unit, that can be replaced pretty easily. Even the high end washing machines and dryers don’t seem to last, from the consumer reports forums that is all I hear.
The Kitchenaid mixer is built tough, you can tell by the weight, but most of kitchenaid’s other products are ordinary, with the same problems with them.
When we renovated our house, we put in subzero fridge and freezer unit, and it has lasted. A year ago or so it was starting to go, and when I checked into getting a new refrigerator I would be spending about 2k on basically crap, I got the compressor and condensor replaced and it cost me about 1500 bucks…and probably will last another 20 years. The freezer unit so far has been fine.
With cars, even the least reliable cars out there now are better than they were a generation ago or more,. for one thing, they don’t rust., and the powertrains last and last. I also think the interirors are better across the board, 30 years ago pieces would fall off, panels would come apart, you just don’t see that any more. There are some clunkers out there, I just read something that said the ford edge is a piece of crap, and there are other models with reliability problems. On the other hand, a typical car can last you 200k or more without major rebuilding work, just routine replacement and such.
In terms of tools, craftsman tools (not the green label crap that is made in China) last, and they have a lifetime warranty that they stand behind, I broke a ratched that is older than I am, and they replaced it, have had other things go. MAC tools and Snap on are like that as well, but they are a lot more expensive.
I have an oster professional blender that seems to be built well, it cost a lot, but has lasted. I also have a dynasty professional stove that has held up well, not as happy with the ventahood.
One thing I’ll tell you isn’t worth it, don’t waste money on Kohler plumbing products, our house was all kohler, and it is a disappointment. Things don’t last, and when you need parts they are expensive as hell, and hard to get. What really got me angry was on the whirlpool tub we put in, the faucet unit may be shot. I called Kohler, and they told me the unit was discontinued a number of years ago, so the faucet unit is not available…like, what the hell? Those tubs are not something you routinely replace, so you don’t keep parts in supply for older units? Their answer was that someone could modify the tub to use another unit, but would likely cost several thousands of dollars to do, you literally would have to take the tub out and so forth, probably cheaper to replace it…
In small engines, I highly recommend anything with Honda engines on them, while small engines are infinitely better than they were when I was growing up (briggs and stratton and tecumsah both were forced to compete), I don’t believe Honda products. I have a snowblower and a lawn mower that are both pretty old, the blower is like 20 years old, the mower 15, and I haven’t babied them, and they both run incredibly well, all I have done is change the oil ocassionally and once in a while a new spark plug, and they just keep working. If I ever get a portable generator to do whole house, I would make sure it has a Honda engine on it.
The funny part is that the old appliances people are talking about were in the generation that talked about planned obsolescance, yet somehow many lasted. I remember my dad telling me a story that GE had made some bearings that literally would never fail, and they shopped them to major manufacturers, and they were horrified and told GE they would never use those, because bearing failure was a big reason to cause failures. It is funny that cars in the past 40 years have become infinitely better than the pretty crappy cars produced back then, while other things have become a lot less reliable. I do know that old appliances and such could last, there is no doubt, but there were also a lot that failed, too, but still had the potential to last longer, but at the time they talked about planned obscolescance and such.
" The Kitchenaid mixer is built tough, you can tell by the weight, but most of kitchenaid’s other products are ordinary, with the same problems with them. "
I had a Kitchenaid dishwasher that was disappointing. Have a Cuisinart food processor that is solid as a rock , but got a slightly less expensive one for my daughter for a gift and it had no strength in the motor. What a waste of the brand name !
I have a Toyota Landcruiser , 2014. Landcruiser is the top of the line for Toyota. I also had a 2002 which I drove for 12 years. This one is great, reliable but there have been some minor issues with the settings with navigation and also the back up cameras …I am a little disappointed since the staff at our dealership seems unprepared to address the glitches.
It still is a beast when it comes to power and handling ,but shouldn’t have problems at this point
@lje62 We have a 2004 Toyota made vehicle with 230k on it. Had some issues with it years ago when it was out of warranty and felt like we were being ripped off by the local dealership. We have a great relationship now with a non-dealer shop that only does Toyota vehicles. It’s been cheaper, less hassle, and better service. Maybe you have something similar near you that would be worth trying.
We do , but these are warranty issues and need to be taken care of by the dealer this time
When you buy high end vehicles like the Landcruiser, it is weird, it is almost like they care less. I know a couple of mechanics who work for Mercedes Benz, and they said that given the price of those cars, you would expect better service, but they claim the cars have a lot more problems then more common makes do, and the only reason MB gets away with it is people are willing to buy the name, and are willing to put up with crap they woudn’t with a Toyota or any other car (Audis are even worse, I don’t believe the JD Power stuff, I have a network of mechanics who work at dealers and at private garages doing german cars, and they said they have big problems as well). Some of that with high end cars is like high end washers and such, they have a lot of sophisticated crap that can break, but my friend says it isn’t the high end electronics, it is basic stuff like suspension components, ac compressors, piston rings and cylinders out of tolerance and the like, which is a sign of poor supplier control and the like. You expect bad quality from low cost products, but it amazes me when high end stuff is crap.
Yes, I have had the option of getting 3 used Mercedes but our mechanic who works in German cars looked over each of them carefully and told me not to accept any of them as they would each be very expensive grief with all the things wrong and accompanying repair bills. We are happy with our Honda, Toyota and older Volvo. They are workhorses and fairly reasonable to maintain.
