Once great brands ...... now junk.

kev1.3s · 05-12-2017 11:06AM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

They were always junk though mechanically and in build quality.

You couldn't actually be more wrong. There was life before fiat.

ohnonotgmail · 05-12-2017 11:13AM

kev1.3s wrote: »

You couldn't actually be more wrong. There was life before fiat.

the beta had such bad rust problems Lancia had to buy a lot of them back. it killed off lancia as a brand available outside italy.

inforfun · 05-12-2017 11:27AM

Brands arent always what they seem.

Years ago when France for example still had regulations in place to protect their own manufacturers, JVC decided to buit a factory there and started the brand Thomson.

In Holland you then had the choice as it came to 2 identical vcr's, one branded Thomson for dfl 1299 and one called JVC for dfl 1499.
And that was exactly the only difference between them, name and 200.
In the old days of the good old glass tube tv's, 80% of all tv's had a Philips tube.
The only brand you could be absolutely sure about that it didnt have a Philips tube was Sony Trinitron.

Afaik nowadays it isnt that different with lcd screens

whisky_galore · 05-12-2017 11:46AM

flaneur wrote: »

It's surprising they had that issue, as much if Japan is as wet as here and would also have salt on the roads.

During the 1970's/80's we had shocking roads, and a tradition of driving cars into the ground until they fell apart.

Was surprised to see so many VW beetles/Kombis, first generation Land Cruisers and Ford Escorts and other things that disappeared years ago here driving around daily down under. They have a genuine cultural love of maintaining and driving older cars, us, not so much.

jmayo · 05-12-2017 12:36PM

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Siucra is an interesting one. The entire Irish sugar industry was sold to Nordzucker by Greencore, who had gained possession of the EU quota allocated to Ireland, having had a report that the industry was unsustainable.
They sold the quota, sold the Sugar Company factory and machinery to Africa and sold the site in Carlow to some consortium who planned to build an Irish Silicon Valley there.
Nothing was ever built, the man who headed Greencore is Simon Coveneys brother, and a few years later it was revealed that the initial report which initiated the sale was completely flawed.

Sugar beet was one of the only consistently profitable tillage operations on Irish farms.

Mary couglan admitted years afterwards she never studied the reports and we didn't need to get rid of the sugar industry. :mad:
Actually they were going to build apartments as well on the Carlow site and then the ar** fell out of the construction which put an end to that.

Also long before coveney was at the top, charlie haughey's bestest buddy and financier dermot desmond was stuck in it.
It is nothing but a circle jerk for the Irish connected.

whisky_galore wrote: »

During the 1970's/80's we had shocking roads, and a tradition of driving cars into the ground until they fell apart.

Was surprised to see so many VW beetles/Kombis, first generation Land Cruisers and Ford Escorts and other things that disappeared years ago here driving around daily down under. They have a genuine cultural love of maintaining and driving older cars, us, not so much.

the big reason for that is simplicity.
If your modern ute or jeep breaks down hundreds of miles from the nearest dealer where are you going to find someone with a computer to debug the software?
Also in the outback you never find guys driving round in Land Rovers or most of the other makes, they trust Toyotas.

NZ have even more old cars than Oz and they aren't as spread out.

kev1.3s wrote: »

Lancia, grew up drooling over stratos and intergrale's but now they are rebadged sh1t and only sold to the Italian market.

Ahh FFS they were always shyte and shared pans with Fiats and Alfas, all part of the Fiat stable since back in 60s/80s.
At one stage in 80s/90s the Saab 9000, Fiat Croma, Alfa 164 and Lancia Thema all used common car platofrm, but Saab had to redesign it so much structurally to make it anything like their own cars that the project was short lived.

The Stratos, 037 and Delta S4 were concept cars really and only very few were built for rally homologation.
And even the later Delta HF Integrales that one saw dominating rallying were nothing like the road going cars.
Also they had rally teams to keep them going and the bodies weren't around long enough to rust.

