Has anyone noticed a distinct lack of maintenance around you?

The most glaring example I've found lately is brake lights.  Reliably I will be behind a minimum of two cars a day that have one brake light out.  Sometimes as many as four cars a day.

Noises and smells are also increasing.  Pulled up next to a guy at a light the other day that had something spraying on his brakes and smoldering like kt was trying to ignite.

I do know that a buddy recently quit his job at a Pepboys as they couldn't find anyone to hire for any positions so I'm not sure if I'm just encountering a bad case of Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or actually seeing increasing neglect, but I was interested to see if anyone else is noticing something similar.

I haven't noticed an increase in problems locally. I will say the shops are pretty busy but they are still working around here. My Daughter just got her Sonic back from the shop and I just had some work done to one of the company trucks. The problem is they are taking some time. The days of dropping it off in the morning and picking it up that afternoon are gone. The Sonic was in the shop for 4 days and my truck was in for 3. If you don't have a spare vehicle that probably makes getting the work done difficult. 

Not just cars, houses are starting to look decidedly dilapidated as well. During the shutdowns/quarantine it seemed like people took a ton of time and money making everything tip top but now we have backslid past the starting point.

In reply to Datsun310Guy :

Someone you mentioned is courting disaster. The liability of an expired safety sticker is enormous. Any accident is going to generate a lawsuit and with an expired sticker, they will almost certainly win. 

Toyman! said:

 The days of dropping it off in the morning and picking it up that afternoon are gone.

I've seen some of that, but some of it is also weird decisions I don't understand. 

Last Friday I went to a shop I used to work at, full size shop with 10 bays or so, tried to drop off two loose tires to get them balanced.  It was 9:30AM and I told him I didn't need them till 2.  Guy tried to set me up with an appointment for Monday.  It kind of broke my brain a little bit.

Went down the street to another shop and asked if they could get it done by 2, they did it in 15 minutes.  Just as busy as my old shop.

In reply to Toyman! :

I mentioned something about work maintenance but I have to be careful given another guy here is a GRM dude. 

No more than normal, although I've been noticing a lot of new Dodge trucks already having holes in the wheel wells. Good to see they still don't know how to protect metal. 

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I kinda blame FL on this but that is also our point of reference. I always point out the "one brake light remaining" to my wife and now it's on her radar, too. 

Some idiot spun one of the traffic lights at the Roxford off ramp in Sylmar, CA 180 degrees around.

No damage to the post and a bunch of homeless people have been living in the adjacent shrubbery for years so this is nearly 100% likely to be intentional.

One would think fixing it would be a high priority for Cal Trans but it has been like this for days.

No, I didn't report it...a police car drives through that intersection every ten minutes or so I can't imagine that it hasn't been reported.

So yes, I'm seeing a general malaise of shoulder shrugging berkitness. 

Seems to be people are just sort of on the "doesnt really matter much" train.

Younger generations are tought they can't prosper, sent to schools they cant afford, to earn a degree they can't use.

People who were tought to care for what they have are dieing or becoming too feeble to continue to take care of things.

The idea of a throwaway society tells us its OK and normal to not do maintenance or repair, just dispose and replace.

This dang virus has been here 2 years and people are still out of sorts about it, messages are unclear and messages from authority figures are mixed.

There is much uncertainty of the stability of the US and our way of life, people who never lived through a downturn are now bracing for something they dont know how to deal with.

Heck, I'm one of those people.  I dont know what to do in a downturn.  I was a kid in the early 90s, 2008 didnt affect me at all (and was really just a blip anyway), current policy has us headed to 2008x10, and all I can see is my $40 a week grocery bill is now $80.  It flat out sucks.  Couple that with the winter blues, and here ya go.

In a previous life I investigated failures in the field, 999 times out of 1000 it was due to deferred maintenance.  Senior NCO would tell the young gun bunnies to strip and clean the weapon, reassemble and I'm going to lunch.  Standing around in the desert sun, someone says "How's it look?"  OK, it's fine.  "How's it gonna look after we jerk around out here for two hours in the sun?"   The same.

C'ya.

No brake/tail lights? Lately,  I'm never sure if they are in fact blown,  or the clueless mutant behind the wheel never turned on their lights.

Has anyone noticed a distinct lack of maintenance around you?

Mr Asa, WHY are you looking at my car...  lol

Some of it is intentional neglect.  We have customers come in all the time with issues with their car.  They refuse to fix it and come back a couple of weeks later with the same complaint.  And STILL will not fix it.

Scott

Just yesterday, had a maintenance supervisor tell me, " I'm not worried about the rear lights on the yard truck, I just want the headlights to work".  I'm glad because there are none left, they have all been crashed off. So while I was getting parts for it, I got some reflective strips and put on the rear bumper. He doesn't care but the safety team does. Have written it on several work orders that the truck has no tail lights or brake lights and repair has been declined. So it's just CYA until they say fix it. 

As a mechanic, I'm seeing a lot of people put off maintenance on vehicles. This week I had multiple customers had brakes with the pads down to 1-2mm of thickness and tires with tread down in the 3/32" range, and pretty much everyone said "Yeah, I know" when informed and then turned down the service. Which is largely why I had 20 hours of flag time at the end of a 45 hour week.

My wife went to a holiday gathering at a local restaurant with some of her friends last night.  An hour and a half before the regular closing time, the employees shut off the outdoor heat lamps, started flickering the lights, and went from table to table saying they were going to close early because business was slow.

Bull $hit, the place was totally packed...they obviously just thought berk it, we don't feel like doing this whole running a restaurant thing right now.

