It’s a good thing they think about this. With that said, the tires can wait. Let’s start with the low hanging fruit. It’s a crime that critical components in home appliances break so easily and are so hard to fix.

Or impossible to buy spares for, or when you can get the spare part it’s often so expensive with shipping that it’s almost worth buying a new appliance on offer with the warranty that comes with it.

Exactly this. I recently had my clothes washer break. Spent days researching the problem, taking the thing apart, figuring out the cause was the spindle on the back of the drum having a crack and eventually breaking. I eventually found a replacement part which had a slightly different part number but research showed it should be compatible. $400 for the part. $130 shipping, plus tax came out to just shy of $600. 2 week lead time to get the part, and no certainty I’d be able to put it all back together. Professional appliance repair wouldn’t have made financial sense either, I called around.

I ended up ordering a new one for $800 all in, saving many headaches. Had it two days later and was able to catch up on laundry.

Did you research spare part availability / reparability scores when buying the new one?

I always start with that when buying major items. Some brands are more consumer friendly than others. I was still able to buy replacement parts for my 2005 fridge and dishwasher in 2019 and 2023 for 13 and 100 euros respectively (the 100 euro was a heat exchanger one of the biggest pieces of the machine). With 6 Euro shipping costs, 2 day delivery. And a bunch of YouTube videos to do the repair.

In 2024 we equipped a whole new house with the same brand, voting with our wallets.