[fein]

> Forcing customers to replace an entire system just because the cheapest component failed might be really profitable

Just had to deal with this recently. My gas oven control panel died and one would think to replace the control panel ($300 ish part), but I had my doubts. Pulled everything apart and hooked up a meter to what should be the power coming from the cord, no continuity. Took apart everything on the top two levels of the stovetop to find a thermal switch buried under there that had failed. That thermal switch is forever OOS (was $35 at least for a replacement if you could find one), so I hopped on amazon and bought a 5 pack of microwave thermal safety switches with the same cutoff temps for $6 that fit the push connectors. 10 year old higher end gas oven was fixed for about $1 in parts.

Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair company just for the labor of having to take apart the entire stovetop to get there. Not sure how many people would even bother although it was about $2k new.

[kelnos]

> Probably would have been at least $200 from an appliance repair company just for the labor

How many hours did you spend taking it apart diagnosing the problem, though? I'm guessing at least 2? $100/hr for that seems pretty reasonable to me.

(Granted, I agree with you in that I'd prefer to figure it out and repair it myself, even if it would take me 5x as long as someone trained to do it.)

[fein]

Had I been able to work on it for an entire day, it probably would have been around 3-4 hours, but took longer because I had about 30-45 mins a night and then had to clean up so the kids didn't get into the mess. The oven was down for about a week as a result, but you can make do with an air fryer and a toaster oven for quite a bit.

For an experienced tech I assumed at least $50 for the house call and then a few hours for the disassembly and reassembly.