Repair Versus Replace Recommendation Standard
Purpose
The repair-or-replace call is the one recommendation an appliance shop makes that the customer will repeat to their neighbours, and left to each tech's judgment it comes out differently on the same machine depending on who is standing in the kitchen. This standard makes the call reproducible: four independent gates, each evaluated on evidence already on the ticket, and any single gate tripping sends the recommendation to replacement.
It prevents the two failures that cost a shop most: selling a large repair into a machine that fails again inside a year, which the customer remembers as your fault and not the appliance's, and walking away from a repairable machine because the tech guessed at the age.
Scope
Applies once a diagnostic visit has produced a named failed component and a measurement. It covers residential major appliances: refrigeration, laundry, dishwashers, cooking equipment, over-range microwaves.
It does not cover the diagnosis itself, which the diagnostic visit intake SOP owns and which is a precondition here, nor appliances still inside a manufacturer or extended-warranty term, where the administrator decides disposition and this standard has no authority. Built-in and integrated units are in scope only if the ratio gate is quoted with removal and cabinetry rework included.
Roles and the handoff between them
| Role | What they own | What they hand off |
|---|---|---|
| Technician | Age, availability and repeat-failure evidence gathered on site; the ratio computed against a real replacement, not a guess | Gate sheet with all four gates marked tripped, clear, or not evaluable, plus the evidence for each |
| Office | The comparable-replacement figure the ratio is measured against, refreshed at a stated interval | The current comparable to the tech before the recommendation is spoken, not after |
| Lead tech or owner | Any repair performed against a tripped gate | A written override naming the gate, the reason, and the warranty attached |
| Office after the visit | Recording the customer's decision and the date | The decision onto the equipment record, so the next call opens with it |
The four gates and how they combine
| Gate | Trips when | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Ratio | Parts plus labor plus the diagnostic already spent reaches 0.50 or more of a comparable unit delivered and installed | The quote and the current comparable |
| Age | The appliance has reached 0.75 or more of the published service life for its class | Serial date code, or an install date the customer can show |
| Availability | The part is discontinued, on backorder with no stated date, or obtainable only used | The supplier's answer, dated |
| Repeat failure | A second unrelated major component has failed on the same unit inside 12 months | The equipment record, plus any prior invoice the customer holds |
The gates are OR-ed. Any one alone sends the recommendation to replacement. They are not scored or weighted, and three clear gates do not outvote one tripped gate, because each fails the customer in a different way. For published service life the NAHB life-expectancy study for home components is the common reference: on the order of 9 years for a dishwasher, 10 for a clothes washer, 13 for a refrigerator or dryer, 13 to 15 for a range depending on fuel. It dates from 2007, so treat it as the baseline your own failure history adjusts.
The procedure
Verify the diagnosis is closed before running any gate. Confirm the ticket carries a named component and the measurement that indicted it. Acceptance: a component name and a reading beside the published value. Wrong looks like a gate sheet run against "probably the board", which produces a confident recommendation resting on nothing. Stop rule: no measurement, no recommendation. Return the ticket to diagnosis.
Establish age from the appliance, not the conversation. Decode the serial's date code where the manufacturer publishes one, or read the date stamp on a major component such as the compressor or drive motor. Acceptance: a manufacture year, or an install date the customer can produce on paper. Wrong looks like "they said about ten years." Stop rule: where age cannot be established, mark the age gate not evaluable and say so out loud; never mark it clear. Pulling a unit to reach a plate is a two-person move on hardboard, and on a gas range the appliance shutoff is closed first so the flexible connector is not strained.
Compute the ratio against a current comparable. Total parts, labor, and the diagnostic already spent, then express it as a fraction of a comparable unit delivered and installed, using the figure office refreshed. Acceptance: a stated fraction. Wrong looks like a ratio measured against a stripped base model when the customer owns a mid-line unit, which flatters replacement. Stop rule: if office cannot supply a current comparable, do not estimate one on the truck; hold the recommendation and call in.
Get the availability answer, dated. Ask the supplier for stock or a lead time on the confirmed part number for the confirmed model. Acceptance: in stock, or a stated date. Wrong looks like a listing treated as availability. Stop rule: discontinued, no date, or used-only trips the gate outright.
Check repeat-failure history on the unit, not the customer. Read the equipment record and ask the customer directly what has been repaired before and when, including work by other shops. Acceptance: a yes or no with dates. Wrong looks like a clean record that is only clean because your shop did not do the earlier job. Stop rule: a second unrelated major component inside 12 months trips the gate, and a second entry into a refrigeration sealed system on the same unit also escalates to the lead tech before anything is quoted.
Mark every gate before you say anything to the customer. Fill all four as tripped, clear, or not evaluable. Acceptance: four marks, no blanks. Wrong looks like a tech who reached one tripped gate and stopped evaluating, then cannot answer "what else did you look at." Stop rule: a blank gate is not a clear gate; go get it.
