[Tade0]

I would stay away not necessarily from specific brands, but models and even variants of models.

Case in point: factories producing my mother's washing machine model were located in three different countries. Depending on the country of origin, one important part would be either integrated with a few others or not. In the former case repairs were not worth the cost.

Only way to tell if your particular machine would be repairable was to check the country of origin.