Appliances that is. Our "Sears Coldspot" upright freezer took a shit yesterday. It was a housewarming gift for my wife & I, from her mom, when we bought our first house... in 1975. Piece of shit only worked for 46 years. My parents bought us a washer & drier, also from Sears. We left them behind in our last IL house, when we moved north in 1991. Wouldn't be surprised if they still work. The freezer was the only major appliance we brought north.

And holy shit, who knew trying to buy a new upright freezer would be like trying to buy 9mm ammo? WTF?

Menards has their Criterion line crap, but NOBODY from Wausau on north has any 'name brand' upright freezers in stock. Luckily for us, a small appliance/hardware store in Conover had a 17 cu ft GE upright in stock. Just one. We ran up there with my trailer this morning and grabbed it before it was gone. Nearest other one was a Whirlpool 15.7 cu ft down in Plover, at Lowes. That's 125 miles. Home Depot could order one for us... be here in 2 - 3 weeks... maybe.  That'd be fine if my freezer died in January, I'd just put all the food in the unheated garage, where it'd stay frozen until April. But not July.

Have a Critrion refridgerator. It started having ice backup in the freezer every 2 months. Apparently the defrost systems little tin foil strip wasnt enough to keep the drain tube from freezing. Put a #12 copper wire 3 in long in its place. Never had an issue since.

Have you tried places like Best Buy?

My Dad got a old Fridgidaire in a place he bought back in the early '70's. It was in place and running when he got it.
So we left it and used it until he sold the place 2 years ago. It was an fridge when he got, had to be from the '50's.

Energy efficiency killed the old never die fridges.

Semiconductor shortage.

Best Buy didn't have any name brands in stock. The exact same one we found in Conover (12 miles from home) would be available for pick up, if ordered today, on July 28th. Home Depot could have it next Thursday (10 days). Yeah we paid about $75 more than Best Buy's or Home Depot's price, but it was 75 miles closer and available immediately. When you have several hundred dollars worth of frozen food starting to thaw, time is more important than money.

I don't understand the logic of stores that sell major appliances like Best Buy, Home Depot, Furniture & Appliance Mart, not having "some" semblance of an inventory of what they sell, available immediately. Do they not realize that a majority of buyers of stuff like freezers & refrigerators don't buy a new one until the old one quits working? They can't wait 3 months, 3 weeks, not even 3 days. If a washing machine breaks, you can go to a laundromat until a new one arrives. If a stove breaks, you can eat Quarter Pounders & Whoppers until a new one arrives. If a freezer breaks, you will lose the entire contents if it's not replaced within 48 hours. Everyplace we tried had everything BUT freezers in stock, and minimum lead time was 3 days for pickup, 10 days for delivery.  

If they're available for them to order it, and have it in 3 days, why don't they order one of each size to have in stock for the guy who will come in next week in desperate need of a new one, because his old one died. When I say "old" one, I'm not necessarily talking about something 46 years old, like mine was (I admit replacement was inevitable and overdue). Much newer ones will die too, even more so, the way they make stuff today that's cheaply constructed and "disposable", rather than repairable.

Rant over.

Hmmmm... maybe, but... There was no shortage of other appliances that use semi-conductors. Everyone had refrigerators, washers, driers, microwave ovens. Freezers aren't any more electronically complex than a fridge or washing machine, microwave oven, etc. What about cell phones & tablets, laptops? No problems finding one of those today.

About 3-4 months ago, our 2 year old over-the-range microwave fried itself. We had no problem finding a new one, in fact we had a dozen or more to choose from at every big box store in the northwoods.

I think it's freezers are just too big, bulky, and heavy to store. They take up too much space, and don't sell as well as other appliances. They're less complex, thus they do last longer, even though the freezer (and fridge) are the only appliances that are "on" 24/7/365. LOL... I have generators for the sole purpose of keeping those 2 items running in a power outage. We've gone through 3 sets of washers & driers, had 4 refrigerators, and likely at least 6 microwave ovens in the 46 years we had that one freezer.

We started buying US made stuff from the small appliance dealers, who only handle good quality stuff and do their own repair if needed.  One of the kids (against fatherly advise) bought a Samsung fridge.  Lasted a couple years.  Replaced that with an LG, which lasted a handful of years.  Both were asian made POS.  They have another foreign crap pile now.  I'm curious how long that one will live.  Plus they had issues right off the bat with it (freezer on bottom) where the temp. wasn't even in the whole drawer.  They were told "oh, on those models you can't pile food right up against the back - you have to leave space there for the air to circulate".  What a wonderful feat of engineering.  All 3 kids had to have front loading washers and they all have had issues with them.  Our Kenmore top loader had to be replaced a couple years ago - it was about 40 years old.  Magic Chef dryer was replaced 2 years ago - it was about 40 years old as well - and my dad picked it up for me USED at the Farmers Coop in Greenwood when I switched to gas!   Needed a couple belts and a couple small parts replaced in that time, but that only cost me a few bucks and a little time to replace.  People seem to think if their chinese appliance lasts 5 years now, it's a marvel.  I'll gladly pay more for an American made product.

Daughter just had to have the "steam" feature on her new chinesium dryer.  Guess what broke and flooded their laundry room while they were at work?  Seriously, a WATER line to a DRYER?

Here's the saddest part.

When it was acting up on Sunday into Monday, I put 2 thermometers inside. One on the top shelf, the other in the lowest door bin. They were identical, non electronic. After 24 hours with cooling dial on 5 (highest of 1 -5 settings) the temp inside ranged from 15 on the lower one, 22 on the higher one. Some bread and ice cream was thawed, but meats were on bottom shelf and were still froze solid. It should've been below zero. There was a "drip pan" underneath that was overflowing with water.

So when we brought the new one in the small room off the garage that we keep it in, we moved the old one to the other wall, still full, and still running. We put the new one in old one's former spot, leveled it, plugged it in, and waited 5 hours to transfer stuff over. When we opened the old one, the temp had dropped into single digits on both thermometers, and the "soft" ice cream and bread were beginning to harden up again... like it began to work properly again after being slid across the floor about 6'. I don't exactly know how these things work, but I do know they had "defrost timers" in the old auto-defrost type like this (or did before electronics took over everything), as I've replaced one once in a old refrigerator of this vintage. Now I'm thinking it was a defrost timer that was just "stuck", and the moving of it jarred it free. I'd never find a replacement part, and it would likely do it again, so I can't trust it. Door seal is worn out, and I couldn't find one of those either. But it didn't totally die, as in bad compressor, no freon, bad motor...

edit: the old one weighed about double the new one.

Update, sorta... The reason the old one weighed so much, it was full of ice, in the walls somewhere! After putting it out in the driveway, it thawed out. But, the water didn't run out until I winched up on my utility trailer to haul it away, and I laid it down on it's back to make it easier to tie down. That's when all the water started to run out of it. It pissed water for hours... I'm thinking, and judging by the puddle in the driveway afterwards, there was 5 gallons of water inside that thing. After it all drained out, I unloaded it at the recycling center by myself, it felt 50 lbs lighter than it did when I loaded onto the trailer with all that water still inside.