Striker223

Sorta, alum recycling takes more energy than just printing new plastic and more importantly costs more. If something costs more no one will use it

703

I just like durable materials in goods. Less waste and more use 😀.

or are we saying we don’t have enough plastic in landfill and we should strive for more?

when a metal part is infused with plastic, the effort to dissemble outweighs the benefit and it is just dumped. That is metal that could be recycled or plastic that could be recycled but would never be.

703

The cost is still there. It just someone else paying for the consequences. This generation or the next, doesn’t matter. Cost is not avoided, just transferred.

Motorola

If you care so much for saving the environment and reducing landfill waste, don't buy any new car lol. Doesn't matter what year it was made.

We're talking about metal water pumps, how about we talk about the fact that all new cars now use metal chains instead of the crappy flimsy rubber band timing belts that older cars like the LS400 came with. Technology moves forward for the better.

703

you know that rubber timing belts are very recyclable, More so than the dirty take away food containers that aren’t recycled as often too dirty.

the metal water pump in the example above are not ls400 era. It’s still being produced today in Toyota and Lexus V6s.

and besides, let’s debate the topic and not the person. Big corporates like Toyota have social responsibility and sustainability statements and commitments. They have set theses goals themselves.

Motorola

And yet most of them will just get tossed in the trash because timing belts are designed to be used up and thrown away as part of scheduled maintenance, unlike timing chains.

The 3.5 NA V6 is literally a 15 year old engine, it's outright ancient. Tear apart the new 2.4T in the NX and tell me what you find, I would bet good money it's connected to a plastic water pump too.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

plastic in landfills doesn't bother me. it doesn't degrade so just make golf courses and interesting terrain out of it.

plastic in the oceans/rivers... different story, and terrible.

SW17LS

Yet Toyota/Lexus water pumps have been notorious for leaking for 30 years. I replaced more than one leaking pump in my many years of Lexus ownership, and on the older cars they are almost always replaced with the TB anyways. So, why design a pump that will last more than 90-100k miles.

Sometimes not wasting R&D and manufacturing costs on parts that are overbuilt yet still fail as if they were under built doesn’t make any sense.

As for worrying about plastic in landfills, where do you think metal goes? Plastic can be recycled same as metal.

LeX2K

...removed ..

DaveGS4

iTrader: (2)

Let’s make comments on the topic without the comments on the people posting in the thread please. Lex2k please edit

LeX2K

Where it goes is a separate issue vs can the materials be recycled. Metals are infinitely recyclable with only a small amount of material lost in the process.
Plastic that is recycled is inferior compared to using virgin materials this gets amplified the more times the material is recycled. Most is not recycled at all, the recycle looking symbol you see at the bottom of a plastic containers have zero to do with recyclability. See for yourself.

Striker223

Its avoided, if it's passed on past me then it's not my problem anymore.....that's the logic to a lot of this. Name me a person who is driving the same car their parent drove that has been passed down, it just doesn't really happen

Striker223

The chains wear out more actually. I have had to deal with so many chains now that cars that had them are getting to the 10-13 year marks when the previous versions had belts

703

you got to think bigger. Every action has an equal and opposite impact on the environment, for better or worse. In the worse category, this means more pollution, more deforestation (land fill is not infinite) less biodiversity etc.

while it doesn’t impact you in a way you see right now, the impact is there. Someone else ends up paying for it, and it doesn’t have to be measured in dollars.

80 million cars are produced each year. Even if their useful life decreases by a small percentage, that is a lot going into waste as recycling is never fully done well in practice.

LexFinally

A rubber timing belt is an opportunity for fatally missed maintence that a chain just isn't. I'll bet you there are a lot more interference engines getting trashed, and taking the whole car to the scrapyard with them, because a rubber timing belt snapped at age 8 than because a metal chain falied at age 13.