Lancia were pulled from these islands because they rusted to shyte so they stopped building left hand drive models altogether.
No loss.

whisky_galore · 05-12-2017 12:47PM

jmayo wrote: »

the big reason for that is simplicity.
If your modern ute or jeep breaks down hundreds of miles from the nearest dealer where are you going to find someone with a computer to debug the software?
Also in the outback you never find guys driving round in Land Rovers or most of the other makes, they trust Toyotas.

NZ have even more old cars than Oz and they aren't as spread out.

The Irish system attempts to weed out otherwise perfectly fine older cars with nit-picking NCTs or stupid insurance quotes and get us all driving brand new cars.

Suits the insurance cartels, SIMI and govt coffers down to the ground.

I will agree on the simplicity, I recall I could repair my Ford Falcon easily enough without exotic tools. Things were 'get-at-able' under the bonnet, not shoved into a poky corner.

JohnBoy26 · 05-12-2017 08:39PM

Esel wrote: »

Still have a 32" (wide-screen?) - great picture but a monster! 75kg

Great tv with excellent pq and great sound quality too with a built in subwoofer.

NIMAN · 05-12-2017 09:23PM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

Great tv with excellent pq and great sound quality too with a built in subwoofer.

How does it handle HD signals!

Noveight · 05-12-2017 09:27PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

The Irish system attempts to weed out otherwise perfectly fine older cars with nit-picking NCTs or stupid insurance quotes and get us all driving brand new cars.

My commute is roughly 5 miles and I seldom drive further than the nearest large town which is 25 minutes away. Something like a mid-nineties Corolla would do me for years and years and make perfect sense but insurance and sticky NCT's make it unfeasible. It's a shame really, I love seeing older motors still being hammered around.

JohnBoy26 · 05-12-2017 09:45PM

inforfun wrote: »

Brands arent always what they seem.

Years ago when France for example still had regulations in place to protect their own manufacturers, JVC decided to buit a factory there and started the brand Thomson.

In Holland you then had the choice as it came to 2 identical vcr's, one branded Thomson for dfl 1299 and one called JVC for dfl 1499.
And that was exactly the only difference between them, name and 200.
In the old days of the good old glass tube tv's, 80% of all tv's had a Philips tube.
The only brand you could be absolutely sure about that it didnt have a Philips tube was Sony Trinitron.

Afaik nowadays it isnt that different with lcd screens

It is. It's more of a lottery nowadays. Most tv's come with Chinese panels, even samsung who make their own panels can come with panels from different manufacturers. not that there is anything wrong with chinese panels but quality control can be mixed.

Lg are the only ones who make and use only their own panels in all of their tv's afaik. But these are ips panels with not so great contrast and black levels but good viewing angles and motion control.

Back in the day there was nothing wrong with the philip's tubes even if pq was a bit ordinary compared to sony it still was reliable and offered decent enough pq. Even panasonic used philips tubes in their run of the mill Tv's but used their own tube for their quintrix sets afaik.

05-12-2017 09:50PM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

It is. It's more of a lottery nowadays. Most tv's come with Chinese panels, even samsung who make their own panels can come with panels from different manufacturers. not that there is anything wrong with chinese panels but quality control can be mixed.

This!

My Samsung TV has an AU Optronics panel but others of the same model can have a Samsung panel and give better picture quality. Luck of the draw which one you got.

JohnBoy26 · 05-12-2017 09:52PM

NIMAN wrote: »

How does it handle HD signals!

I don't know if any trinitron set sold here was capable of displaying in hd? but I do know that there was a few sold elsewhere that were capable of showing a 1080i signal and the kv-36fs12 which was full hd 1080p set. All of which are suppose to be outstanding.

Being crt they wouldn't of had any of lcd's drawbacks and with the trinitron tube I can only imagine how good these were.

Juran · 05-12-2017 09:58PM

Agree with Tom Mann about the sports direct post. I have Karrmor bags and jackets from 15 years ago ... they are top quality and built to last. Since sports direct acquired karrimor, manufacturing moved to Asian and the quality is so poor

Amalgam · 05-12-2017 10:20PM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

I don't know if any trinitron set sold here was capable of displaying in hd? but I do know that there was a few sold elsewhere that were capable of showing a 1080i signal and the kv-36fs12 which was full hd 1080p set. All of which are suppose to be outstanding.

