Service Repair & Cost
First let me say things on the ground are going to vary depending upon where one lives.
Only two of the washers in my "collection" have required the use of a local NYC repair service. We've already covered the Miele in great and express detail so will remind of the "fun" that came with replacing the tub seal on vintage Whirlpool portable.
Used a local NYC repair service and while am not naming any names they do advertise on this site. Mind you only chose this service after being told off by several others because the machine was "old" and parts NLA.
Repair person showed up and after charging nearly $150 for the usual "consult" fee told us the tub seal had gone and the part was NLA. We stated could find the parts ourselves (which we did, several NOS FSP/Whirlpool tub seal replacement kits in fact along with pumps and other bits), but would they do the work. Initally we were quoted something like $400 to do the work and all the while this particular serviceman did the work he kept moaning that the job should cost more. Why? Because his bosses had given us a price of around $100 for the repair job. This clearly didn't sit well with the guy but as it wasn't his call he did the job and the machine has been working properly since.
Mind you we used this particular company several years ago when our Wallmaster AC wasn't working properly. They came out, took the thing out of the wall and ran some test and concluded the unit was "low on freon" and should be chucked. Well after we made a few more subsequent calls including to Friedrich in Texas it turned out the unit needed to be cleaned. We were told to open the thing up and clean the coils. Sure enough the outside face coils were caked with a layer of muck,pet hair and god only knows what else. Once the unit was cleaned and allowed to air dry it workd a treat for several more years only finally dying about a year ago.
We called the aforementioned service company and told them off about what had happened and they refunded to our CC the call out charges and said "sorry". So maybe that is the reason for the "discount" when it came to fixing the Whirlpool.
Being as all this may you can go to Yelp.com or other Internet sites and read comments and or praises about the same repair service. Some persons hate Sears,others love them. Same with Miele and so forth.
IMHO it does help for one to know or become educated on how a particular appliance is supposed to work thus being able to spot when something is wrong.
For instance you see complaints about front loaders "jumping" or shaking too much on spinning. Normally this shouldn't happen and often indicates a problem with the suspension. This could be anything from worn or gone shocks to maybe a spring. One is a common enough repair the other shouldn't be.
Motor brushes as well. People say their front loader has stopped tumbling and or spinning, which can indicate the brushes have gone. Some front loaders chew through brushes like a rabbit through greens, others take ages, however sooner or later if one keeps the machine long enough the job will have to be done.
I think part of the problem with so many appliances today is that they are very complex and often a problem cannot be diagonsed without a visit. Once that is done it may take another visit to install the part or parts if the tech doesn't have them for the first call. Sometimes the best a tech can hope for is to apply Descartes logic (to find out what something is first find out what it is not) to solve a repair issue and even then that may not work.
MieleUSA seems to be big on this. Telephone rep will tell a customer one thing, onsite repair tech says another, between them they try this or that solution and when neither works are left scratching their heads.
