Washing Machine repair or replace?
#11
Question 
Eight and a half year old washing machine quit. I found a technician's manual inside of the top. Wonderful, I can check the machine out myself. Now the bad news. It's brains are dead. So.....Do I spend $225 for new brains or junk it and buy a new one? What is the expected life of a Whirlpool?

My boss is a Jewish carpenter. Our DADDY owns the business.
Trying to understand some people is like trying to pick up the clean end of a turd.
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#12
Just my two cents....replace.  My 8+ year old whirlpool washer is slowly dying.  I have to press the start button up to 5+ times in rapid succession to get it to start sometimes.  Only repair is replacing the control board.  No way I want to sink money into a failing machine.
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#13
Shop around for parts, even control boards.  We have Whirlpool front loader washer and dryer set.  I replaced a faulty water fill valve on the washer for relatively little using parts from Appliancepartspros.com.  When a control board on the dryer went out, I found a local source that was cheaper for the board versus going online and it was in stock.  That was 18 months ago and the dryer is fine.  That machine set cost us $2000 when new.  The $300 I've put into them for parts over the past 11 years seems like a good deal rather than replacing the machines.

As for which way to go, all depends on how sure you are that it's the board, and how much the replacement machine costs.  The $225 board versus a $500 replacement machine is a different calculus than a $225 board versus $1000 replacement machine.  Keep in mind that replacing machines can also incur disposal costs for the old machine.
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#14
I'm pretty sure it's the board but no way of knowing if there is anything else gone bad. Disposal is not a problem. I can just leave it out by the road and it will be gone in a day or two, or I can add it to the scrap metal pile to sell some day.

My boss is a Jewish carpenter. Our DADDY owns the business.
Trying to understand some people is like trying to pick up the clean end of a turd.
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#15
(02-22-2019, 10:15 PM)Foggy Wrote: I'm pretty sure it's the board but no way of knowing if there is anything else gone bad. Disposal is not a problem. I can just leave it out by the road and it will be gone in a day or two, or I can add it to the scrap metal pile to sell some day.

Ebay can be helpful and cheap.  I bought a part from Ebay but while I was waiting for it to arrive I saw one offered on CL with different issues so picked it up stripped out what I needed and the metal man took away the rest.  I was going to replace but hadn't seen any reviews of new machines that seemed to be as good as what I had.  So now I have the new part I ordered of Ebay and a spare motor I pulled out of the one from CL ready for the next time it craps out.

You can power up the motor to see if it works, with mine I thought it was the motor but hot wiring proved me wrong.  If you do that remove the belt
Phydeaux said "Loving your enemy and doing good for those that hurt you does not preclude killing them if they make that necessary."


Phil Thien

women have trouble understanding Trump's MAGA theme because they had so little involvement in making America great the first time around.

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#16
Our last Whirlpool (Cabrio top loader) lasted 14 months. After googling, it seems to be a pretty common failure. Whirlpool wouldn't help a bit. Mother board was close to $300. Can't do $300 every 14 months. It didn't clean well anyway so why dump another $400 into something that doesn't clean clothes?

Bought an LG through Costco which cleans much better and it was cheaper than replacing the Whirlpool. Costco's extended warranties are a good bit cheaper and longer than others so instead of buying a fancier machine, we bought a fancier warranty. It's about a year old now and so far so good.
Neil Summers Home Inspections




I came to a stop sign and a skanky tweaker chick in a tube top climbed out of the brush and propositioned me.  She looked like she didn't have any teeth so I counted that as a plus.


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#17
To me, it's seems like appliances are becoming more and more a throwaway item. Once they die, replace. We just had a 6 year frig crap out (control board) and I bought a new one to replace it. This frig came with this house and had since been demoted t garage duty...but it was still a useful item and it peeved me no end when it died at such a young age.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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#18
We bought a used (but fairly new) Whirlpool Duet set in 2010. About 3 years ago, dryer acted up. Diagnosed as front control board. I ordered a new one online, $300. It lasted 4 months. I got a second one for free under warranty. All has been good since. I wouldn't hesitate to repair it again.
I no longer build museums but don't want to change my name. My new job is a lot less stressful. Life is much better.

Garry
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#19
some of those whirlpool controller boards have simple failures on the boards that can easily be fixed.  I would check on utube.
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#20
(02-23-2019, 08:27 AM)museumguy Wrote: We bought a used (but fairly new) Whirlpool Duet set in 2010. About 3 years ago, dryer acted up. Diagnosed as front control board. I ordered a new one online, $300. It lasted 4 months. I got a second one for free under warranty. All has been good since. I wouldn't hesitate to repair it again.

That front control board is the same one that failed on our Whirlpool duet, same vintage.  The board was available from local parts place for $265; hence my suggestion to shop around.  Been going good for a long while now.  It was an easy thing to replace.

Quote:EricU:  "some of those whirlpool controller boards have simple failures on the boards that can easily be fixed.  I would check on utube."

And there's truth in that, too.  Two summers ago, odometer and gear indicator lights on daughter's 2004 Buick Century quit working.  Youtube showed fix by replacing some capacitors.  Got capacitors on line for $5, twenty minutes of disassembly, 10 minutes of solder work, twenty minutes of reassembly, and it was fixed.  First time I'd ever done something like that.
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