Reliability Archives - understand-culture

The Breaker for the Bathroom

Since 1984, new buildings in Germany must have a residual-current circuit breaker for wet rooms. Since 2007, every newly installed socket circuit of up to 20 amperes needs one. The usual trip current is 30 milliamperes. Year after year, people die when electrical appliances fall into full bathtubs.

Germans still usually call the device the FI-Schalter, although the trade now says RCD. When it trips, they say der FI ist rausgeflogen, the FI has flown out. Older private installations need not be retrofitted, except after certain renovations or where there is an obvious danger.

Twenty-Four Hours Without Failing

On 14 June 1970 Porsche won the 24 Hours of Le Mans overall for the first time, with the 917 KH. The winning driver Richard Attwood recalled that the race was then more an endurance drive than a race. Le Mans ist ein Rennen, das klappt oder das klappt nicht. Le Mans is a race that either works out or does not.

By the company’s count in June 2021, Porsche had 19 overall wins and 108 class wins at Le Mans, both records.

In Case of a Case

Im Falle eines Falles klebt UHU wirklich alles. In case of a case, UHU really glues everything. According to one press report, the advertising line of the glue maker from Bühl dates from the 1930s. In 1932 the pharmacist August Fischer presented UHU, which a pharmacy trade report calls the world’s first ready-to-use, synthetic, crystal-clear all-purpose glue.

Im Falle eines Falles has become a set phrase in German. It means when the emergency comes.

What Used-Car Buyers Want First

The DAT, the Deutsche Automobil Treuhand, surveys what matters when people buy a used car. In the results reported in February 2024, Zuverlässigkeit, reliability, came first. On a scale from 1 to 4 it had an average of 1.22, compared with 1.30 the year before. It came clearly ahead of freedom from accident damage and ahead of price.

Dropped From Nine Meters

Since 1978 the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, the BAM, has checked the safety of transport casks for nuclear waste with drop tests. A cask falls nine meters onto an unyielding foundation. It falls one meter onto a steel punch aimed at its most sensitive part. Then it burns for half an hour in a fire of 800 degrees. The cask must stay safe in a serious accident.

The institute goes back to 1871, when Prussia founded a royal laboratory for mechanical testing.

Boats Built to Come Upright Again

The German Maritime Search and Rescue Service, the DGzRS, designs all of its boats as Selbstaufrichter, self-righters. On the newer rescue boats, extra buoyancy chambers bring the boat upright again after it has capsized. About 20 rescue cruisers and 40 rescue boats stand ready at 55 stations from Borkum to Usedom, in any weather, around the clock.

The service was founded in Kiel on 29 May 1865, and it takes no tax money. About 13,000 small collection boxes shaped like ships stand on counters across the country. They bring in up to a million euros a year.

Breakdowns per Thousand Cars

In 2025 the ADAC, the German automobile club, came to help broken-down drivers 3,691,813 times. A breakdown call came in every nine seconds.

Every year the club publishes its Pannenstatistik, its breakdown statistics. It counts the breakdowns per 1,000 vehicles of each model. A model series is included only if more than 7,000 of it were registered in at least two of its first ten years. The 2026 edition covers 158 models from 27 makers. It rates 74 model series as extremely reliable.

The Bridge Over the Tay

Tand, Tand / Ist das Gebilde von Menschenhand! Trinkets, trinkets, is the work of human hands! Theodor Fontane wrote Die Brück’ am Tay about the railway bridge in Scotland that collapsed in a storm on 28 December 1879. The ballad appeared in January 1880. It is often read in German schools.

In the poem the bridge is a pride. Und unser Stolz ist unsre Brück. And our pride is our bridge. The engine is trusted to win against the storm. Ein fester Kessel, ein doppelter Dampf, / Die bleiben Sieger in solchem Kampf. A sturdy boiler, a double steam, they will win such a fight. Three voices, the witches of Macbeth, destroy the bridge, and they have the last word.

A ballad that many German pupils read about a great work of engineering warns against trusting it too much.

Watching the Product After the Sale

On 9 December 1986 the Federal Court of Justice decided the Honda case. The plaintiffs’ son had been riding a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle on the autobahn from Nuremberg to Munich at 140 to 150 kilometers per hour. He died at the scene of the crash. The cause was a handlebar fairing made by another firm and fitted after the sale. At high speed it reduced the grip of the front wheel.

The court set out the Produktbeobachtungspflicht, the duty to observe the product. A manufacturer must keep itself informed about the consequences of how its product is used. The duty also covers accessories made by other firms, when they are necessary, intended or in common use.

Fifteen Thousand Crashes on the Computer

On 10 September 1959 Mercedes-Benz began systematic crash testing at its plant in Sindelfingen. The first test car was a pre-production vehicle of the coming W 110 series. The movements of the dummy were filmed for analysis.

Today a new model may need up to 15,000 crash simulations and about 150 real crash tests. Its crash test center conducts about 900 crash tests and about 1,700 sled tests each year.