I couldn't agree more.I had a gas tankless one lasted about 4 years, replaced it with a gas tanked hot water heater.
Tank water heaters are better.
They will last 20 to 30 years if you change the sacrifical anode.
Our new home came with Tankless after decades of having a tank water heater I would take the tank anyday but had no choice, some high end builders that know what they are doing will still choose the tank.
I think Tankless is a cost cutting thing for builders. Smack it on the side of the building and you are done. They get them dirt cheap in bulk but you WILL pay a fortune to have it replaced
Tankless and Tank heaters have been around for 50 or 70 years. Mostly 3rd world countries had tankless but somehow we were convinced tankless are better. They are not as far as I am concerned. I speak from experience of decades of gas water heater with a tank.
I never replaced the anode so only get about 12+ year from one but even then, 3 tank water heater replacements over 30 or 40 years would still be less then tankless and the tankless as you experienced dont last as long either and plumbers really whack you in cost to replace one. Let's not forget also with tankless in most all the country the coil needs to be flushed/cleaned every year to maintain hot water! Sure depending on your local water maybe you will go 3 years but someone has to hook up a pump every year to 3 years and flush it out.
Dont think for a minute it is energy saving. Even the .gov site doesnt make that determination. It's not as simple as one might think, it doesnt cost a lot to keep hot water in an insulated tank.
Its not really cheaper without a tank as the tankless is constantly starting up and turning off, there is ramp up time to hot water (wasting water waiting) and every little on and off of the faucet turns that tankless on, constantly ramping up the heater and leaving hot water to cool rapidly when it turns off. I also question the efficiency being it needs to fire up fast and hot for water and call me crazy but that baby is blowing out some hot air as it does.
Anyway, just my thoughts, it is cool in the sense that the tankless doesnt take up room but I wish to god I had a tank. Just to much to think about with tankless when I never had to think about anything with the tank, its more complicated, more things to break, more maintenance = more costly and forget about replacement time, holy smokes I cant believe what some people are getting quoted in the older section of our community. Its INSANE.