My dad does some appliance repair. He agrees. When our dryer died after about 11 years he said that was typical. Luckily our washing machine is still going strong after 13.
We have fixed relatively minor things on our washer at least 2-3 times, now. This site is fabulous: http://applianceguru.com/ we've ordered parts and done simple repairs that would have had a lot of people simply tossing their washer in the landfill. For chump change we've easily squeezed more life out of our washer.