alt Hacker News"Engine failure" is something everyone thought was a last century problem, yet it's back. Some blame extra thin oils, and some are pointing to cheap parts (ex. plastic manifolds and plastic timing guides). There are now engine lawsuits in 2015-2025 model vehicles from all the big vehicle manufacturers, with new failures clustering in late models. They literally don't make them like they used to.
Intuitively I feel like it's something like the light bulb.
For a while, bulbs had to meet efficiency standards. These standards were configured such that they didn't technically exclude incandescent bulbs, however, for an incandescent bulb to comply, it would have to be driven hard and thus comparatively short-lived.
(for context, incandescent bulbs last something like 4x as long if you let them be 10% dimmer)