Planned obsolence

Volvo door handle - very aussie don't you think ? bit of fencing wire to fix it ! 

My long love affairs with volvos is showing some cracks ( what a patient true love i have) Did you see the photo from the wedding - doors are still after 17 years ---playing up . This wire trick worked quite well for a year or so . Some Chinese business man visitors couldn't take their eyes off this handle  when I parked upfront at our Aldi carpark recently. 

Mind you its not my fault that we are forced to such extreme measures . Planned obsolence hasn't gone away - its just more subtle .The metal used in the handles gets a stress fracture and breaks after ..... pulls( they test for it , i am sure ) When repairing them you can see there is room for more metal to prevent the failure - the weakness is quite deliberate! 

The answer - buy another handle? No way at $250 a pop Their answer is ---buy another Volvo- well your normal volvo person would ....... right ! yeah sure ........New ? 

We noticed this planned obsolence first when we couldn't open the doors of mums old pink yank tank ( 1961 Chevrolet Belair) and you couldn't repair them ( anyone but a Modra wouldn't even try )  because each of the many  many linkages was designed to wear enough after 500 presses to fail .Not fun eh Punk

Do you remember? 1961 was about the time Ford Falcons brought in a falcon that rusted away after a few years - not something they did again . Not that they ever allow this to happen with the serious mechanical bits -like safety fail - no never -- just something frustrating like door handles .