Nice find! We picked up a working used KitchenAid about a year back for $75. It's a great machine, even if it uses plastic gears instead of the metals ones it used to have.
Not all the gears are plastic. Just this one. It is actually a good thing, it is meant to be a safety fail so the motor doesn't burn out if you overload your mixer.
I'm on my fourth gear since I bought my wife that mixer many moons ago. They last for awhile if you don't do a lot of kneading with the machine. The kneading for long periods of time is really hard on that plastic gear. I also bought some grease to repack it after the second gear shucked out.
I read online kneading is not as hard on it if you keep it on 1 or 2. It also helps if you buy a dough hook for it.
Excellent! I can't tell from the pictures, but was it obvious that the gear was broken or did you replace it on faith?
Other cleaning, luring, etc. while you were in there?
Looks like a side gig!
I knew it was a gear because when i tested it out in Goodwill the motor turned on, but the mixer didn't rotate. Furthermore, since you have now read this, in the future you can know that if someone complains that their kitchenaid mixer doesn't work, you know that this 10 minute fix is the problem about 90% of the time.
Badass!
Now sell it for $75 and make 500% profit :)
Ha, I would love to but it is just to handy, it's like passive cooking at its finest. Plus my mother and wife would both kill me.
