Repair or replace: how the decision actually gets made

The rule of thumb, and where it breaks

The common advice is to repair an appliance if the fix costs less than half of a comparable new machine. It is a reasonable starting point and it is wrong often enough to be worth examining.

It works for freestanding appliances. A $700 washer does not deserve a $500 repair. It breaks down completely for built-in and luxury appliances, because the number you are comparing against is not the price of the machine. It is the price of the machine plus delivery, plus installation, plus the cabinetry work when the replacement is a quarter-inch different, plus the weeks your kitchen is short one appliance.

That is why a sealed-system repair on a built-in refrigerator can look expensive on paper and still be the cheaper decision by several thousand dollars.

Age matters less than people expect

A well-built appliance in the second half of its life is not automatically a bad candidate for repair. What matters more is whether the failure is a wear part or a structural one.

Wear parts are meant to be replaced: pumps, valves, igniters, elements, seals, belts, control boards. Replacing one of those on a fifteen-year-old Miele is normal maintenance, not resuscitation.

Structural failures are different. A rusted-through tub, a cracked inner drum, a compressor on a machine that was never worth much new — those are the failures that end an appliance's life honestly.

Three cases where we tell you not to repair

The part is discontinued and there is no supply. We would rather say so than order something that never arrives and leave you waiting three weeks for that news.

The repair cost has passed the value of the machine and the machine was not special to begin with. This is the ordinary case and it is usually obvious once the number is on the table.

There are two significant faults at once on an appliance that owes you nothing. Fixing one leaves you with the other, and you will be paying another service call within the year.

What the $85 buys when the answer is 'replace'

You paid for a diagnosis, and a diagnosis has value even when it ends in a recommendation not to repair. You know exactly what failed. You know what to look for in a replacement. You are not guessing.

You can also stop spending money on the question. People often spend more than $85 running an ailing appliance while they decide what to do.

We do not take a repair we do not believe in. Losing one job costs us less than being the company that talked somebody into a pointless repair in Lafayette, where everybody knows their neighbours.