<p>My 14-year old Maytag cloth dryer is not working. What would make more economic sense; repair it or replace it? If it is nearing its lifetime, repair may not last very long. Something else may go wrong.</p>
<p>You’ve answered your own question, unless you or your spouse are handy. </p>
<p>Not working encompasses a variety of issues from the motor not turning, the clothes not drying, the drum not spinning, the cycle not advancing. The typical dryer failure is a broken drive belt, bad heating elements and or thermostats, or defective timer.</p>
<p>At 14, you may well be at the end of its useful (cost effective) life unless you can self diagnose and repair. I kept my Kenmore going for 26 years before throwing in the towel, but I do it all myself.</p>
<p>I would say it depends on the cost to repair it. If it is a cheap fix then it may e worth it. Otherwise "If it is nearing its lifetime, repair may not last very long. Something else may go wrong. " says it all.</p>
<p>Don’t know about maytags from that era but but I have a Maytag gas cooktop (maybe 4-5 years old) and swear I will never buy anything maytag again. The knobs are really cheaply made and keep breaking. We are on our 3rd set that we have had to pay for and currently have only one knob out of four that we can use. If we replaced them as they broke we would probably be on our 10th set by now (maybe a slight exaggeration). Compare this to my 30-40 year old cooktop it replaced that still had its original everything. Wish i had stuck with that. I laugh my head off when I see those maytag adds. Actually i grumble and growl.</p>
<p>We have a great handy-man appliance repair guy and I don’t have to pay him $50 to have him tell me it’s broken (I’ve had that happen before…uh duh.) He has a standing order with me that if something is going to cost more than $100 to fix, don’t fix it, I’ll replace it and if it’s something my husband is perfectly capable of fixing he gets to tell that to my husband mano to mano. Works for me.</p>
<p>I’m like violadad - I figure out what’s wrong with the appliances myself and usually can fix it for very few $$. If you need to call in a regular appliance repair person the cost goes way up of course.</p>
<p>There’s no way to really answer your question because it all depends on what’s wrong with it. The problem could be because of something that came undone that takes $0 to fix or might be because of a $25 part in which case it likely would be worth it to fix it. </p>
<p>What are the symptoms?</p>
<p>Most appliances really aren’t throwaway items and usually do last a long time even if it needs something fixed every now and then.</p>
<p>It costs us about $100 to get anyone out to take a look. I don’t know about a cooktop but this dryer I love. It never gave me any trouble until about 2 years ago. I got it repaired then for a couple of hundred dollars. Now the drum isn’t turning. </p>
<p>violadad, 26 years! That’s amazing.</p>
<p>uc_dad, There’s heat but the drum isn’t turning. It makes the right noise I think. Any suggestions?</p>
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<p>Ours did the same thing…it was a broken belt. It would have cost about $150 for a repairman to come and fix it (hourly charge, cost just to come for service, and part). The part cost $20. DH fixed it. If it lasts a couple more years…fine.</p>
<p>Now…if it’s the heating element…that’s another story.</p>
<p>Sounds like it could be a broken (or stretched) drive belt, a fairly cheap and easy self repair. On rare occasion, a bad door interlock switch can cause the drum not to turn. If the Maytag has a pop off lower front panel, it should be fairly easy to see if the belt is still intact. Otherwise, the rear panel comes off with about a half dozen screws, and access can be had from there.</p>
<p>Igloo, in twenty six years, I did two belts, an idler pulley, two heating elements, the hi/lo thermostats and a timer. When the second timer went, the cost of a new timer made sense to replace the machine. </p>
<p>Plus the wife had issues with the dryer being almost as old as the “kids”. :D</p>
<p>A broken belt should be a pretty quick and easy fix.</p>
<p>If it’s 14 yrs old, it’s probably from the era when Maytags were still built in the US, and were of much higher quality than today, so it should have a nice long lifespan. Dryers used to last 20-30 years.</p>
<p>We have a Maytag washer and dryer we bought in 1985. On the infrequent occasions we have a repairman out, he says, “Keep repairing these if they need it. Don’t replace them. Nobody makes machines this good any more.”</p>
<p>I don’t know if the same thing would apply to a 14 year old Maytag dryer.</p>
<p>(I posted at the same time as MomCat2. Probably yours is one of the good older machines and you should repair it.)</p>
<p>Yup - most likely the belt and an easy and inexpensive fix.</p>
<p>If your Maytag is like our 15 year old Maytag…the fix is from the front. DH removed the front (somehow…and I didn’t hear bad language so it must have not been awful). He said the directions that came WITH the belt were very good. He was prepared to go online to look for tips if needed. He says…the hardest part was putting it all back together.</p>
<p>The dryer is running right now (fix took place a month or so ago)…knock on wood.</p>
<p>It went while drying. I have no idea where it was made. For over ten years, it never needed any repair.My washer, also a Maytag, still runs beautifully. Thank you for helpful replies.</p>
<p>thumper, Opening from front sounds right. I vaguely remember the repairman opening from front last time. No one is handy around here. I am"handy" at calling a repairman. That’s what I’ll do. Save money somewhere else.</p>
<p>Sounds like the belt. You can find step by step instructions online that are fairly simple to follow. Remember to unplug the electric first. Good luck.</p>
<p>Got it repaired. It was the idler pulley not working. It in turn caused the belt break. Cost a fortune to fix it for some reason. Yes, it was one of the last Maytag built in the US I am told.</p>
<p>So after “costing a fortune to fix”…did you make the right decision?? Probably not…but darn it why can’t we know the exact cost to repair something before we pull the trigger? It would make things simpler!</p>
<p>Oh well—lesson learned and dry clothes to boot! I am hoping there are many more months of life in that dryer now!</p>
<p>Just curious if you could define “fortune”. Not wishing to make you cry, but you can eyeball the cost of parts here [Appliance</a> Parts, Lawn Mower Parts, Vacuum Cleaner Parts - RepairClinic.com](<a href=“http://www.repairclinic.com/]Appliance”>http://www.repairclinic.com/), or at similar online sources.</p>
<p>$300ish, That’s more than half the money I paid to get the dryer ages ago. I could have been fooled. I can’t get estimates beforehand to compare.</p>
<p>We had a Kenmore washer & dryer purchased in 1984. We had two service calls over the years on the washer and one repair we did ourselves. Had one recent service call on the dryer because the heating element burned out ($250-300) which the repairman said he would have advised against doing if he had known how old it was. But since it was the only service call we ever had on the dryer, we figured if it lasted a year or two more (as long as the washer was working) it was worth it. It did.</p>
<p>A little over a year ago the washer tub started leaking. We knew from our previous service call (> 10 years earlier) that if that happened, they probably couldn’t fix it. So we decided to replace both washer/dryer. Looked at Kenmore and others but picked GE with features I liked and the store promised to deliver the next day and take away the old ones at no extra cost. </p>
<p>I did feel a bit of a pang about the cost of repairing the dryer, but averaged over the life of the machines (25 years!), it wasn’t much.</p>
<p>Not that you were necessarily fooled, but you paid for the service call and the labor. The belt and idler for the dryer would have ranged from a low of $20, to a high of $75 ish, specific model of machine contingent. In these parts, it’s about $125 just to get a technician to the house.</p>