I kind of get it, there are many different reasons why someone may feel this way...for me, the stock market has done so ridiculously well this year that money has started to lose meaning.  It's like someone could say "I'll pay you $1,000 if you'll just run out and get me a Big Mac combo" and I'd be thinking, I don't know, more money really isn't much of a motivator right now.

93gsxturbo said:

Seems to be people are just sort of on the "doesnt really matter much" train.

Younger generations are tought they can't prosper, sent to schools they cant afford, to earn a degree they can't use.

People who were tought to care for what they have are dieing or becoming too feeble to continue to take care of things.

The idea of a throwaway society tells us its OK and normal to not do maintenance or repair, just dispose and replace.

This dang virus has been here 2 years and people are still out of sorts about it, messages are unclear and messages from authority figures are mixed.

There is much uncertainty of the stability of the US and our way of life, people who never lived through a downturn are now bracing for something they dont know how to deal with.

 

Heck, I'm one of those people.  I dont know what to do in a downturn.  I was a kid in the early 90s, 2008 didnt affect me at all (and was really just a blip anyway), current policy has us headed to 2008x10, and all I can see is my $40 a week grocery bill is now $80.  It flat out sucks.  Couple that with the winter blues, and here ya go.

 

With civilization failing I thought you might want to go in the opposite direction. Join the preppers. Learn to fix your own car and hunt your own food. Count on the fact that you can only depend on yourself. Stock up on ammo, car parts and MREs. We have had hard times before. A country boy can survive!

99% of "preppers" are just paranoid guys with a lot of guns.

In reply to RX Reven' :

I'm not having your problems (never have had, for that matter)

But I'd be glad to help ya out by shouldering the burden of some of your excesses! 

There are probably tons of reasons why you are perceiving a greater lack of maintenance.

The back and forth of the pandemic and businesses high unemployment to now low unemployment vs everyone wanting to get paid more but no one wanting to pay more the the products those higher paid folks make. 

Parts are randomly scarce.

I grew up with lights on the car that went out often and knew which stores had the best selection of bulbs. Now I can't replace a $2 bulb I have to replace a $38 passenger side taillight module.

As older cars get replaced more and more those that don't save for the odd car maintenance will end up with duct tape mirrors or windows and out light. 

If it really really bothers you then you might be a secret fan of the DMV annual safety inspections! 

I was one of those folks.

Tuesday morning I noticed a headlight out when I cranked her over to warm it up before work - it was working fine the night before.

Ok, I'll fix it. Wednesday I looked up how to change the headlight bulb...a 2014 car, these days it takes taking out the entire headlight assembly.

Thursday, lets go buy a bulb...and notice when I get to Advance that BOTH lights are now out. Within two days both went bad. It's been almost 8 years exactly since I bought the car new, Im not upset about the 35 dollars over the course of eight years.

But I became one of those people this thread is about. 

Ive dishonored my family, only one thing to do now...

03Panther said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

I'm not having your problems (never have had, for that matter)

But I'd be glad to help ya out by shouldering the burden of some of your excesses! 

I'm sorry, I should have done a better job making my point.

By any measure (year over year gains, PE ratios, et.), the stock market is waaay out in front of its skis.

I think a big correction in the near future is probable but I don't believe in trying to time the market so I remain fully vested...what that leaves me with is a pretty looking portfolio that I think is fake.

I wish the stock market was more rational, I wish greed (crypto, NFT's speculation) took a back seat to the healthy relationship of investors providing venture capital to businesses, I wish bonds gave some level of inflation adjusted returns (sucks being old), I wish houses were more affordable (sucks being young).

I feel like I'm living inside of a Monopoly game rather than living a real life.

I'm in a good place, I can weather a really bad storm...my concern isn't for myself, my concern is that the lack of predictability in the world around us today can't be good for societal health.

That's why I said "I sort of get it"...why bother trying, why bother committing the behaviors that traditionally led to success when everything has been reduced to a random cluster berk.

In reply to RX Reven' :

Check out series I bonds. They have some restrictions but it’s inflation adjusted and better than nothing. 

Appleseed said:

99% of "preppers" are just paranoid guys with a lot of guns.

Guns won't fix cars. You are going to need a lot more than that. Nothing wrong with having a generator, tools that can fix anything on the car or the house, and some warm sleeping bags when the power and heat go out. Boy scout skills are good to have if civilization starts going away. Most people today don't have the skills the average farmer had 75 years ago. 200 years ago the pioneers build their own houses without electricity or gas heat and managed to survive quite well, even in cold winters. Fixing your own stuff instead of calling somebody is rare these days. People actually died here last winter when the snow hit, the temperatures dropped and the electricity and heat went away. We were sitting here in the suburbs laughing at our husky rolling in the snow with ski clothes, expensive flashlights, REI 40 below sleeping bags  and generator at ready while people down the road from us were literally freezing to death. Some people actually died of carbon monoxide poisoning after firing up a Harbor Freight Generator in an apartment when the power was out. They honestly didn't know any better.

People can't maintain their cars and houses because the payments on the houses and cars they bought at an inflated price are so high. First they start putting the repairs on high interest credit cards. More payments. Then they stop going out to dinner and movies because they are broke. Restaurants and theatres go broke next. People with all those payments stop buying crap on Amazon and at WalMart and Target. Stores start hurting. People start losing jobs. Overpriced cars get repossessed. Overpriced houses get foreclosed on. Overpriced rentals sit empty while investors who built them go broke and then we have one hell of a homeless problem while people walk the streets holding on to their Playstations and cell phones. I'm not sure where crypto and NFTs fit into this other than the fact that the repo man won't be taking them for payment and you can't eat them when you are starving.

Welcome to your next depression.