When something breaks, do you Fix it or Buy New?

I am certain all of us have encountered situations where you debate whether to fix something, or buy a new one.
Let it be a computer, a car, an appliance, or even a house. Here are my recent encounters

Dishwasher
It cost me $660 (after tax) to fix it, which involved 2 visits from repair tech, and 3 parts (~$500), where I would have been able to buy a brand new Dishwasher, with longer warranty, in short time. Some lessons learned:

• Try to get ALL estimates at once, so you see a clear picture of what you are dealing with. Instead, I got 2 work orders, 2 invoices for parts, and charged my credit card 3 times in total. I kept thinking "oh it'll be just a little more, it's okay to do it". With an accurate estimate, you can easily decide between Repair vs New
• Maybe you cannot buy the exact same model, but do you really need to?
• My dishwasher is about $699 brand new plus taxes, but I could easily get a $399 Stainless Dishwasher as well, not as fancy, but does the job.

My Car's AC
Dealer quoted me $3000 to fix the AC leak in my car - dealer claimed it'll involve 10+ hours of labour, taking the dashboard apart, find the leak, seal it, re-assemble the dashboard back
This decision was easily made with such crazy figure = No thanks, due to

• My car being 8 years old, may not drive it for much longer
• Worth less than $10K, adding $3000 to it will not make it worth $3000 more
• I only need AC for 2~3 months in a year (I barely used it in Summer 2008)

There are many more examples I can quote, especially electronics or computer parts which I constantly deal with. Nowadays, it is almost always cheaper to buy a new computer than fix a dinosaur.

So, do you have any stories to share?