I’ll second Allen Edmonds for quality men’s shoes.
I also agree with the prior negative comments on Kohler. A very expensive tub filler failed within two years of installation and I’ve been waiting over a month for the company to send parts for a repair (and I’ll have to pay the labor cost.)
I’d love to replace our SubZero refrigerator but can’t justify the cost. I hate side-by-side refrigerators in general, plus this SZ has a noisy ice maker and sloppy ice & water dispenser. Our Wolf dual fuel range was replaced multiple times; the blue porcelain oven interior of every one cracked and flaked. I don’t use the convection setting for fear of getting tiny shards in our food.
On a positive note, I love my MagiMix food processor after I spent months before the purchase questioning its value. I think that will be our kids’ Christmas gift for 2016, since we gave them KitchenAid mixers previously. Over the years, dh and I spent too much money replacing cheap kitchen gear with what we could afford at the time, so I appreciate now being able to buy better quality for ourselves and our kids.
I have at least 10 merino wools sweaters (Charter club) in different colors that I purchased in my mid 20’s.
Daughter is now almost 20 yrs old and she has taken all of those sweaters. The quality was so good then compared to what Macys sells now. The sweaters they sell now are so thin that you can see through them.
The best appliance in my house is our central vacuum system, Vacuflo, 33 years old and still going strong. Next is our Miele dishwasher, 15 years old and the dishes come out sparkling clean without any prior rinsing. When I remodel my kitchen I will purchase another Miele and a friend made me promise to sell her my present Miele to replace her KitchenAid dishwasher.
My Maytag washer/dryer are more than 20 years old. I’ve never had a service call on these appliances.
I was told by friends who have 5 houses all over the world, not to buy a sub-zero fridge.
Sony brand was synonymous with high quality into the mid '90s. A friend’s 1993 19" Sony TV is still running strong today.
However, the Sony 27" Trinitron my parents got at end of '90s(Was away in college at time) barely lasted 7 years of sporadic use before dying completely. I’m talking no picture at first followed by complete non-functionality within a matter of minutes.
This drop in quality corresponded with the quality of their PCs(notebooks and desktops) which I found to be crap…and overpriced crap at that from seeing how flimsy the casing on the notebooks were and how many machines ended up on my desk in past jobs at startups and corporate offices.
Have and use 2 of them only because they were dumped on me by frustrated clients who found cost of replacement parts* to be more expensive than the machines and the added aggravation were worth. Hey…free machines on top of getting paid for my advice. 
- Exceedingly proprietary notebook and desktop power supplies/adapters and critical accessory parts.
This was one critical reason why I made it a point to avoid buying inkjet printers of any kind unless it was thrown in free as was the case with mom’s Mac purchase.
Even then…the cost of replacement ink cartridges* per page was so much higher than my 20+ year old HP4L laser printer that I still use that old laser printer to do the vast majority of my printing…especially considering each cartridge lasts around 3500-6000 pages(average replacement time was around 8-10 years each).
- Average cost/page for inkjets was around 10-20+ cents/page. For laser printers, average cost was around 2-3 cents a page if I used the most generous/wasteful toner settings.....and I generally found printing in the more conservative draft mode to be good enough for professional quality presentations.
We have some ancient Dell laptops that are still running–slower than the latest and greatest but still perfectly function now that are over 10 years old.
YMMV depending on time period and what class of PCs you’re talking about.
If we’re comparing Macs to the $500 or less consumer/small business/budget grade PCs/notebooks, that’s not really a fair comparison as most PCs built in that market segment tend to have the most cut corners from manufacturers to boost the razor-thin profit margins and it isn’t financially worth it for them to go the extra mile.
However, if we’re talking higher-end corporate or gamer machines costing a $800 and more often, a thousand bucks and up which must often need to be ordered direct from the OEM* website itself…then that’s a fairer comparison.
Disclosure: Used and worked on Macs and PCs in corporate IT and on my own for ~20 odd years.
- Original Equipment Manufactuer like Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, etc.
I have some 10-15 year old Dell laptops still running a-ok to this day. However, with two notable exceptions, they all tend to be from the more expensive corporate Latitude line.
The only consumer/budget-line Inspiron which is still running relatively fine was exceedingly coddled by its former owner who gingerly used it for occasional seldom use* and then forgot about it in a closet for 10+ years. The other inspiron models have serious issues ranging from malfunctioning motherboards due to notebook casing being so flimsy it allowed the motherboard to be flexed back and forth enough to eventually case serious system problems which made the machine unusable to LCD/video problems which are absent in their corporate counterparts** from the same era. .
- Have another inspiron of the exact same model which has malfunctioning hardware issues in the area of video/LCD display and audio from internal speakers due to inconsistent quality control.
** Even when there are some same interchangable parts such as motherboards…except the corporate models encase them in much more solidly constructed notebook cases which don’t allow for flexing…much less flexing to the point of inducing motherboard failures.
Yes, H confirmed our 2 ancient Dell laptops are the business models, not the consumer ones.
The SONY Trinitron we got as a wedding gift from DH’s parents in 1979 was still working when we gave it to S1 in 2009. He used it for another 2 years until he bought an HDTV. I’m not sure if he bothered keeping it when he moved in 2015.
Our Sony Trinitron for zapped in a lightening strike. Before that it was fine…but not the work horse of the JC Penney TV it replaced…that we had for almost 15 years!