Being crt they wouldn't of had any of lcd's drawbacks and with the trinitron tube I can only imagine how good these were.

I distinctly remember Currys selling a full, 'proper HD' tube in Jervis St., Dublin, until the late 00's, either Samsung or LG, short back end, but definitely a tube.

byte · 05-12-2017 11:55PM

Amalgam wrote: »

I distinctly remember Currys selling a full, 'proper HD' tube in Jervis St., Dublin, until the late 00's, either Samsung or LG, short back end, but definitely a tube.

Yup, that was Samsung that had those short HD CRT's. I remember they weren't the most reliable tubes, but maybe there's still one or two on the go...

tallaghtfornia · 06-12-2017 12:04AM

Jacobs cream crackers are horrible since valeo toods stoped buying them from the traditional Liverpool factory and started buying them from Portugal
The same factory that makes lidl cream crackers now makes jacobs

KKkitty · 06-12-2017 12:10AM

Is this an urban legend or what that electronic items are built to stop working just in time for the next model to be ready to sell.

JohnBoy26 · 06-12-2017 12:22AM

Amalgam wrote: »

I distinctly remember Currys selling a full, 'proper HD' tube in Jervis St., Dublin, until the late 00's, either Samsung or LG, short back end, but definitely a tube.

Might of been a rear projection tv? Most crt tvs were obsolete by the mid 00's.

JohnBoy26 · 06-12-2017 12:24AM

KKkitty wrote: »

Is this an urban legend or what that electronic items are built to stop working just in time for the next model to be ready to sell.

that myth is called the sony timer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_timer

DivingDuck · 06-12-2017 12:32AM

JohnBoy26 wrote: »

that myth is called the sony timer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_timer

I'd guess in a lot of cases, the company's thinking is along the lines of "You're legally obligated to repair/replace a product for free if it fails within x days, so make damn sure the product will last at least x+1 days". Anything too far beyond that will probably add to the cost, and it's not into their barrow to do it, so they just don't bother.

inforfun · 06-12-2017 09:31AM

I still have a working Philips CD204.
Yes, that is 30+ year old cd player. One of the first, if not the first front loading cd players.
Weighs a ton (it weighs in at over 9kg). Also costed a ton

One of those that if you left the tray open and you run into it, you broke your shin but your cd player was fine.

Buy a Philips cd player now and talk to me in 30 years if that one is still working.

Wanderer78 · 06-12-2017 09:34AM

inforfun wrote:

Buy a Philips cd player now and talk to me in 30 years if that one is still working.

You d be lucky to get 30 hours out of it

jmayo · 06-12-2017 11:39AM

KKkitty wrote: »

Is this an urban legend or what that electronic items are built to stop working just in time for the next model to be ready to sell.

Kinda linked to this.

The turnaround time between new models has reached ridiculous levels in the area of smart phones.
Part of how manufacturers can achieve that is down to how they became fashion accessories and fashion statements rather than just functional devices.
And if you ever go on to a website selling phone accessories it is truly astounding how many models the likes of Samsung has put out there.

The smart phone industry ala Samsung, HTC, etc has made the computing industry turnaround time look positively old fashioned.

Also mobile device manufacturers, thanks in no small part to Apple, have moved away from having easily replaceable batteries all with the aim of getting you to buy an entirely new device.

dr.fuzzenstein · 06-12-2017 12:21PM

A short manual on "maximising profits":

