For me its the old fans and vacuum cleaners. Over 40/years old each and still going strong. Clear labeling inside and have been fixed up multiple times.
My Thinkpad:
I’m still rocking an A22p! It was my first notebook in 2003. People went mad when I brought it to school because of the 1600x1200 screen. I used its S-Video output so the whole class was able to watch movies on an external CRT TV. :D
There’s even a docking station with eGPU support - before it was cool!
That’s a very nice machine. How’s the screen nowadays? The one on my T60 is extremely dim and yellowed, seems like your’s is still pretty good?
All of those screens have a CCFL, it’s basically a miniature version of of those old tube lights. If that one reaches its end of life it gets dim and yellow and needs to be replaced.
The A22p also accepts the IPS displays from an A31p. I modded mine with one of those, so now I have a Windows 98 notebook with an especially beautiful display. 🥰
Is that XP? That looks amazing!
Yes! :) I have dualboot with 98SE on this machine (the eGPU is pretty terrible to use on Windows 98).
Guitars. I have more than enough, but I still cant resist a good deal on a dirty, old, neglected vintage guitar. Clean it up, fix up any problems, re-string it, play it for a while, and sell it. But if it’s better than something I’ve already got, then I’ll keep it and sell the old one.
I’m slowly building and improving my stable, without spending much money at all. It means my guitars probably won’t say Martin, or Taylor, or Gibson, or Fender, but they’ll all be excellent guitars anyway.
I’m also good with dryers. There isn’t anything on a dryer I can’t fix. They can almost be a Ship of Theseus situation.
My Rancilio Silvia espresso machine. Easy to take apart and replace anything. Parts are readily available from many sources. Also, my BMW 3 series, but I’m a BMW tech, so I better be able to fix anything on it. But it’s 14 years old and is like working on a horse cart compared to the current ones. Luckily BMW are designed to be able to fix anything on them, unlike most other brands. Don’t even get me started on Tesla, what absolute junk.
3d printer. Just wish I didn’t have to do it so often.
Bicycle
Yup, same probably. Been riding the same Fuji mt bike from 1996.
My crown Victoria. I’ve had it for 15 years and do all the repairs on it myself. Sometimes it’s difficult to get to a part cause of a stupid design, but I usually win in the end.
Since my background is in PC repair… my PC.
For a unique answer, I’m going to say my model trains from the 1940s & 50s (Lionel, O gauge). They were designed to be taken apart & serviced, and it shows. And they have enough common parts that even though they’re now 75+ years old, you can still get parts.
I’ll also throw my 1997 Ford F-150 into the mix as a more common answer. Ford made literal millions of these, so not only are parts still available, they will be for decades still to come. Heck, I replaced the motor last year, and was able to get most of the bolt on parts I wanted straight from the dealership. Not bad for 25+ years old.
Probably hand planes, I can easily keep those going for decades myself.
Some of my furniture I guess, I’ve already rebuilt the bookshelf that fell apart.
My tractor. It’s the ship of Theseus at this point.
I’ve got the robot vacuum of Theseus here… early, 2nd or 3rd gen Roomba I guess it is, I’ve probably had since 2009 or so I think. I’ve replaced damn near all of it, and I’m ALWAYS shocked when something new breaks, I check online, and I can get a part and replace it! And often times the replacement ends up being an upgrade too. I think it must have come from the Twilight Zone or something, I don’t know.
Perhaps inflating it with upgrades, but very few original parts remain on my ThinkPad X230. Swapped parts include the motherboard, RAM, SSDs, wireless card, fingerprint reader, keyboard, LCD panel, speakers, cooler, battery, screws, bezel, palmrest, and hinges.
The multi-tool pen in my pocket everyday carry too. Originally had ruler markings, Phillips and slotted bits, stylus tip, and a level. Didn’t need the level and wanted it shorter so it fit in my key pouch, so I took all the parts out, sawed off part of the barrel, and put it all back together, sans level. Refills are easily available online or can be crafted simply by popping the ink stick out of a regular ballpoint pen and cutting it short.
My 90s Chevy is also very repairable and the parts are still very plentiful. In no mood to get something newer, especially after seeing the engines and touchscreens of some my friends’ newer cars.
Me.
A lot has and continues to go wrong, but mostly self-repairing. At some point some failure will be unrecoverable, but hopefully that’s a long time in the future.An even better answer might be my cats. The small number of repairs that need professional assistance are cheaper than the same issues would be for myself. However I don’t expect them to last as long, unfortunately. Even though I got them very nearly brand new a few years ago.
If we’re talking about things I use regularly, probably my desktop computer. I bought it at an auction. This was in '04 and have been upgrading it one piece at a time ever since. I’m currently gathering parts for another “gut it and start over” level rebuild and I think the only original parts at this point are the case and the floppy drive.
If it’s just things I own and don’t use, I do technically own a '76 Chevy pickup that is almost infinitely repairable but that hasn’t had an engine since the early 2000s
Probably the 72 year old Ferguson tractor I own, new parts are so easy to find and usually very reasonably priced. It’s also designed to be easily user serviceable and user repairable.
