The Common Reasons

The most common reasons for a spare part to be made obsolete are:

• Low use - not commercially viable to make more
• The original supplier ceases to exist or produce the item
• Brand/manufacturer goes bust
• Who knows??!!

Low Use

By far and away, this is the most common reason that we've been given.

Somewhat counterintuitively, as machines age and they need spares, the volume of machines out there and the volume of parts required for them drops.

Ultimately, this means that as the demand for any one part decreases, there isn't enough to justify the costs in making more of the parts, and that is also why you'll often see the costs of parts for older machines to be higher, because the use is lower and it costs more to make those parts. (More about that here)

Once the stocks run dry for an older product makers will often not incur the costs to make more due to all that, and a part is declared to be obsolete.

Once that happens, it's very often the end of the road, especially with specific parts like plastics and cosmetic items like knobs and the like.

Supplier Problems

Most makers buy in a lot of parts and, we do mean a lot! For example, in a washing machine, the maker will produce the cabinet, plastics and tub and drum group, very often little else.

Controllers, pumps, heating elements, switches and all the rest ar sourced from third-party suppliers.

If one of those suppliers goes pop or stops making the part, then that's the end of that!

We can sometimes find or source analternative but it's not a given that will be the case, and you can only do that if there's enough information to allow you to find one. Manufacturers aren't the best for sharing information unless they're forced to!

Gone Bust

Over the years, we've seen many a brand or manufacturer cease to exist for all manner of reasons; we've outlived a number of them. 

When they do go pop though, anything that they made themselves, you won't get any longer. Parts go obsolete almost overnight, never to be seen again unless some other company buys the tolling etc and starts to make the parts again. That's rare as nobody wants to take on those costs unless there's good reason to do so.

With brands that don't make anything but buy thingsin, the issue can sometimes be getting the information, although that's way less of a problem than the actual producer no longer existing, and there are often ways around that.

Mystery Reasons!

There are also cases where your guess is asgood as ours, there is no logical explanation for the part required being obsolete.

For example, one recent case we had was for an electronic timer in a very expensive range cooker that was declared obsolete.

We're talking about a cooker costing almost £3000 in 2013 and in 2025 the timer was, we are told, obsolete. Which to the customer and us, seemed absolutely outrageous. A £3K cooker is potentially scrap because of a £100 timer.

Of course, we advised the customer on how to bypass the timer so the cooker wasn't a total loss to them and we tried to find an alternative timer. But, manufacturers will do what they do and we couldn't get the information on the sizes of the timer, button spacing and so on in order to find a match.

This sort of thing we see on too regular a basis, a part is just made obsolete for no apparent reason, even for a machine as young as eighteen months old!

And there is no legal protection against this (yet), manufacturers can do this, and it's all fine. Legally, if not morally.

What Can We Do?

We will always try to look for alternatives wherever that is possible, and that will mainly be for non-cosmetic or unique parts, in short, functional parts you have a chance with, but anything else, there's normally little if any hope.

Even at that, if you find an alternative part to replace an obsolete one, it's a Hail Mary very often and may well involve some modification or bodging to make things work.

As ever, we will do our level best to help and advise you.