Locally:
Break and turf out unions. Get rid of older (over 40) workforce as they are too costly. Renegotiate or scrap pensions. A younger, more inexperienced and pliable workforce will more likely agree to a deal more advantageous to the company.
Squeeze suppliers, workers and customers. Buy cheap, pay little and charge lots.
Do pay a lot of money for hatchetmen and clever accountants to get rid of as many staff as anyhow possible and use every trick to minimise tax liability, even it it means signing over the company to a Goldfish. As for staffing levels, simply reduce workforce until output suffers and sicktime increases, then you know you are at the very edge of what the staff can do. Those issues can be papered over by a good marketing team.
Get rid of any manager who is passionate about the product. A good business man doesn't care if he sells tires, pizzas, coffemakers, jumbo jets or manages a football club (football is now as much a business as the trade in cocoa or gasoline), a professional manager cares about bottom line and the greatest return and has no hangups on the brands tradition or any nostalgia connected with it.
If you are planning to eventually scuttle the company, now is the time to withhold money.
First to suppliers and contractors. Because they will tolerate this the longest and will keep working/supplying if you just throw an enourmous amount of business their way in the hope for a bumper pay-day.
Shorten hours and freeze/cut bonuses for the workforce, but keep productivity up. The workers will be able, in the short term, to drastically increase output with lower staff levels, burnout won't happen for a few months for the majority of workers.
Any uneccessary expense such as maintenance or R&D must be cut at this stage.
Keep taking orders and make sure they are paid in full, the goal is to collect as much money as possible and fulfill as little as possible.
Eventually start to withhold wages from the core workforce.
All this can be made to look like a genuine financial emergency the company is going through, just blame regulation, taxes and high wages for the "trouble" the company is in.
Make sure all the money (unpaid suppliers, contractors, employees and monies from customers) leaves the company via "genuine" expenses ("A Genuine Company Ltd", held by an accomplice) and is funneled abroad in someone else's name into a tax haven where no connection to you exists. This money can be later recouped when the now defunkt company is reformed and you are hired back onto the board or as an "advisor", or the same in various ghost companies set up by friends and relatives where once again a board or consultant position with a fat salary awaits.

This brings us to internationally:
Once the company is defunkt and the debt has been soaked up but the name still exists, more money can be made. License the name to anyone who will pay for it, or find a cheap as chips supplier in China who will make your product for a fraction of the cost, since all you pay for is per unit and will not have a workforce to consider. That way a major manufacturing company can be managed from a small office with minimum staff.
Keep trading on the name. You won't get a lot of return business (except by die-hard loyalists to the brand or customers who thought the last one was a fluke that it broke 6 months later), but the reputation of the brand will pull in enough new business, because people will never turn down a cheap "bargain" on a premium brand.
To keep business afloat, hire internet hacks and bloggers to write glowing fake revies and blogs about the product.
A lot of 5 star reviews on Amazon will make the 1 star reviewers seem like cranks with an axe to grind.

Gravelly · 06-12-2017 12:28PM

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

A short manual on "maximising profits":

Locally:
Break and turf out unions. Get rid of older (over 40) workforce as they are too costly. Renegotiate or scrap pensions. A younger, more inexperienced and pliable workforce will more likely agree to a deal more advantageous to the company.
Squeeze suppliers, workers and customers. Buy cheap, pay little and charge lots.
Do pay a lot of money for hatchetmen and clever accountants to get rid of as many staff as anyhow possible and use every trick to minimise tax liability, even it it means signing over the company to a Goldfish. As for staffing levels, simply reduce workforce until output suffers and sicktime increases, then you know you are at the very edge of what the staff can do. Those issues can be papered over by a good marketing team.
Get rid of any manager who is passionate about the product. A good business man doesn't care if he sells tires, pizzas, coffemakers, jumbo jets or manages a football club (football is now as much a business as the trade in cocoa or gasoline), a professional manager cares about bottom line and the greatest return and has no hangups on the brands tradition or any nostalgia connected with it.
If you are planning to eventually scuttle the company, now is the time to withhold money.
First to suppliers and contractors. Because they will tolerate this the longest and will keep working/supplying if you just throw an enourmous amount of business their way in the hope for a bumper pay-day.
Shorten hours and freeze/cut bonuses for the workforce, but keep productivity up. The workers will be able, in the short term, to drastically increase output with lower staff levels, burnout won't happen for a few months for the majority of workers.
Any uneccessary expense such as maintenance or R&D must be cut at this stage.
Keep taking orders and make sure they are paid in full, the goal is to collect as much money as possible and fulfill as little as possible.
Eventually start to withhold wages from the core workforce.
All this can be made to look like a genuine financial emergency the company is going through, just blame regulation, taxes and high wages for the "trouble" the company is in.
Make sure all the money (unpaid suppliers, contractors, employees and monies from customers) leaves the company via "genuine" expenses ("A Genuine Company Ltd", held by an accomplice) and is funneled abroad in someone else's name into a tax haven where no connection to you exists. This money can be later recouped when the now defunkt company is reformed and you are hired back onto the board or as an "advisor", or the same in various ghost companies set up by friends and relatives where once again a board or consultant position with a fat salary awaits.

