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Q: Why are the elevators in China always broken?
Seriously, every apartment building I have lived in, or friend's have lived in seems to have the elevators broken, closed, or whatever at least 50% of the time. I think at any given time 25% of all lifts are out of service. Why doesn't Otis get its act together and make elevators that don't breakdown all the time?
That's because the apartment's management did not pay the maintenance fees but keeps collecting them from the residents. Someone is pocketing the fees and hoping against hope that the elevators won't breakdown. Breakdown they will and anybody knows somebody will get it fixed but soon everybody knows nobody will do anything. So there.
Funny, 15 years in China and I've hardly seen any out of service (save normal routine maintenance). Might I suggest you and your friends move somewhere else?
louischuhm is spot-on. There's the lesser version of this story : the owners of the building decided that the original contractor for the maintenance was too expensive, and decided to hire a cheaper one. Regardless of the competence and qualification of the cheaper contractor, cutting corners to the max ! I've seen this happening 1st hand 
Yup. In our building for the first couple of years there was an "Inpsection Date" remarkably close to the build date of the building, and then some years down the road, lift breaks, but the inspection date is never updated. The repair people was branded the same as the lifts.
Maintenance with Chinese characteristics = no maintenance. Escalators, refrigeration units in supermarkets, pain on walls, people (e.g. do teachers ever get their knowledge updated) nothing is maintained.
I thought I read on here that around 500 people are injured in elevators every year in China, but I just tried to do a Google search and all relevant news was inaccessible. Does anyone know the number?
I just found a good article that explains the problems at least in Shanghai.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/816970.shtml#.U1sMFYKKCtU
I especially like the last two paragraphs. How could it take them this long to figure out who is legally responsible?
“The property management companies can skimp on elevator maintenance because Chinese law currently doesn't stipulate who is responsible when an elevator accident occurs. A new law that takes effect next year will change that.
Under the law, property management companies will be responsible for elevator accidents in the buildings they supervise unless residents have hired another company to oversee elevator maintenance. ”
Everything's busted. Nothing's done properly. The whole place is like some 2nd hand wastage space.
No pride is taken in anything. Why were 80,000 killed in the Sichuan earthquake a few years ago? Because the fuckers don't give a stuff about anything..anyone.
And someone mentioned new laws......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
What a bloody joke this place is.
Zebra crossings?? What fkn zebra crossing! Get out of my way...my horn is LOUD (def not big...), I am rich and powerful. I am GuanxiMan!
I live in a new building, only 2 years old. It has 2 elevators. Both go to the 8th and 9th floor of the 9 story bldg. They can't seem to keep them maintained. I've been here 2 months and both have been broken at the same time 3 times now.
I would put it down to elevators being safety critical devices. They are designed to be fail safe, so the slightest problem will cause them to stop.
A faulty "door closed" sensor on the 14th floor will render the entire machine inoperable, not just that specific door on the 14th floor. In addition, a faulty sensor can't just be shorted out to fool the control system, the control system is looking for that sensor to change state within a specified time. If that don't happen, then the system shuts down
It's a complex machine, and everything has to be in good order before anything moves.
Also, I don't ever recall seeing a Chinese branded elevator here. so I suspect there will be a wait while spares are delivered.
The elevators in our apartment are pretty reliable. But when a problem does crop up it seems to take ages for it to be finally resolved. An Engineer fixes it, it stops again after 2 hours. He comes back next day, it breaks down again the day after. That could be down to the engineer trying to keep a faulty sensor working while waiting for an original spare to be delivered.
Eventually the elevator's control system is satisfied and it goes back to work ferrying the grinning aunties and mums between floors as they try to find a hapless foreigner to close the door on 
expatlife26:
That's true, i've never seen a Chinese branded elevator either.
The ones in my home and office building are hitachi brand
cooter:
Most of the elevators I see around here are Xizi Otis branded. Otis is known worldwide....guessing Xizi is their Chinese joint-venture partner. You can bet money they're made in China....and since they weren't for export, they're up to the usual Chinese market quality standards (IE, subpar)
ScotsAlan:
I think they will be built to the same standard as anywhere else.
Another thing to consider, with the speed that multi story buildings are going up, there must be a shortage of factory trained Engineers.
I see Guangzhou are soon to get the fastest elevators in the world.
1. Most chinese can't use things properly and they break shit (notice when they're trying to unlock and closing doors) or just go to the gym and see what they do.
2. Poor material quality.
3. Shitty or no maintenance at all.
4. They don't give a shit about proper usage, most likely they will ignore the loading capacity and stuff.
That's beautiful question. and coming right in time, where one of the 2 elevators we have in our building, does not reach 1st floor already 3 days, and with the other one, they have some 2 weeks period of changing which one does not run completly. Do not know why, but is almost a routine there...
