The Buckets by Greg Cravens for May 15, 2015

The reason it’s hard to make a living repairing anything anymore. If someone comes to me with a broken laptop, more often than not it’s “You fix it by buying a new one.”

Parts for mine are quite cheap, as GE made millions of them, and except for some color or styling changes, the insides stayed pretty much the same for about 25 years.I still fix, cars, laptops, PC’s, broken restaurant equipment, appliances. I don’t like being helpless, and have enough tools to fix pretty much anything. If I had a car lift, a decent compressor, and a tire changer, I’d be set

I think Mr. Bucket should steer clear of the department store. Bad things happen to him there.

When I owned a lawn & garden equipment repair shop, I would buy mowers from the local big box store and break it down for parts. Makes about 500% profit that way.

Aw man!

Had to replace the touch screen panel on my friggin’ dryer, of all things. Why does a dryer need a touchscreen. It was out of warranty, but the mom and pop dealer badgered GE into replacing it for free. The new one came defective out of the box. Third time was finally a charm, however.

We spent $750 on parts on a $500 Maytag which then burned in the middle of the night and nearly took out our house. Our new 500 series Bosch does not have a heating element at the bottom and it cleans so, so, so much better. An angel food pan, not even soaked before throwing it in? Piece of cake. It was worth the huge splurge.

(Dishwasher, to clarify.)

I’ve never seen Larry having a…. “Larry moment” before.Love it!xxx

So if the part costs as much as a new machine, just return the part and buy the new washer. Not a problem to get upset about.

Nice Declaration of Independence, Larry. Then reality came barging in and ruined the moment.

Mom’s new washer & dryer were lemons. Talk about ghost in the machine. I had mom not only turn off the dryer, but unplug. The darn thing would still turn on by itself!Larry – just keep telling yourself the old washer/dryer with the new part will last longer than buying a new washer/dryer. (you never buy just half).

Was that recently? When I cracked my laptop screen, which must have been late ‘08, the replacement cost about 60% of the price of the laptop. This is still fairly expensive, but a) it meant I didn’t have to worry about file transfer, software changes, etc. and b) it included the technician coming to me.