This brings us to internationally:
Once the company is defunkt and the debt has been soaked up but the name still exists, more money can be made. License the name to anyone who will pay for it, or find a cheap as chips supplier in China who will make your product for a fraction of the cost, since all you pay for is per unit and will not have a workforce to consider. That way a major manufacturing company can be managed from a small office with minimum staff.
Keep trading on the name. You won't get a lot of return business (except by die-hard loyalists to the brand or customers who thought the last one was a fluke that it broke 6 months later), but the reputation of the brand will pull in enough new business, because people will never turn down a cheap "bargain" on a premium brand.
To keep business afloat, hire internet hacks and bloggers to write glowing fake revies and blogs about the product.
A lot of 5 star reviews on Amazon will make the 1 star reviewers seem like cranks with an axe to grind.

Sad, but in a lot of cases, true.

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Get rid of any manager who is passionate about the product. A good business man doesn't care if he sells tires, pizzas, coffemakers, jumbo jets or manages a football club

These are EXACTLY the type of people that I try to weed out when I'm hiring. We only hire salespeople, managers, and technical staff that are genuinely interested in our products. It has served us well - we're no Apple or Samsung, but we do well and are a great company to work for.

Zonda999 · 06-12-2017 08:46PM

A brand that has gone rapidly down in quality over a relatively short timeframe is Abercrombie and Fitch. Yes I know the image of the company was always a bit questionable with the whole preppy models and all but there was no doubting that they made genuinely good quality stuff, I got a present of an A&F hoodie that was maybe 40 US$ in 2010 that was literally a tonne weight, a seriously well made piece of clothing, qnything else around that stage was decent in my experience too.

The stuff was never cheap but it you got what you paid for. Now though, they're a bit cheaper but quality has gone to the absolute dogs and very much more so in the last couple of years. Look at their website now too, the image they're going for seems to have changed a bit too..

Capt'n Midnight · 06-12-2017 10:41PM

rushfan wrote: »

Radio Nova

Nah that was always junk.

The music and presenters and haven't changed since the 1980's
The music is grand. But the inane banter and ads for themselves every two songs still grates.

06-12-2017 10:55PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nah that was always junk.

The music and presenters and haven't changed since the 1980's
The music is grand. But the inane banter and ads for themselves every two songs still grates.

The modern day Nova has nothing to do with the original, the modern stations just seem to be incapable of coming up with their own names so we have three stations in the Dublin market who just stole the names of old pirates - Nova, Sunshine and Q102.

Capt'n Midnight · 06-12-2017 11:07PM

James 007 wrote: »

It always annoys me when I buy a new product and it fails after a number of years. I always get this light bulb moment:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest-lasting_light_bulbs

Here's a blast from the past, 23 December 1924 to be exact.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/dawn-of-electronics/the-great-lightbulb-conspiracy

In carefully crafting a lightbulb with a relatively short life span, the cartel thus hatched the industrial strategy now known as planned obsolescence.

Lots of big light bulb divisions are now being split off.
https://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-l-e-d-quandary-why-theres-no-such-thing-as-built-to-last

The lighting industry has a term, “socket saturation,” that describes the point at which enough short-lived incandescent bulbs have been replaced by durable L.E.D. bulbs that light-bulb sales as a whole begin to decline. Market-analysis firms such as I.H.S. Technology and Strategies Unlimited predict that socket saturation will be felt across the global market in 2019.

whisky_galore · 07-12-2017 09:47AM

Brendan Investments.

Once great brands ...... now junk.

Comments