Must Buy New Refrigerator Due to a Broken $50 Part Thats No Longer Available!

[Neptunus Rex]

In a mini rage right now.

Woke up Monday to find the fridge warm, freezer still cold. Moved everything in it to our spare in basement. Spent a couple hours last evening isolating the problem to a bad evaporator fan. Pulled the part out and went to the parts store.

$50 fan motor discontinued!

Granted, the fridge is 22 years old, but damn!

[Rockstar]

Google is all knowing and wise. Run the part number on the internet you might find it or it will cross reference over to another part number or manufacturer. After that if you cant find it I reckon you'll have get a new ice box.

[GoldenRivet]

There is a guy that lives a few miles from here... his back yard is full to capacity of refrigerators, washers, dryers, freezers, dishwashers and the like. He just about makes a living selling parts off of them that are either no longer available or simply cheaper to get from him than anywhere else. Perhaps, either in your area there is an old man like him. or certainly online you may be able to find used parts for your appliance.

that is a problem however - discontinued parts and appliances.

I fear i am getting due for a new washing machine soon.

I have a home buyers warranty that i renew every year, it covers all of my appliances for mechanical breakdown. We had to use it for the built in vent hood microwave shortly after we purchased the home. circuit board went out. they replaced it and sent a guy with the part to install it. took him 15 minutes and only cost me a $20 deductible. good investment if you ask me. They did mention that if the part was discontinued the would have no choice but to replace the microwave. perhaps thats what such a company would do in this case?

[Neptunus Rex]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Google is all knowing and wise. Run the part number on the internet you might find it or it will cross reference over to another part number or manufacturer. After that if you cant find it I reckon you'll have get a new ice box.

Did that, no luck. I did find some used motors, but you don't know what you will get and if it will last a day, month, year blah, blah blah.

Wife wants a new one.

The annoying thing is can't find the broken part unless you go in. The freezer on this one is on the bottom. Not an easy thing for someone my size (6'3") to get down there and then into it. Remove the ice maker, remove the back panel and spin fan by hand-bearings ok. Turn the thing on, fan does not move. (compressor ran very nicely!) Unplug it and remove the fan (without cutting myself on all those nice sharp edges.) Fan in hand, meter the coil, no conductivity. Turn fridge on, measure fan lead voltage, all good. Bad fan motor winding.

All that to find out motor not available any longer.

Frustrating after going through all that.

[Reece]

Just part of life, in the last 2 years we had to buy a new replacement split air conditioner, new hot water tank, new microwave oven and a new fridge!!
Life sucks sometimes, not that I mentioned the $5,000 in repairs to my car and motorcycle!!

[Eichhörnchen]

Out electric storage-heaters have always given us the same trouble but luckily the engineers have usually managed to find parts online or cannibalise old ones. Until now, that is, so we're having to address an entirely new set-up, as these things seem to be built with planned obsolescence.

A friend told me a couple of weeks ago that he knows of at least one washing-machine manufacturer who installs a computerised device with a timer that will cause the machine to fail after a pre-programmed number of washes. Now that sounds like an 'urban myth' I know, but this guy is very savvy and he's a mate, not just a bloke down the pub. I thought that topped everything for callous cynicism.

[Skybird]

Okay, after 22 years I see little reason to complain. I assume your anger is more caused by the working hours you put into it, only to find out. Get a breath, get a drink - and laugh. So it goes. Life is still good.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Out electric storage-heaters have always given us the same trouble but luckily the engineers have usually managed to find parts online or cannibalise old ones. Until now, that is, so we're having to address an entirely new set-up, as these things seem to be built with planned obsolescence.

A friend told me a couple of weeks ago that he knows of at least one washing-machine manufacturer who installs a computerised device with a timer that will cause the machine to fail after a pre-programmed number of washes. Now that sounds like an 'urban myth' I know, but this guy is very savvy and he's a mate, not just a bloke down the pub. I thought that topped everything for callous cynicism.

Certain Canon printers, anyone?

Planned obsolescence I take as a de facto fact. It gets implemented by using carefully selected cheap single components of inferior quality, wanting them to fail early, but not too early, usually in the electric controls. By choosing one tiny thing worth 12 cents instead of using a better version of it worth 16 cents, the fail is preprogrammed.

Filament light bulbs of the old style could burn multiple times as long as the usually claimed 1000 hours. When they entered market, they burnt for at least 5- 6 thousand hours. Once the market was saturated, producers sat together and thought about how they could keep sales number sup. The answer was to build thinner filaments that endured only 1 thousand hours. Meanwhile, in the company HQ of General Electrics they have a bulb from the time of Thomas Edison that burns since Edison's times, day in, night out, without interruption.

We see the same phenomenon with washing machines and dish washers, and many other household electronics. The living time goes down, not up.


Planned obsolescence is a fact. Until you do not want to know about it.

Replacement intervals also get shortened by pushing additional features and making people wanting them. Even if nobody missed them before.

