re: WSJ - Significant increase in poor quality furniture in the US

Long story short:
If something is messed up that can simply be unbolted, replaced, and bolted back in it may be worth repairing. If it’s something that requires soldering/welding or computer/wiring it’s probably best to get a new one.

Long story long:
My ice maker went out a few months ago. It just quit making ice. We looked at buying a new one vs getting this one repaired. Buying a new one was roughly 2x what the repair was originally quoted to me from the repair tech.

Well, after the repair it still didn’t work so the repair company had to repeatedly come out to troubleshoot and fix it. It’s now finally making ice 3 months after the initial repair but the automatic shutoff doesn’t work, so if we go on a long trip we will need to unplug the ice maker.

All in, I came out about $300 ahead of buying a new one and now have one that still isn’t 100% working.

That also said, at the exact same time the dishwasher and the washing machine broke. My wife and I repaired the washing machine ourselves for less than $100 in parts but decided to pay a different company to look and repair the dish washer. They fixed it, and with labor it came out to be around $150 with parts.