I had a washing machine break a couple of weeks ago. 3 years old. Just past warranty. Manufacturer advertised 10 year warranty on the motor. Motor controller burned out: not covered. PCB looked perfect. Had it swapped today: suddenly everything back to working. $240 for the part, $170 labor. As an individual, I can't buy the part.

In theory, our national government has a 'crackdown' on 'bullshit whitegoods warranties' this year. In reality: they're letting it happen.[0]

When it costs $400 and two weeks of screwing around to fix a $900 appliance, you just buy a new one.

I'd happily fix the thing myself, but it's not designed to be fixed, and they refuse to sell the part: the supply chain is designed to make the option impossible.

In vengeance, I kept the old motor controller but haven't yet taken a look at it. Might send it to China to get it reverse engineered if necessary or if simple enough just release an open one as a KiCad file. Frankly I think it's just a large motor controller IC, a cap, a heat sink and one or two other components.

The guy fixing it told me basically they're all bad, and designed to fail after warranty now. He said Samsung has good service, Miele has good value, the rest are meh. I hear good things about Fisher & Paykel, which is an AU/NZ brand. He said don't buy combined washer-dryers, and always buy a larger one than you need: mostly they die from overloading not from under-use. He also said: unplug them when not in use. Sadly, that makes sense. I guess they sometimes design them to 'slow burn'.

[0] https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/rising-contacts-raise-...

Repair Cafe – Fix Your Broken Items