The machine was hauled off this morning.
I do agree it was a shame, but on the other hand I'm not sure they would have found a service company that would have tried too hard to fix it for them. Unless someone is handy and motivated it is just too much effort to keep a vintage machine like this running. While I agree this was a machine worth saving, I'll bet the new Maytag that replaces it will serve them well too.
This particular household tends to be overly wary of repairing things, the thought of "what will go wrong next" dominates the decision making. A few years ago they had a failure of the inducer motor in a ~6 year old high end Lenox furnace. The repair was going to be $800 and that was deemed to be way too expensive. So instead a new furnace was installed for $6000. Could have repaired that slightly used furnace many times over for that $5200.
People often spend money for peace of mind. Many many people buy service contracts / extended warranties and they are seldom ever a good value in the end. About the only value they give is a certain peace of mind from expensive repairs. Of course that may be watered down if one reads the fine print!!
