Temple Drake: You would be surprised at how easy it is to fix most appliances. If you know how to use a multi meter, which you can learn on YouTube, you can fix a lot of them yourself.

Hell. You are describing hell. Nobody wants an “interactive and engaging” dishwasher. They just want their dishes cleaned. www.forbes.com/sites/bernar...

The only interaction I need with my dishwasher is pressing a button

And ideally a physical one because touch sensors can be pretty fragile and expensive to fix.

Half the appliances I've had to replace worked fine, but the replacement control panels were impossible to find,

I had to replace a perfectly good washing machine because of this.

You would be surprised at how easy it is to fix most appliances. If you know how to use a multi meter, which you can learn on YouTube, you can fix a lot of them yourself.

Replacing a touchpad is SUPER simple, but you can't do that if they don't exist. And if you can't get the part you can't fix the machine.

My perception is that most people don't even look for the parts. They just replace the whole unit. Are they not making replacement parts anymore?

Exactly this. We got through all the troubleshooting with a multimeter and everything, but the part or an equivalent did not exist.

Was the machine really old or really new? I guess it depends on the make, model & age but my husband & I have fixed a 15 year old Samsung clothes washer, a 12 year old Frigidaire side by side & 25 year old Kenmore dishwasher. I'm getting nervous about buying new stuff.

It was at least 10 years old. The repair guy (who had previously told me how to fix my dishwasher by myself) said the dryer was fine, and would run for 10 more years /IF/ I could find a replacement control panel. Which was impossible. (I scoured the net and refurb shops for new or used panels)

Lame.

This is absolutely a huge factor. My last dishwasher the board went. I'm pretty handy, but the replacement part was like half the cost of a new, better dishwasher.

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