Present both paths with the evidence, then state the recommendation once. Give the repair path with its cost fraction and its expected remaining life, the replacement path with its lead time and disposal, then say which you recommend and which gate decided it. Acceptance: the customer can repeat back the gate that drove the recommendation. Wrong looks like a verdict with no reasoning, which reads as a sales move. Stop rule: if the customer asks you to decide for them, still name the gate; they are buying the reasoning.
If the customer chooses repair against a tripped gate, write the acknowledgment. Record that replacement was recommended, which gate tripped, and the warranty the shop attaches to a repair on a machine at end of life. Acceptance: signature or recorded acceptance carrying all three. Wrong looks like the repair proceeding on a verbal "just fix it." Stop rule: no acknowledgment, no work, and the lead-tech override in the roles table applies rather than the tech's own judgment.
The record this produces
A gate sheet attached to the diagnostic ticket, and it outlives the visit.
- Four gate marks with the evidence for each: the manufacture year and where it came from, the ratio and the comparable it was measured against, the supplier's answer and its date, and the repeat-failure answer with dates.
- The recommendation and the deciding gate, in one sentence.
- The customer's decision, with the date and, where they chose repair against a tripped gate, the acknowledgment.
- The warranty terms attached to any repair performed against a tripped gate.
Office posts the decision to the equipment record. The next tech on this appliance opens the ticket already knowing the machine was recommended for replacement, which is what stops a shop from quietly selling a second large repair into the same unit six months later. If a dispute arrives, the deciding-gate sentence is the whole defence, because it shows the recommendation was made on stated evidence before the price was discussed.
One run of this standard, filled in
Side-by-side refrigerator, warm fresh food, diagnosis closed at a failed compressor with a locked rotor confirmed on a start attempt and correct voltage at the terminals.
- Step 1: component named, measurement present. Pass.
- Step 2: serial plate is legible but the manufacturer's date-code format for that series cannot be resolved, and the customer bought the house with the appliance in it. Compressor date stamp is unreadable under corrosion. Fail, stop rule taken: age gate marked not evaluable, and said out loud to the customer.
- Step 3: compressor, recovery, filter-drier, refrigerant and the sealed-system labor, plus the diagnostic already spent, come to 0.62 of a comparable unit delivered and installed. Threshold is 0.50, so the gate is exceeded by 0.12, which is 24 percent above the threshold rather than a borderline call. Tripped.
- Step 4: compressor in stock, 2 business days. Clear.
- Step 5: equipment record shows a condenser fan motor replaced by another shop 14 months ago. Outside the 12-month window, and a fan motor is a different failure family. Clear.
- Step 6: four marks recorded, one tripped, one not evaluable, two clear.
- Step 7: repair path quoted at 0.62 of replacement with a sealed-system repair on a machine of unknown age; replacement path quoted with 2 weeks lead and haul-away. Recommendation: replace, on the ratio gate. Customer repeated the gate back.
- Step 8: customer chose replacement, so no acknowledgment was needed.
Two things are worth reading twice. The age gate never resolved and the recommendation still stood, because one tripped gate is sufficient on its own. And a tech who had guessed "about eight years" would have marked age clear, changed nothing here, and left a fabricated year in the equipment record for the next tech to trust.
When the standard cannot be run as written
The comparable is not comparable. A counter-depth, panel-ready or wide-format unit has no cheap equivalent, so the ratio gate is measured against the real replacement including cabinetry and installation. Against a free-standing base model it is simply wrong.
The customer cannot be without the appliance. Lead time on replacement can exceed the repair by weeks. That does not clear a tripped gate; it is a reason the customer may choose repair against the recommendation, and step 8 covers it.
A landlord owns the appliance and a tenant is in the room. The recommendation goes to the owner or property manager. A tenant may report the symptom but does not decide the disposition.
The failure is a safety condition rather than a performance one. A cracked gas manifold, a range that heats with the control off, or a dryer with a failed thermal cut-out plus a damaged cabinet is not a ratio conversation. Red-tag it, name the hazard on the tag, and the choice is repair or removal, not repair or keep using it.
Sentiment against the gates. A machine the customer installed themselves last year and cannot believe has failed. Do not argue. Restate the evidence, note the decision, take the acknowledgment.
References
- NAHB and Bank of America Home Equity, Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components, 2007, for baseline service life by appliance class. Treat as dated and adjust with your own failure history.
- Manufacturer serial and date-code documentation for the make in hand; step 2's age evidence comes from there or from a component date stamp.
- EPA Section 608 requirements at 40 CFR Part 82 Subpart F, which govern any sealed-system repair the repair path proposes.
- See related: the diagnostic visit intake and repair authorization SOP, which produces the input this standard requires, and the sealed-system diagnosis visit SOP.