Our refrigerator came with the house when we bought it 18 years ago. And it wasn't new then. The ice maker is acting up and I've been trying to fix it. I can still get parts for it, but the prices on the official sites are INSANE. Almost $300 for the tray that holds the ice that it creates. $60 for a little plastic wheel that pushes the ice out.
Fortunately there are lots of places, including Amazon and eBay that sell them for a small fraction of that.
Phase one of refrigerator ice maker repair was successful. Cheap part, worked well. Not hard but complicated. Had to take part of the unit apart and put it back together. I got it wrong about 8 times before getting it right. Now it crushes ice and pushes the ice out.
Another part coming tomorrow. This is the ice maker unit itself, which has a leak, resulting in huge chunks of ice forming, which is probably why the other part broke. Also got this part very cheap.
@bit101 Just got new shelves for the fridge and fixed the dryer with affordable replacement parts. The parts should not cost more than a new one!
Jul 1, 2026, 11:20 AM@bit101 i remember my mate once priced up a tv (he was a repair engineer for a large electronics retailer) based on what they charged for component parts, and it came to hundreds of thousands of pounds 🫤
@rich
I believe it. If I just replaced all the ice maker parts with official ones it would be close to the price of a brand new refrigerator.
Jul 1, 2026, 6:19 PM@bit101 meanwhile , in my fridge today....🫤
Jul 2, 2026, 1:21 AM@bit101 I had a similar problem with my dryer. Technically I needed to replace the whole door because a tiny (plastic) part had broken and it was going to cost about 1/4 of a new dryer. Luckily there was some generic maker (or reseller) that had just that specific part so I was able to get it and reuse the old door. But it made me realize there's likely big business in just salvaging appliances, or remaking parts not officially sold.
@zeh Yeah, I was thinking the same, a lot of these things could be easily 3d printed.