Exactly this. I recently had my clothes washer break. Spent days researching the problem, taking the thing apart, figuring out the cause was the spindle on the back of the drum having a crack and eventually breaking. I eventually found a replacement part which had a slightly different part number but research showed it should be compatible. $400 for the part. $130 shipping, plus tax came out to just shy of $600. 2 week lead time to get the part, and no certainty I’d be able to put it all back together. Professional appliance repair wouldn’t have made financial sense either, I called around.
I ended up ordering a new one for $800 all in, saving many headaches. Had it two days later and was able to catch up on laundry.
Did you research spare part availability / reparability scores when buying the new one?
I always start with that when buying major items. Some brands are more consumer friendly than others. I was still able to buy replacement parts for my 2005 fridge and dishwasher in 2019 and 2023 for 13 and 100 euros respectively (the 100 euro was a heat exchanger one of the biggest pieces of the machine). With 6 Euro shipping costs, 2 day delivery. And a bunch of YouTube videos to do the repair.
In 2024 we equipped a whole new house with the same brand, voting with our wallets.
Yes, to the best of my ability and available resources. It is a newer model, so currently spare parts seemed to be abundant vs the 12 or so year old previous model.
Nice work on the cheap repairs! Which brand, if I may ask?
Fundamentally, you’re never going to be able to compete with the economies of scale of an assembly line with the same people putting together all the parts that were shipped to the same place. If the repairman has to keep an inventory of hundreds of parts for dozens of models, and drive around to where he only has time to diagnose and fix 2 appliances per day, while the factory worker can install a part for 100 appliances per day, there will always be a gap between the price of replacement versus the price of repair.
Exactly this. I recently had my clothes washer break. Spent days researching the problem, taking the thing apart, figuring out the cause was the spindle on the back of the drum having a crack and eventually breaking. I eventually found a replacement part which had a slightly different part number but research showed it should be compatible. $400 for the part. $130 shipping, plus tax came out to just shy of $600. 2 week lead time to get the part, and no certainty I’d be able to put it all back together. Professional appliance repair wouldn’t have made financial sense either, I called around.
I ended up ordering a new one for $800 all in, saving many headaches. Had it two days later and was able to catch up on laundry.
Did you research spare part availability / reparability scores when buying the new one?
I always start with that when buying major items. Some brands are more consumer friendly than others. I was still able to buy replacement parts for my 2005 fridge and dishwasher in 2019 and 2023 for 13 and 100 euros respectively (the 100 euro was a heat exchanger one of the biggest pieces of the machine). With 6 Euro shipping costs, 2 day delivery. And a bunch of YouTube videos to do the repair.
In 2024 we equipped a whole new house with the same brand, voting with our wallets.
Yes, to the best of my ability and available resources. It is a newer model, so currently spare parts seemed to be abundant vs the 12 or so year old previous model.
Nice work on the cheap repairs! Which brand, if I may ask?
Neff, but it’s exactly the same hardware as Bosch and Siemens (BSH).
We sold the apartment with the 20 year old devices still working perfectly.
Cool! Bosch is going to be my next set of appliances after I sell my current place, and my new place needs new ones.
Fundamentally, you’re never going to be able to compete with the economies of scale of an assembly line with the same people putting together all the parts that were shipped to the same place. If the repairman has to keep an inventory of hundreds of parts for dozens of models, and drive around to where he only has time to diagnose and fix 2 appliances per day, while the factory worker can install a part for 100 appliances per day, there will always be a gap between the price of replacement versus the price of repair.