Throw it away.

[Doodlebug]

Cord on wife's iron is fraying.
New cord with special connections is about £5.

Argos sell a steam iron for £3.99 (yes, three pounds ninety nine.)
It has two settings for the steam and looks a nicely designed iron.

We are living in a throw away society.

How can Argos sell steam irons for £3.99? Loss leader maybe?

[Refugee]

How about an MP3 player for £2.99 that takes a 32GB SD card. Throw it away and buy another when it repeats a track.
The SD card is obviously a keeper though.

[Murphyv310]

There is an MP3 player that was on special last year at Amazon for...... wait for it........ 97p.

[boater sam]

I buy MP3 players for less than that from China - post free !

Friend has had 3 steam irons free under guarantee because they scale up. The instruction say use 50% DI water and 50% tap, as he is in London the tap water is calcium loaded and it wrecks the iron.

The last scaled one he cleaned out with spirits of salt, hydrochloric acid, and its back in action. Now its 100% DI and no problems.

Things are made so cheaply now that the sellers find it cheaper and easier to tell us to throw them out when they fail in guarantee and supply another.

That's why the service industry is dead on its feet, glad I got out 10 years ago.

[BusyBee]

A while back I bough several Arduino Nano microcontroller boards for a lot less than £5 each post free (China). I am now beginning to refer to these, and similar small board items, as cheap components but I suppose they can be regarded as large size IC's.

We have had one or two toasters and kettles at low prices, just replaced for new under guarentee. I think beside other concerns supermarkets just see anything but replacement as expensive hassle.

[Murphyv310]

That's why the service industry is dead on its feet, glad I got out 10 years ago.

Too right Sam. 
I got out 11 years ago, if I had waited another month I'd have no house or anything. It rapidly went wrong and we managed to sell up and pay off debts before the knock at the door. In a council house since 2006 and just as well as my health rapidly went wrong, at least I did get work up to 2015. Suffering now though.