I'm in Dallas for the weekend visiting parents. As usual, as soon as I walk in the door, my mother gives me a list of things that have broken since I last visited. I wonder if I'm going to do that to someone else someday. She tells me precisely what I should do to fix everything, and I think about how doctors get annoyed when patients read WebMD. Long story short, the first thing I do when I wake up Saturday morning is disassemble the dryer. The thermal fuse on the heater outlet is blown, which makes sense because the dryer exhaust duct in my mother's never maintained house was completely clogged the last time I visited. Simple fix, just buy a new fuse.
After a few minutes of searching, I find that the official Whirlpool suppliers, sears.com and searspartsdirect.com, carry the fuse I need and can ship it to me in as little as three days for only $60. Then I check Amazon and find that they can ship it to me in two days for $9.00. It makes me sad to think that I'll never see a living dinosaur, but if they're as boring and unpleasant as Sears, then it's probably best that they went extinct.
Update:
I've been getting bombarded for the past week with browser ads for the dryer fuse I looked at on searspartsdirect.com. So they're not pocketing the entire 560% markup; they're spending some of it on advertising.
After a few minutes of searching, I find that the official Whirlpool suppliers, sears.com and searspartsdirect.com, carry the fuse I need and can ship it to me in as little as three days for only $60. Then I check Amazon and find that they can ship it to me in two days for $9.00. It makes me sad to think that I'll never see a living dinosaur, but if they're as boring and unpleasant as Sears, then it's probably best that they went extinct.
Update:
I've been getting bombarded for the past week with browser ads for the dryer fuse I looked at on searspartsdirect.com. So they're not pocketing the entire 560% markup; they're spending some of it on advertising.