Our second Vacuum Cleaner in 2 years just died on me.
 
Well, to be accurate, the first one didn't die, it just never worked as I'd expect a vacuum cleaner to work - I practically had to scrape the stuff off the floor with my hands to feed it. 
 
Funny because the reason I'd picked it was that it was a Shop-Vac/Heavy Duty type of thing, and those had always been the most reliable I'd worked with because you could throw anything at them. From memory anyway. 
 
But it didn't really work and we replaced it last year with one of those pretty expensive modern, upright thing.
 
The first few weeks, I was amazed at how well it worked. But that didn't last long and for the last 8 months, judging by the time it takes me to do the stairs, I'd say that it's become at least 4 times LESS efficient than it was out of the box.
 
And tonight, after 20 minutes of moving stuff on the carpet more than actually cleaning it up, it just died.
 
I remember in the 70s my grandparent had one of those:
 

 
You could have thrown that thing down the stairs, or outside of a moving car, you couldn't destroy it. Later when they sold their house, my parents inherited it. My father still had it last time I visited 15 years ago or so. I wouldn't be surprise if it were still working in 2014.
 
I just visited the manufacturer's web site - Electrolux... Seems that they too have succumbed to the charms of planned obsolescence as they now only offer fragile-looking plastic pieces of junk...
 
Too bad there isn't even an option to buy well-made, solid things such as these and everything's been replaced by flimsy plastic devices.
 

I'm convinced that some stuff is manufactured to fail after a set amount of time, whether they do it by pre-stressing the parts or actually hard wiring it into chips. Many years ago my stepfather bought a new CD player for $100, a pretty well known brand which I can't remember now. It seemed great so a week later, I bought one for myself. Almost exactly 2 years later, the LCD display went off on his. You could still use it, but you couldn't see what you were doing with the controls. What a bummer, we thought. Well about a week later, the same thing happened to mine. It was as if from the moment we plugged them in and turned them on for the first time, a timer was initiated. 
 
I used to have a Marantz CD player from the early 80's. That thing was built like a tank and was virtually indestructible. It weighed a ton. 
 
But yeah most mass produced stuff today is utter crap. I've been through 3 Logitech mice in the past 3 years, all of which developed a phantom double click problem after a while. Looking around online, thousands of other people are reporting the same thing. It's been an issue for years. It's as if Logitech have designed them to develop this fault so that you'll buy a new one. Have to keep the punters making new purchases, otherwise they'll go out of business. 
 
Same thing with printers. I generally have them for a couple of years and then they just stop printing. Is it worth getting them repaired? Not when they only cost you $120. 
 
I have to buy a new Waterpik every couple of years because they start leaking at the nozzle. 
 
I've bought a couple of Air O Swiss humidifiers over the years and they have both developed a leak on the base after a while. Many others report the same. 
 
Pretty much the only things I have luck with are computers and audio gear. I had a DELL which served me 4 years without a single hitch and still works perfectly now. Of course the specs are outdated, which is why I bought a new rig, but what a machine otherwise! Same with most laptops I've had. With careful use they've worked great for years. If I wasn't such a greedy upgrade pig I could have probably kept them going for 10 years apiece. 

This forum software fails daily.
 
Oh wait, that's me not the software.

bapu
This forum software fails daily.
 
Oh wait, that's me not the software.

You thought you were planned adolescence but you turned out to be planned obsolescence? 

Old Electrolux vacs were the best.
 
Most home vacuums today are pretty much overpriced junk.
 
I don't buy into any of the "techy" garbage you see advertised on TV.
 
Keep far away from Kirby, Rainbow, Dyson, Bissell, Orek, Shark, Hoover, and the like.
 
Kirbys are built like tanks and do a lot of stuff but none of it very well. If you want a "real" vac, check out your local industrial/cleaning distributer.
 
IMHO the top of the line is Windsor followed by Sebo. Pretty much the same vacs but they're made for heavy everyday use. They're expensive. They're plastic. And they'll break over time. But they'll last much longer (except for maybe a Kirby) and clean much better than any home vac ever will.
 

But what if you really need to hold a bowling ball up with your vacuum??? 

Working for an old lady customer of mine a couple of winter's ago, and the overflow pipe from her boiler was frozen solid. I plugged in an extension lead and asked her for a hair dryer so I could get some heat on it. I looked at the thing she brought out and asked her how long she'd had it.  She thought for a sec then said ''51 years, I think''

I bet it still worked though! 

It did

I worked for Electrolux from 1984 to 1996, did my apprenticeship there in electrical/electronic/mechanical disciplines.
 
It was a great place to learn, a lot of complex machinery, the most complex were involved in the manufacture of the electric motors for the vacuum cleaners.
 
The world had already moved on, people want things cheap and still want them to last a lifetime...as a rule this isn't going to happen.
 
Perhaps our standard of living/living wage would not look so rosy if companies only sold quality goods that last and last...obviously these cost a premium...and many of us would not be able to afford them.