My washing machine died mid cycle and I had to hand wring everything

Last Tuesday my 12 year old Kenmore finally gave out with a full load of wet clothes just sitting there. No warning, no error code, just stopped and wouldn't turn back on. I had to haul everything to the laundromat and spend $14 on dryers alone, plus the $250 repair guy said the motor was shot. Anyone else ever had to deal with a surprise appliance failure and how did you budget for the replacement?

2 comments

2 Comments

william_henderson1d ago

Wait, are you sure a $250 motor replacement quote was worth refusing? I mean, a new basic washer these days runs $450-$550 minimum and the cheap ones don't last half as long as your Kenmore did. My buddy paid $300 to fix his old Maytag last year (new transmission, not motor) and that thing's still going strong 14 months later. Unless your machine was rusted out or had other issues, $250 to get another 3-5 years out of a solid top loader sounds like a bargain compared to dropping $600+ on a new one that might crap out in 4 years. You could've been out of pocket for just that repair instead of a whole new appliance, you know?

wilson.sam22h ago

My neighbor just did the exact same thing with his dryer last month, paid $220 for a heating element replacement and now he's bragging about how he saved five hundred bucks. But here's the pattern I keep seeing people miss - we treat these things like they're all the same but they're not. That $250 motor quote might have been fair if the rest of the machine was solid, but I've learned the hard way that when one major part goes on an old washer, the drum bearings, the pump, the timer, they're all usually not far behind. It's like when people dump a grand into a car with 200,000 miles thinking they've outsmarted the system, then the transmission blows three months later. Sometimes you gotta know when to cut your losses instead of throwing good money after bad.