On Sat, 2 Apr 2011 23:46:09 -0700 (PDT), the renowned RS at work
wrote:
In the past couple of months I have been plagued with repair
necessities. Washing machine, dryer, ice maker, gas oven, lawn mower
and weed wacker.
In doing all of this work I have done a bunch of shopping around and I
am amazed at the variation in prices for parts. The washing machine
needed a kit to repair the agitator. Part price varied from $4 to
$15, and freight was all over the map.
The ice maker project was looking to be about $90 in parts until I
found that ABT electronics In Chicago would ship me a whole brand new
kit including everything from the water valve to the ice bucket for
$41 including freight.
I actually ordered parts for my mower 4 times. The first round was a
carb overhaul. Amazon came up with vendor with a good price, but the
shipping and handling was mostly handling, but I made an end run
around Amazon and got the vendor to send it first class mail for a
couple of bucks and had it 2 days later.
I saved about $40 when I ordered the parts to fix the governor over
what Sears had for their prices.
I discovered a needed part when I was pulling every thing apart and
found it a little cheaper on line with freight rather than getting it
local and I can get buy for a few days with the old part.
The last thing was just the v-belt for the drive. (I originally
thought the belt was OK until I was cleaning the deck before re-
installing the motor. I figured the local auto parts places would
have it (nope not a size used on cars so not stocked. I finally got
one at a farm supply for $6, I checked, and Sears parts had one for
$17 plus freight, Getting one from the place I got the engine parts
would have set me back &14+ and McMaster Carr had them for about
$4.50. A few places had them a buck or so cheaper, but probably would
clip me on the freight.
The igniter for the dryer had a really big swing. If you ever need an
igniter there is only a few styles and the biggest difference is the
sheet metal bracket that holds the ceramic encased glow bar. the
generic ones can be found for as little as $13 but you might need to
splice the wires (ceramic wire nuts provided.) or re-use your old
bracket. Ordering these as an factory original part can cost around
$80 so this is really worth the time to shop.
The weed whacker needs an ignition module (solid state magneto, sans
points) and so far the used one on e-bay for $14 is tempting me vs.
$30 for a new one.
Also I wonder how may folks out there forgo all the fun I have and
either pay for service calls and labor, replace repairable items or
hire out the task of mowing the lawn (Of course for the first 10 years
of home ownership I had a guy that charged me $6 a week to mow front
and back, so I didn't bother buying the lawn mower until he retired.)
or giving the mower a oil change and tune up.
Roger Shoaf
What I love about the Internet is that you can not only find these
things, but also figure out how to diagnose the problem, identify the
correct parts, and install them, generally for free. I've probably
saved $3K in the last couple of years, and generally had fun doing it.
Eg. replaced the furnace controller and bought a spare (exact
replacement) ignitor-- about $120 total. Bought and installed a heater
blower for my car ($240, would have cost $1K to have it done). Etc.
etc.
Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers:
http://www.speff.com