My fridge died and I fixed it with a $15 part from eBay

My old GE fridge stopped cooling last Tuesday. I was ready to drop $800 on a new one. Then I looked up the error code online and found out it was just a bad start relay. I ordered one for $15, swapped it in 10 minutes, and it's been running fine for 3 days now. Has anyone else saved a big appliance repair with a cheap fix like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisa_murray28d ago

Killed my old Maytag dryer with a similar move - paid $12 for a thermal fuse on Amazon and felt like a total genius for ten minutes before realizing I had to disassemble the whole thing to even find where it goes. Spent an hour watching YouTube videos and another hour trying not to strip the screws. It worked in the end, but man, I definitely earned that $12 fix with my own sweat and swearing. What was the actual repair process like for you, pretty straightforward?

loganhart28d agoMost Upvoted

Right? Isn't it wild how we always think a cheap part means an easy fix, but then the real cost is our own time and frustration? It's like the universe balances the scales, you know, you save money on the part but you pay for it in blood, sweat, and stripped screws. I swear, every time I try to fix something around the house, I end up learning way more than I ever wanted to about the specific guts of that appliance. It makes you appreciate the people who do this for a living, because they probably don't spend the first hour just trying to figure out which YouTube video to trust.