Fixed It Myself!

Personal Finances Living Below Your Means
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We have a fairly old, high-efficiency top-loading LG washer. On Monday morning, it stopped draining and threw an “OE” error – failure to drain. Google searches indicated it was likely either a filter, the pump, or something obstructing the drain line. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the pump, and not just an obstruction, but an actual dead pump. Of course that’s what it would turn out to be, because everything else would have been free to fix, and this one wasn’t.

So I found the part number and went looking for replacement pumps. Talk about a sketchy minefield. Legitimate parts sales channels - work on your Search Engine Optimization! The number of places that popped to the top of the search results but either didn’t have a match or promised to have a match but either the image or the description made no sense given the part I was looking for was insane.

Finally, I found a third-party seller through the Walmart app that had a picture that matched the description and indicated it was an OEM part. Best of all, it was only $5 more expensive than the sketchy Amazon third party seller that promised OEM compatible but had a picture that didn’t even come close to matching the layout of the original. So I ordered it from the Walmart app.

It arrived today. And sure enough, it sure looks and was labeled like the original part. After work, I put it in place of the old pump and reassembled all the parts I had to take apart to get to it. I threw a bucket of water in to test the drain & pump action, and it worked! I’m now running the first load of laundry in it since the repair. It has gone through the wash cycle and drained before the rinse cycle, and it seems to be working perfectly!

Total cost, $96.23. Probably less than half the price of a professional repair, and in likely around the same amount of elapsed time as well.

Regards,
-Chuck
Home Fool

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Great Story! Feels so good to repair a device and get it working again.
I have had a gas barbecue for years and decided to also add a Treagger to my barbecue repertory. Within about a year I had a consistent Traeger HEr error code that would shut off the heating fire. It happened over and over, until I did a YouTube lookup and found that it was probably the thermostat or temp probe. I ordered both online and watched the YouTube video how to replace it
Magic! All Fixed!
That was two years ago.

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MUCH less than half the cost of a professional repair, and likely an eighth to a quarter of the duration.

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Total cost, $96.23. Probably less than half the price of a professional repair, and in likely around the same amount of elapsed time as well.

Having needed a couple appliance repairs in the last two years, it’s guaranteed to be less than half the price of a professional repair. Also, based on how long it took to get the appointments, you probably were up and running earlier, too.

I’ve discovered that the MTBF (mean time between failures) or newer appliances is lower than older ones, so I also have been biased towards repair rather than replacement. It’s also surprising how many repairs you can do yourself if:

  1. You are moderately handy*
  2. You remove the covers of the device, and watch it work and try to imagine how that differs from what it should be doing

*Includes being able to follow a diagnostic flow chart that says things like “If this happens, check these two additional things. If A result then do action X, if B result then do action Y…”

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