Every appliance failure ends with the same question, and most advice about it is useless because it is delivered as a slogan: “if the repair is more than half the price of new, replace it.” That rule ignores the two things that actually decide it — how much life the machine has left, and whether the part still exists.
Here is a version you can apply in about two minutes, standing in front of the thing.
Start with how much life is left, not with the price
Typical service lives run roughly like this: refrigerators and ranges twelve to fifteen years, dishwashers and washers ten to twelve, dryers ten to thirteen, over-the-range microwaves closer to nine. These are not guarantees, they are the range within which failures stop being unlucky and start being expected.
A machine at a third of its expected life is worth repairing well past the fifty-percent rule, because the repair buys years. The same repair on a machine at ninety percent buys months, and the next fault is already queued behind it.
Then ask which part failed
Faults are not equal. A door switch, a thermostat, a pump, a heating element, a belt, a fan motor — these are cheap, available, and durable once replaced. A sealed-system leak in a refrigerator, a failed compressor, a cracked outer tub, or a control board on a discontinued platform belongs to the other category, where the repair costs a meaningful share of a new machine and does nothing for the parts around it.
Parts availability matters more than people expect. Manufacturers typically support parts for a limited number of years after a model is discontinued, and once a control board is gone, an otherwise sound appliance is finished.
The three-question version
- Is the machine in the first half of its expected life? If yes, lean repair.
- Is the failed part mechanical and stocked, rather than a sealed system or an obsolete board? If yes, lean repair.
- Is this the first significant failure? If it is the third in two years, the machine is telling you something and it is not about this part.
Two yeses out of three usually means repair. Two nos usually means replace, and the money is better spent on the new machine than on splitting it between both.
What tips the scale toward replacing
- A refrigerator with a sealed-system fault, at almost any age.
- A machine that has already had a major repair in the past year.
- An appliance whose running cost is genuinely bad — an old second refrigerator in a basement is often the single worst load in a house.
- Damage that is structural: rusted-through cabinet, cracked tub, warped door.
What tips it toward repairing
Built-in and panel-ready appliances change the math completely. Replacing an integrated dishwasher or a built-in wall oven is a cabinetry project as much as an appliance purchase, and the replacement has to fit an opening that was cut for a model that no longer exists. Repairing those is frequently right even at costs that would be absurd on a freestanding machine.
Professional-grade equipment behaves the same way. A well-built range is designed to be rebuilt, and parts stay available far longer than they do for entry-level models.
How to get a straight answer
Ask for the diagnosis, the part, the price, and the technician’s read on what else is near the end of its life on that machine. A trustworthy answer sometimes is “this one is not worth fixing,” and hearing it before paying for a repair is the whole point of a diagnostic visit.
We quote the repair against the age and condition of the machine and say plainly when replacement is the better buy — we would rather lose one repair than sell it twice. Describe the symptom on the phone at (617) 404-9944; diagnosis over the call is free. Pricing for common jobs is on the home appliance repair price page, and the full list of what we cover is under home appliance repair.
