Oh man... I wish I kept my old washer/dryer that worked. Old stuff that works, especially stuff that's lasted 15 plus years, is worth keeping. I understand replacing broken old stuff if you can't find the part though. That's a pain in the ass. I really regret taking a high tech washer/dryer set off my parents (used) and replacing my old model set. My old set is probably still working in someone else's house. My new set broke down twice and I've since gotten rid of them.
COmpanies are about selling new product not repairing old . . .. . so they make them to break i think Why sell a car that last forever? Rocket River
I came in here hoping someone was nerdy enough to argue about discounted cash flows, and I'm leaving a little disappointed.
Strictly a cost thing for me. I just do whatever is cheaper. We had a washing machine that wouldn’t spin during the spin cycle. I’ve had it “fixed” several times only to have it stop spinning again a few months later. Ended up just buying a new one for less than $200. I’m not much of a DIY’er at all, but I do have several victories that I’m pretty proud of. A few years ago, my wife’s car AC wasn’t blowing. Took it to the shop and they said something was wrong with the little door in the back of the vent that was causing it to not stay open unless it was blowing on high. They wanted to charge me $1,500 to replace it. I googled it and found out the repair shop wasn’t ripping me off….it cost a lot because they had to take apart the entire dashboard just to get to it. Did a little more digging and found out that you can just stick a popsicle stick into the vent to keep the little door open. Saved me $1,500 just doing that. I even painted the popsicle stick black so you can hardly tell it’s in there. My dishwasher was stopping in the middle of its cycle for no apparent reason. Wife wanted me to call a repairman or get a new one. I told her I would see if I could fix it on my own – she laughed. Googled it and found out that it was just a case of the garbage disposal not being empty. So I ran the garbage disposal and sure enough, dishwasher finished it’s cycle. Here’s the key, though. That’s not what I told my wife. I told her I had to buy a new “power source” and install it myself. To this day, she has no idea that all I really did was run the garbage disposal…..got major points for that!
Well, a bunch of parts came in yesterday, but the splash shield should be coming in today. My Gf's son's car compressor took a crap and that part came in. He wants to learn how to work on his car. I told him I can teach him what I know and that him doing his own work can save him thousands of dollars. My GF thought I was exagerating until I told her that the price at shop to completely replace the entire AC system in her car was quoted at a few thousand dollars, where I did it and only spent on the cost of the parts which I got on a package deal for under $300.
I tend to go the repair route myself and usually google if to see what is all involved in the repair. Example being replacing a garbage disposal that was cracked and leaking water, was straightforward just bough the same exact model I had. Had a leaky tub faucet in the master bathroom. Had to replace the cartridge and should of been an easy repair but man did things take a turn for the worst. Had the tool to pull out the old cartridge and followed the written instructions on how to use it. Well as soon i start pulling it out it just cracks in half. I have half of it out and the other half stuck. Took sometime to get it out, but it was a pita. Was proud that I did the repair myself. Wife is surprised how handy I can be around the house as she thinks I'm only good with computers.
This is my biggest fear with DIY projects - that I will somehow manage to turn a small problem into a big problem.
Yeah, it happens like that... Sometimes a good learning experience for next time, but sometimes things can just break like that (even for the pros). The good news is that the pro wasn't there to add more labor and blame it on some other excuse
Best thing that happen to me on a car ac was... Fixing it with orings for under $5 (other than time to vacuum system etc and buy more cans of r134a... It was the best AC fix ever. Still holding for years after the oring/vacuum repair, I did add a bit of oil in as well but I'll take a repair of $40 total over what I'm sure a mechanic would have quoted some silly price. I don't even go to mechanics, if time is.needed just do it in parts and leave it in the garage etc. Obviously this is a rare fix as I was preparing for it to be more involved
I repaired my ac the other day for about a hundred. Totally worth every penny. Replaced the filter behind the dash and it started making sounds like a bicycle with a baseball card in the spokes. Blindly fished out about two dozen leaves and the noise was gone but still not cooling. Got a leak filler for the Freon then added a bottle of the coolant and presto: best ac system I’ve had in 10 years!
Sometimes do you do a dance after 'it' is repaired? ... Because I never have either. I've also never put on 'Celebrate Good Times' by Kool and the Gang afterwards. Never. Occasionally I'll call my dad though and be like, "Dad?" "What's up?" "I fixed it." "What did you fix?" "Oh I didn't tell you it was broken? My bad, I must have fixed it the second it broke so I didn't have time to let you know. ******* I'm handy."
Usually I'll just sit there with a smug look thinking how much money I just saved. It all started when I switched to Geico.
"What did you fix?" "Oh nothing much. Wanna meet for lunch?" Always better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
So, I got the splash guards and fenderwell liners and slapped it all on last night. Didn't have to replace the car, but I did discover that the inner CV boot is torn. Adding that to the to-do list. If I can find it locally, I should be able to make that repair tonight. On a side note, my gf's son-in-law was out looking through the yard yesterday while i was under the car, so I asked him what he was doing. Apparently, he can't find his wedding ring. Of course, I had to suggest to him "You should just buy a new one". I'm not sure if he got it, but he went in right after that.
No need for either. I'm a grown ass man. But lunch always sounds good and it'll probably almost for sure be pho.
Me and my dad used to change the oil ourselves. It seems car engineering has been making this process harder (or maybe I'm just buying particular cars that do this), so I've decided it is easier to work for the money to pay a guy to do it then to do it myself. As my earning power goes up, my willingness to work goes down, lol. Do have a recent anecdote. Someone put metal in the built-in microwave and it wouldn't work after that. Kept arcing. Built-ins are way way more expensive than they should be and I was mentally preparing myself to pay $1k+ on an appliance I minimally use. Then my wife has the brilliant idea to google it, discovers she can change a plate with a hole burned in it for under five bucks, orders the part, and fixes it. I'd been ignorant of the cause of the problem and the prospects for repair. I just figured it was pretty old by then (10 years) and I can't expect it to live forever. Harvey also did something funny to my psychology on repair. I was insured, so I got paid on everything that touched the water. And, I didn't throw everything out; if I could wipe it off and keep it, I did. But lots of things that could be repaired I just tossed because the burden of repairing so many things was too much. The insurance company totaled 2 cars even though in normal times, they'd probably have been recovered. And so many appliances just went out on the pile - fridge, stove, dishwasher, (but not the microwave), lawnmower, air compressor, battery powered kids car, on and on. And the guys trolling the neighborhoods would pick them in no time and haul them off so they could repair and sell them. Those guys are set up to repair things and I am not. I kept one old fridge to hold drinks for workers but I knew I'd throw it away in the end (the insulation soaks up flood waters and will grow mold, I'm told). The house painter asked if he could have it so he could fix it up and put it in his second house in Veracruz, so I said sure. And then of course I bought a new stove, new fridges, new lawnmower, etc. All the throwing away and all the buying anew was just a ridiculous dirty binge of consumerism. I stopped feeling the pain of the waste and the cost.