[Jimbuna]

I have had a few identical appliance failures over the years so now do as has already been explained....take out appliance cover and failure to repair automatically defaults to full replacemant.

Small price to pay for peace of mind.

[vienna]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

Out electric storage-heaters have always given us the same trouble but luckily the engineers have usually managed to find parts online or cannibalise old ones. Until now, that is, so we're having to address an entirely new set-up, as these things seem to be built with planned obsolescence.

A friend told me a couple of weeks ago that he knows of at least one washing-machine manufacturer who installs a computerised device with a timer that will cause the machine to fail after a pre-programmed number of washes. Now that sounds like an 'urban myth' I know, but this guy is very savvy and he's a mate, not just a bloke down the pub. I thought that topped everything for callous cynicism.

<O>

[Rockstar]

Maybe try searching for "vintage appliance parts", also try repairclinic.com I sometimes find weird hard to find stuff there.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Certain Canon printers, anyone?

Planned obsolescence I take as a de facto fact. It gets implemented by using carefully selected cheap single components of inferior quality, wanting them to fail early, but not too early, usually in the electric controls. By choosing one tiny thing worth 12 cents instead of using a better version of it worth 16 cents, the fail is preprogrammed.

Thats correct and manufacturer's estimates are often quite accurate. I have had two failed GPUs so far: one failed five days before end of warranty, another two weeks after.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Filament light bulbs of the old style could burn multiple times as long as the usually claimed 1000 hours. When they entered market, they burnt for at least 5- 6 thousand hours. Once the market was saturated, producers sat together and thought about how they could keep sales number sup. The answer was to build thinner filaments that endured only 1 thousand hours. Meanwhile, in the company HQ of General Electrics they have a bulb from the time of Thomas Edison that burns since Edison's times, day in, night out, without interruption.

Primary reason for that is chemistry of the filament, not only its thickness. Original design was essentially self-repairing meaning that as long as the bulb remained intact the filament would never burn out. After change of materials the filament will eventually fail no matter what you do.

Originally Posted by Skybird

We see the same phenomenon with washing machines and dish washers, and many other household electronics. The living time goes down, not up.


Planned obsolescence is a fact. Until you do not want to know about it.

Replacement intervals also get shortened by pushing additional features and making people wanting them. Even if nobody missed them before.

Atleast in my university's ICT curriculum there is mandatory course which gives an overview of planned obsolescence including methods of creaing it. What you have posted were some examples discussed there.

These things also apply into software side where "new" functionalities and planned degradation of code are normal practices.

Think about one very popular text processing application: its primary function - text processing - has remained same since its introduction in 1983. What has changed repeatedly are layout of user interface, "new" file formats and some "refinements" in features. Most important change recently has been change from selling "product" to selling "service": instead of paying once for that text processing application you now have to pay every month. Granted file-hosting service is now included and you can edit file as group, but how many people actually need those features? I personally do but I believe that most users do not.

 

Just in case nobody figured it out yet: I'm talking about Microsoft Word.

[fumo30]

I have a hunch that car manufacturers are also those who do planned obsolescense.

Recently I was trying to find why Citroen Xantias air bag warning light was blinking.
I located the defect situated in the streeringwheel spiral cable unit but couldnt find the broken lead, until some guy told me he found it in his Xantia inside a plastic reinforcement part of the spiral unit. I re-checked the part and BINGO! there was the broken cable.
Suspicious thing is that there is no stress focused to the cable inside that reinforced part of the spiral unit and that the broken lead was located at the exactly same spot of two different Xantias. Also it always seems to be the air bag lead that is broken, not one of those going to the radio control buttons. Air bag is important safety component and is not to be ignored by people. Additionally it is mandatory at least here in Finland that the warning light don't blink at annual inspections.
It is apparently intended that the cable last for certain time after which DIY-men can not repair the cable by themselves and go buying a new costly sparepart. The reinforced part can't be dismantled without beaking it.

..Well anyways. I carefully managed to dismantle the part and fixed the broken lead by soldering a bridge connection. After putting it back together using a drop of glue no more blinking warning light.

[fumo30]

Hang just on for a while and your conciousness can be uploaded into a hardrive.
Then you can live forever. You can ofcourse choose from wide variety of different robotic body structures. Would you like to be T800, T1000 or maybe robocop?
Manufacturer will always provide you up to date spare parts needed.

You should check out FAN-TAS-TIC possibilities of these AI and transhumanism things.



...In case you however are not interested or you feel your time is running out:

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by fumo30

I have a hunch that car manufacturers are also those who do planned obsolescense.

Recently I was trying to find why Citroen Xantias air bag warning light was blinking. [...]

How old is the car? Remember failing the driver's airbag in a five year-old BMW becasue of a a broken circuit
Planned obsolescence..

Failing electronics is the new rust. Which is why newer cars will never be vintage cars, and impossible to repair.