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Why is the “average life span" given as a range?


My repair guy came by last week to fix my Maytag dishwasher. He noted it was ready to be replaced. We are heavy users.

This guy has been in his job for over 30 years. He uses a flip-phone, and has encouraged me to do my own repairs on multiple appliances over the years. He is not trigger-happy on replacement.

I expressed surprise that the machine needed to be replaced. It was barely 7 years old! I have already replaced the pump, and two washer assemblies. I asked him what the average life span is for a typical dishwasher these days.

His answer: 7 years.


Same with washer/dryers. Everything is plastic parts now and they break and are hard/expensive to replace.


Because it depends on how you use it and your water quality.

10yr for hard users, 20yr for light users. Most people are presumably in between.

Edit: On second thought the lower bound is heavy use, the upper bound is probably "we can't guarantee all the rubber won't degrade and leak after this age".


Our last Miele dishwasher lasted for 11 years. The current one has been going for 10. We are a household of 6 and often set the dishwasher off 2 or 3 times a day so we are probably hard users.

As for our Miele washing machine - it is still going after almost 30 years! The main bearing is going so it is VERY LOUD and unfortunately not economic to fix. The Meile tech I asked said the failure mode would be leaking water so I said we'd wait for that. Still doing OK 2 years later :-)




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