Prices on repair parts is the issue IMHO. I have a $1000 Samsung Washing machine. Had a similar issue with the control board dying. If I had to replace it myself, that circuit board is a $400 part. Without labour. You can't return it if it doesn't fix the problem. I just cannot see how it can cost $400 to supply a board that is part of a $1,000 washing machine including retailer margin. Once you add in $100-200 to have someone actually fit the part... it's just silly.

So the whole thing gets binned. Because for twice the price you get a new everything with 4-5 years warranty. Car spare parts also have this issue. It gets even weirder, every dealer for Mitsubishi Australia sells spare parts for literally 5x the price of the same OEM Mitsubishi part but ordered from Amayama. This held true for a stack of parts I checked from a $0.30 washer to a $120 shift fork to go inside a gearbox. More recently I looked at the ABS Control Module and it was only 2x but that's a $2,000 part. $2,000 OEM from Amayama, $4,000 from a dealer.

I get that there is some overhead in warehousing spare parts for years, but still. There is clear profiteering and something needs to be done if we're going to be remotely sustainable long term.

Never mind that we've been building modern washing machines and dishwashers for 20+ years and yet every model from every manufacturer uses a different unique part, made from scratch, which managed to make the same mistake 100 other versions of that part have made and fixed causing them to often fail.

I'm ranting, oops...