Thanks Loopydude for getting away from personal anecdotes in the subject of car quality. Much appreciated.
Now, after reading Merijeek’s rant on Alienware computers, I would ask if anyone has some non-anecdotal evidence regarding such premium computer brands as Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc. In the case of Alienware they have built up an awesome brand that even made it in BusinessWeek’s Companies of the Year for 2004. If their products do suck on a significant average (rather than on an individual anecdotal basis) I would dearly love to know about it. Firstly, because I will avoid buying such a PC, but secondly because their marketing department deserves some real close attention for doing such an outstanding job in the cut-throat ultra-competitive low-margin business of PC sales.
PS: Sam, my SO has a Celine prototype that never made it to production. It was a gift from one of their executives, and is indeed a beautiful bag. It’s lasted 5 years so far with minimal wear and tear, is still fashionable, and is no doubt a good, solid product. I was told the end product, had it been made, would have retailed for “several” thousand US dollars. I never understood that kind of price tag for a handbag. Oh, and Rolex watches, on the men’s fashion side, are definitely overpriced too, made of gold or platinum or californium, I couldn’t care less. They don’t even look good for crying out loud, even cheaper ordinary brands like Seiko have better designs.
This is a good question - one that has had me baffled since I tasted one of these at a kids party the other day. It was just like any other donut.
My SO reckons they were promoted on an episode of the sitcom “Sex in the City”. The question is how did one episode of a TV show manage to make people cue up for a box of ordinary donuts. Maybe there is more to this. It’s a funny old world.
Anthing marketed for women is more than twice as expensive as the mens version, despite the products containing the same materials and design.
I switched to using “men’s” deodorant a couple of years ago for this reason. It’s a lot more than half the price of “women’s” deodorant of the same brand, but it is still noticeably cheaper and you can get it in a bigger container.
Once, when shopping with my youngest sister, we noticed a display of colored t-shirts in the teen girls department. My sister wanted one, but I advised her to check the teen boys department first. Sure enough, they had apparently identical shirts for a dollar less. Same brand, same style, and nearly the same color selection. The only difference I could see was that the girls department had pink…and as that was the color my sister wanted, she wound up spending the extra dollar.
To think of how much I coveted a Jag, before the company got sold to Ford Ah well, I suppose I can buy a re-tooled used one if and after I make that first million…
I’ve got to second the “skincare” pricing…well, I don’t want to say scam, but maybe interesting pricing. My sister worked in an upscale skincare products store for some time, and even she, good saleswoman as she was, cracked occasionally. “You know, you could buy this $100 bottle of unscented massage oil for $2 at Rite-Aid…”
As for Krispy Kremes, they are a superior donut, but you have to eat them hot to get the effect. How they succeed in selling their donuts cold in supermarkets or even in their own stores, I think, is an example of being preceded by their reputation.
Speaking of medicre products with an undeserved reputation, let’s talk about mainstream American beer. I’ll be the first to admit that Coors and Bud aren’t the greatest beers in the world and when I have a chance to drink something else I will. They hardly deserve the reputation they have as undrinkable swill to some people.
Sam Stone: Regarding your description of your home theater project — If you listen closely, you can hear my erection throbbing from there.
Re the general point, there’s definitely something to be said for the connoisseur. Champagne has been mentioned, but not wine. Now, I’ll own up to being a wine snob: White Zinfandel is Kool-Aid, Sutter Home is crap, my favorite style is Amarone (which most haven’t heard of), yada yada yada. That being said, though, my palate isn’t advanced enough to venture into the really high-end labels, and I know this, so I don’t bother to spend the money. I can easily taste the difference between a seven-dollar cab sauv and a forty-dollar cab sauv; I can just barely taste the difference between the forty-dollar bottle and a hundred-bucker; and above that it’s all the same to me. So for my own taste buds, that’s the “flat” part of the value curve mentioned back on page one. Even so, I’m sure my mother’s palate tops out in the twenty-dollar range, whereas a good friend of mine has the taste buds to distinguish between grand cru and grand cru reserve. I don’t need the status symbol of the expensive label if I can’t taste the difference, so I don’t spend the money. But I recognize I’m in the minority for my position.
Before Jag was Forduar (pronounced “ford-you-are”), a neighbor in my home town bought an absolutely beautiful-looking Jaguar convertible. I mean, it was gorgeous. It made your knees weak. It was the only automobile I’ve ever seen with a V-12. He let me look under the hood, and I would just gaze at it with my mouth hanging open. Cooooooool.
Then it started to become clear to us all that while a 12-cylinder engine is a really spiffy concept, it’s got about twice as many parts as you need to make a car go fast, and also twice as much stuff to break. And break it did. Often. So often, in fact, that he god rid of it in a year, during which a good percentage of his hair turned grey. Seriously. He was heartbroken.
My father, who had poured a good portion of his life into attempting to maintain a 1973 Land Rover just shook his head in empathetic sadness. “I will never own an English car again” was his mantra.
Yep. I’ve been discovering just how difficult! Since tons of people have been asking me about building the theater, I put a web site together for my project: My Home Theater Project. You can see some of the design decisions I’ve had to wrestle with and my solution to them. The pictures up so far show the current state of drywall - we start with the finish and trim in a couple of weeks. Click on the thumbnails for bigger photos.
Or that you’ve lived long enough for inflation to have raised prices by a factor of three, which isn’t out of the question if you’re reasonably young and healthy now.
Maybe people who criticize FORD’s absorption of Jaguar should remember a few things:
-Jaguar was one of the most unreliable cars on the road
-that “race-proven” straight six engine was a shoddily assembled , tempermental, unreliable POS
-the famous V-12 alluded to was a very complex design, and fit so snugly that you had to remove the engine to replace the heater core!
All in all, the “FORD-JAGUARS” are much better cars,at least they now have electrical systems that don’t fail after a year.
Oh I totally agree. We have some rich cousins (3 siblings) who purchased matching XJ-6s in the mid 1980s when they came to the US from South Africa. Needless to say, these things were constantly in the shop. But, these are my dad’s first cousins with whom he was close growing up – and my dad was driving a 1978 Chevette (or it may have been an '83 LeSabre by that point) at the time. I think that planted a seed in my dad’s mind. He worked hard and rose up through his company and earned his keep. And he walked into a Jag dealer at lunch hour one day and drove a 2003 X-type with that cool green/blue iridescent paint job off of the showroom floor.
But I think it is a waste. It has AWD and is nicely appointed, but the thing has no options apart from leather – no CD player or premium audio, a smallish engine, nothing apart from electric seats and windows. You could get the base Ford (without the leather or the AWD or the paint admittedly) for under $20k. But it hasn’t been in the shop.
IMHO you are paying at least $10,000 for that chunky hood ornament and the grille. But my dad seems happy enough with it so probably I should shut up about it.
Ah well, I suppose I can buy a re-tooled used one if and after I make that first million…
