Washer Whoas

No, that's not a typo.
That's my reaction to what I was told when two different repair services quoted me a price of almost a thousand dollars to replace the rear bearing in our aging Maytag Neptune washer/dryer stack.
When we bought our home in 2009, all of the major appliances had been replaced within the past decade by our home's previous owners.  Maytag stove, washer/dryer, and a Jenn Air refrigerator, dishwasher and microwave.  All top-of-the-line stuff and just in time for the 21st Century.
I wrote previously about how the 'brain' went on the fritz for the dishwasher, at what couldn't have been a worse time...when our then-infant daughter was nursing and keeping her bottles clean and sterilized with this life-saving device was the most necessary of necessities.
Knock on wood here...we haven't had any problems with it since, once it was fixed, and it turned out to be fairly inexpensive.
Then went the washer.
We had grown accustomed to the washer sounding like a 747 taking off from JFK in a blizzard during the spin cycle.  Then one day, it decided to stop spinning in the spin cycle altogether, leaving our clothes soaked.
The tech came out and said we should invest in a new washer and dryer.  The motor control unit was responsible for the spin cycle failing, and the noise was caused by a faulty bearing in the washer drum that could fail at any given moment. 
I dug out the papers on the stack (the previous owner saved all the paperwork), and found that he had paid close to $2000 for it brand-new.  Uh...NOOOOO!!!!
I'll fix the dadburn thing myself.
I found a motor control unit on eBay.  Changed it out, and put it all back together. 
Then the moment of truth.
The bearing that could fail at any given moment did.
"*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*!!!"
Yes, the bleeps are expletives.
So I called two repair shops, one being the dealer that sold it to us.  Balking, I called another.
Same result.
Almost $1,000 for the part...NOT including labor.
Ralph Nader probably had a field day with this thing.  It was the subject of a class-action lawsuit in 2002...five years after it was introduced to the market, I would later find out.
"*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*BLEEP*!!!!"
Time to go shopping.

NEXT WEEK:  Part II