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The reason I ask is that I'm finding an increasing percentage of the stuff that I buy these days is either faulty or fails within a short space of time.

Maybe I've just been unlucky but in the past few weeks I've encountered the following (all with *brand new* gear):

A $1,600 band-saw that was delivered with a faulty hydraulic ram. Two rotating lawn sprinklers that don't rotate reliably, a $5,000 welder that has some annoying software bugs and for which the manual seems wildly out of step with reality, a radio-control receiver that doesn't receive.

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To this can be added the microwave oven which had its display fail just out of warranty, the video recorder that now munches tapes (just out of warranty), and quite a raft of other bits of gear around here that have developed faults after what should be considered an unreasonably short period of time.

Sure, consumer laws mean that if I want to spend a lot of time and effort arguing my case, I could probably get some of this stuff fixed for free -- despite the warranties having (just) expired -- but why should I need to?

Right now I'm wondering whether, in an effort to be internationally competitive, manufacturers are cutting corners and letting quality control standards slip.

We all know that many Chinese products are (how shall I say this?) "often of dubious quality" but exceptionally well priced. Could it be that other countries are now being forced to drop their own quality standards in order to compete with the PRC?

Is this showing up as decreased reliability in our modern consumer goods?

It's not just no-name low-end stuff that's involved either; I suspect I don't need to mention the display problems suffered by some iPod models in recent times.

Is paying a higher price any guarantee of better quality and reliability?

Well (as mentioned in this column previously) in the case of products made by Sony, that's certainly not my experience either.

Now if nobody else has experienced a similar decline in the reliability of their recent purchases then I'll just shut up and sulk over my particular bad luck -- but I'd like to hear from you if you've had similar experiences.

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

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