How to determine whether you should fix an appliance or get a new one

I'm afraid many newer appliances as those built before 2005. Older appliances can be made more efficient with tuning, cleaning, adjustment and using more efficient replacement parts. I recommend staying away from "exotic brands" since replacement parts often not easily found. Stay away from LED displays and electronic controls as much as possible because those controls fail more often and can be quite costly. Heat and moisture (abundant in laundry rooms and kitchens) are enemies of electronics control boards. Also make note that modern home refrigerators are not designed to work in rooms over 80 degrees. so one must "refrigerate" (air-condition) the room. A midern unit will run 100% of the time (which it can't do without overheating) at 90 F degrees o higher ambient temperature.

Well, sorry to say, there is no 'rule of thumb' on replacing appliances. The best thing you can do is to research failure rates on your particular appliance unless you personally know your appliance tech and know how honest he/she is. I have worked in the appliance trade since 1998, and I have always told the customer what was wrong, what it would cost to fix that particular issue, and what they could expect for future issues according to my experience with them. So without a good crystal ball, all you can go by is the experience of others that are willing to share their information. And then you have to decide if it was a consistant issue with that particular model or just a few bad ones. One of the biggest things you can do is be watchful over your equipment and take care of problems right away and know what to look for. For example Whirlpool washers have had the pump on many models mounted on the motor shaft. When the pump seal would start to leak, it would run down the shaft into the sealed bearing on the motor. Over time if you didnt notice a little spot of water under the front of the machine, you would end up having that bearing go out, so you went from having a pump replaced to having the pump and motor replaced. Or I have seen a large number of customers whose dish racks will start to rust and they let it go until the pump has issues. Best thing I could advise is unless you are ata point of replacing a compressor in a fridge/freezer/ac, you may end up saving more by doing the regular maintenance and repairs on your current appliances. The cooling systems on appliances are where you save the most in efficiency. Things are not built the way they use to be. Read up on what you have, and what you plan on buying, stay informed.

Unfortunately, the diagnostic fee alone from a repair company will be $75-$100. Then the repair fee. If its a $500 appliance and >7 years old I'd replace. If the appliance is more expensive then better to repair. Most appliance repair companies are somewhat shady so be careful.

I have to say that this is so true. We used to have a used appliance where we would pick up the only one and either fix or resell the old one. I can't tell you how many times people throw away appliances that only need a $5 part!!

There are a lot of factors to consider. The technician that I use for all of my repairs says that if you buy a poor appliance to begin with, then you will spend more on repairs than to simply replace. I have a frigidaire dishwasher that has had problems TWICE and I have only had it a little over a year and a half. My technician has told me that he will not continue to enable my bad habits and that next time it breaks he's picking me up and taking me shopping for one that won't break down on me. He's a great technician who has made it clear that his purpose is to make sure that I have healthy, happy appliances and he's happiest when he doesn't hear from his customers for a while because that means things are running right. So what this all tells me and should tell other people is that you need two things to make a decision on whether to repair or replace: first, you need good appliances and second, you need a good, honest repair technician who is not interested in ripping you off. I would never replace an appliance without first calling Jon to have him look at it. Even if it does cost me $50 to have him come out and take a peek, it's worth it for the opinion of someone who knows what they're doing. I'm not qualified to decide whether an appliance is worth saving or if I should ditch it. But the one thing my technician has told me to do is this: Make a chart for my appliances that shows what I paid for the appliance and then make the next columns "repair" columns. Date the repair and then put in the cost of the repair and having the technician come out. If you ever get to a point where the total cost of the combined repairs comes with $100 of the cost of the appliance, it's definitely time to REPLACE. And if it's a really costly appliance, say a $2000 refrigerator (not that I have one of those) then you should decide what's a reasonable bracket...maybe you don't want your total repairs to go over $1500 in a 15 year period. That's an average of $100 per year. So you just need to decide what's reasonable and be sure that you're putting money aside for replacements and not just for repairs.

Over the years, I have spent too much money on repair people walking through the door and in five minutes they left telling me anything from, not worth fixing or to find a breaker switch went on my fuse box. Recently my 14 month old cell phone dies. The provider company told me.."this old Phone, toss it! Technology changes so much it was only meant to last a year!"

Also needed a new dishwasher. The new ones are SO much more sophisticated and do not use more energy to do more! Love my new unit! The old unit lasted 18 years! No complaints from me!

If people have the time buy a consumer digest book and read the to see which appliance is recommended. Consumers digest test the appliances to see which one is best and gives their recommendations.

you made me sit through at least one minute of "fluff" before divulging the 5 second "tip" about when to replace. Why the fluff?