Your dishwasher still cleans perfectly, but the lower basket has been dragging on the floor since one of its wheels gave way. Your oven heats just fine, and only the thermostat knob has cracked and now spins freely. You looked up the reference at the manufacturer: the appliance is eight years old, the part has been dropped from the catalogue, or it only comes with the complete basket at a price that ends the conversation.
This is the single most common request that reaches our workshop. It can be dealt with, provided you turn up with the right material. Here is the order to do it in.
First, make sure the part really is unavailable
It is the step people skip most often. Start with the rating plate, the label stuck to the back, under the door or behind the control panel, carrying the brand, the exact model and the serial number. With those three pieces of information, a search through spare parts retailers gives you an answer in minutes.
If the part is still sold, new, for a few euros: buy it. Our work starts where the catalogue stops, not before. What remains after that sorting is the genuinely vanished parts: discontinued models, sub-assemblies sold as a block, brands that no longer exist.
Step 1: collect every fragment, including the small ones
A part broken into three pieces is a part we can work from. A part missing a five millimetre chip is much harder, because that chip often carried the detail that mattered: a snap tab, a stop, a chamfer.
So empty the appliance, run your hand under the unit, and keep everything in a bag. If a fragment is missing it is not a dealbreaker, but it will have to be reconstructed from the housing it sits in, which calls for more measurements.
Step 2: photograph what matters, not what looks good
Three well made photos beat fifteen rough ones. Place the part on a plain, light background and shoot it from three angles: top, bottom and side. Add a fourth photo of the housing inside the appliance, with the part removed: that photo tells us how the part sits and what holds it in place.
For measurements, slide a ruler or a calliper into the frame next to the part. The dimensions that almost always count are the diameter of the shaft or the fixing hole, the spacing between two screws, meaning the centre to centre distance, and the thickness where the part is thinnest. If you have no measuring tool at hand, a coin laid alongside already gives us a usable scale.
Step 3: tell us where the part lives and what it puts up with
This is what determines the material, and it is the thing people volunteer least. A dishwasher basket wheel spends its life in steam and rolls under load. A trim clip carries nothing at all. A seal has to compress without cracking. Three parts, three materials.
PLA suits decorative or lightly stressed parts. PETG is our default choice as soon as a part works mechanically: clips, brackets, anything taking repeated loads. TPU is a flexible filament, kept for what has to deform, cushion or seal. Nylon is the technical material of the set, for the most demanding parts. The last two are covered in detail in our TPU and Nylon guide.
Just describe the situation: what the part does, what it holds, whether it meets water, heat or cleaning products. The material follows from that, and we put it forward in the quote.
Step 4: the quote, then production
The quote is free and you get a priced answer within 24 hours. If you already have a 3D file, send it as STL, OBJ or 3MF, the three exchange formats we accept: there is then nothing to model. Otherwise the geometry is recreated from your photos and measurements, and that modelling shows up as its own clearly identified line on the quote. The full breakdown sits in our article on what a repair costs.
Once the quote is accepted and paid, the part goes into production within 12 hours, Monday to Friday from 9am to 7pm. Production then takes 3 to 5 working days depending on complexity and workshop load. Tracked delivery in mainland France starts at 6,90 €, and collection at the workshop in Vatimont, in the Moselle, is free. There is no minimum order: one wheel is an order.
The files you send us are never shared or reused without your agreement. On the other hand, if you send us a model found online, responsibility for the rights attached to that file stays with you: some are published under a licence that does not allow reproduction.
The cases where we will say no
There are some, and we would rather say so at the quote stage than afterwards. A part in direct contact with a heating element, a part with a safety function, a part under loads that printed plastic will not hold: in those cases the right answer is replacing the appliance or calling an approved repairer.
For everything else, meaning the vast majority of clips, knobs, wheels, hinges and brackets, remaking the part puts the appliance back in service for the price of a part. Our list of ten hard to find spare parts gives a good idea of what comes up most often.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a 3D file to have a part remade?
No. The vast majority of our repair requests arrive with photos and a broken part, never with a file.
My part is in pieces, is it a lost cause?
Not necessarily. Photograph the fragments fitted together as far as you can, like a puzzle, and add a view of the housing inside the appliance.
What if the part is gone entirely?
We then work from the dimensions of the housing and, where one exists, the exploded view of the model. That is the same route as a part designed from scratch, described in custom plastic parts made to order.
Can I have several copies printed at once?
Yes, and it is often the sensible move on parts that break in series, such as basket wheels. Additional identical copies come with a discount.
Send the photos, we take it from there
Gather the rating plate, three photos of the part, one photo of its housing and a measurement, then describe what you need on the workshop form. You get a priced answer within 24 hours, from a workshop in the Moselle.
To see the full sequence of a repair, the plastic part repair page walks through each stage. And if your need is a part that never existed rather than one that broke, on-demand 3D printing is the place to look.