A Saga About My Dryer Repair - Argh Doesn't Begin To Describe My Opinion

The dryer repair person was expected between 8:30-11:30 am, but didn't arrive until almost 11:00 am. A poor beginning for what turned into a poor experience all together. We didn't click - Tim and I. Just didn't really click at all. He went to the dryer and first questioned whether I wanted the work done at all since it was $400+ into a 6-year-old dryer and I could spend an additional 2-3 hundred to get a new dryer. "No," I said, "I want this fixed". 

The rectangular box on the back right side at the bottom 
of the disassembled dryer is the heat exchange unit. That's 
what broke to cause me to contact repair to come out. 
The Idle Assembly was somewhere on the left side in the 
electronics over there. 

So, that said, he proceeded to dismantle my dryer to get to the heating element. He knew what he was doing - exactly where each screw was, and exactly how to get everything off, up and out. I might not have liked him, but he did good work. 

The belt is supposed to be fairly snug around 
the dryer drum. This is how loose my belt 
was when he pulled the drum from the dryer 
yesterday. Not tight at all. It's rather 
remarkable the drum was able to move around 
at all with this much slack. 

Unfortunately, when we took a serious look at the dryer, it wasn't just the heat exchange, but also the belt and something called an Idle Pulley Transfer Assembly. He didn't have these parts on his truck, so he put everything back together again, called it a "diagnostic" call instead of a repair, and trundled away to his next call. He left it up to me whether I wanted to have him order the two parts and come back to do the repair. After thinking about it, I finally contacted the company for a refund on the money I had already paid them for the repair and decided to talk to DH about it (not that he's talking to me at the moment, but this is home repair stuff and he'll talk - minimally - about that). 

The Idler Pulley assembly was toast, one more 
part that the belt attaches to for moving the 
dryer drum. It's not much of a part and not 
very expensive, the expense is all in the 
labor, not the parts. 

I decided I'm going to investigate getting a new dryer, so I measured the old one today because the space is tight - not a lot of wiggle room at all. I'll start looking at dryers on-line today. Wherever I buy it from will also have to do the installation, so I'll start with my local appliance store. They actually have VERY good people for the install part of the job. I'll be using the laundromat dryers for a few more weeks while I figure all of this out. (Big sigh.)

A new tensioner and belt can be purchased for less 
than $100, and the heat exchange unit usually runs 
anywhere from $100-$150. So the total in parts at 
most, is approx $250. The labor, on the other hand, 
is at least $300-$400, bringing the total to $550 or more. 
Maybe if I hadn't disliked the repair person so much, 
I would have considered it, but by this time I would 
have put $650 into an old dryer when I can go 
new, with a new warranty, for a couple of hundred 
more. As much as I'd love to keep my current 
dryer, it doesn't make a lot of economic sense. 

To say I'm very disappointed in the quality of my Samsung dryer is an understatement. I'm very pissed off that something that was installed in my house on January 21, 2015 is already dead on March 11, 2021. I really expect more than six years from major appliances. At least the washing machine is still working well (knocking on the nearest piece of wood). 

On that note, I'm out of here. As always have a wonderful day and please be kind, stay safe and wear your mask. I'll be back tomorrow.