The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

You know your day is going to go downhill when the first words you hear are “I have some bad news.” You worry just HOW bad that news will be, illness in the family, disaster down the road, any number of fears jumping out of the closet you try to keep them in. So when it turns out to be the washing machine, you think, well, nobody’s hurt. How bad can a busted washer be?

I have dealt with busted washers in my brief time as a Maytag repairman. And I can attest that, no, lives were not lost, but … in some cases I wish mine was after a day or two disassembling machines that were obviously not meant to be repaired by do-it-yourselfers, simple things, but encased behind everything else. The repair bill for something like a catch filter, usually easily accessed, but in our washer requiring door removal and major disassembly, would be astronomical. And probably justified.

Today, though, the door hinge broke. I smiled inwardly, happy in the knowledge that I would not be required to do a washer colonoscopy to repair this thing. On the other hand I’m no longer naïve enough to think any plumbing repair will be a piece of cake, those days are long gone. The plumbing gods, inscrutable and malevolent, exact terrible tolls for those who think they can travel their pipes with impunity. The real question is how high the price? How great the pain? How tentative your sanity?

The door came off without much ado. The hinge was hidden beneath two sections, inner and outer door, but fine, just locate the odd tools that fit the screw heads, a trick the manufacturer plays to frustrate us do-it-ourselfers. I got it out, didn’t even lose some of the screws that fell under the machine, to discover the pins that the hinge rotated on had both broken, top and bottom, no doubt high quality pig iron, something Whirlpool must have saved a nickel or 6 cents using inferior metal. My hope that I could repair or substitute the pins was a pipedream. The entire unit was one piece and I wisely decided not to try to glue the pins back to the hinge, no dummy me. I went online instead.

Where, after some searching for model numbers, I located my part. Whirlpool no longer makes that part, or so my first search stated confidently, probably the worst news I could get. For want of a cheap-ass hinge, the war was lost and a new washer would be required? Really? I went on Ebay looking for a used hinge. No dice. I looked for an entire door assembly. No luck. Finally I went back to looking for the part online and after some time found one. $117. Roll that number back and forth on your tongue, then consider the machine, new, cost about $600. That’s 20% of the cost of a new Whirlpool front load washer. In what universe does this make any sense whatsoever? I will tell you what universe, the one that exalts capitalism, the one that claims competition drives prices down, the one that believes in the fine print that obsolescence is necessary for a vibrant economy, the one that outsourced washing machines to China, that one.

My part is now on order. I reassembled the old door. Backwards of course the first time, the third time was a charm. Good practice for when the part arrives in a week. If I’d wanted it next day, only 40 dollars more. Ten to get it in a week. You know, and I do too, when that part comes, 50-50 it will be the wrong part. This is not pessimism, this is plumbing.

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