Found a busted dryer at a recycling center in Ohio and it taught me something

I stopped by the county recycling center last Saturday to drop off an old toaster, and I saw a Whirlpool dryer sitting in the metal pile. The drum was still spinning fine, but the belt had snapped clean off. A guy working there told me he sees people toss whole dryers just because of a $5 belt. Has anyone else saved an appliance with a simple cheap part like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

skylerc861mo ago

my buddy had a fridge that stopped cooling last summer, turned out it was just a bad capacitor. $12 part off amazon and it ran like new for another 2 years. people just dont think to look up simple fixes anymore.

the_julia1mo ago

The thing people miss @skylerc86 is that modern fridges with those digital control boards will sometimes throw a fake error code that makes you think the compressor is dead. I fixed a friends Samsung fridge last year where the display said "cooling error" but it was just a loose wire connector on the main board. Took me 10 minutes with a multimeter and some electrical tape. Techs would've charged $400 for a new board.

kai_west1mo ago

Hated to admit it, but @the_julia is right. I used to just swap boards out without checking connections first. Changed my tune after a buddy's fridge had the same fake error.