Still have a 1982 Kenmore. I attribute that to vacuuming the coils and near the motor fan yearly. Won’t die! (much to the chagrin of wifey, who’d prefer a “modern” one). Oh, I did replace the gasket, about 10 years ago.
Yes, we have a Kenmore refrigerator that was manufactured in 1989. After a month or two ice eventually builds up around the evaporator coils and it stops working well... it runs all the time and it doesn't stay as cold as it should. After it has been unplugged for a couple days and all the ice melts and the area around the evaporator coils dries up it starts working fine for a couple months. You can't actually see the ice in the interior or on the exterior of the fridge.
I am not sure if it is a problem with an air leak or something in the defrost circuit. But my wife has had huge fits about it for years because she felt that a newer fridge would look better in the kitchen, and she has been angry about the inconvenience that this malfunction causes.
So, we found a new side by side at our local Costco that had been marked down from $1449 to $700 to make room for seasonal merchandise. I spent another $100 for the OEM ice maker kit, but it was a super cheaply made compared to the older refrigerator and even after quite a bit of trouble shooting, I could not get it to work. So we are back to using ice cube trays and a plastic bin.
The compressor in the new fridge is tiny compared to the old fridge and the system literally uses just 2 ounces of refrigerant. It seems to work fine so far but everything about it feels more cheaply made than our 45-year-old refrigerator. Unfortunately, my hand truck broke when I was taking the old fridge down the stairs and it got a few new unattractive dents to the exterior. So, I doubt that we could even give it away now.
The day after we replaced the refrigerator our 30-year-old washing machine made some bad noises and quit working. My wife was hoping to get a new washing machine as well, but when I removed the cabinet and took a look at the motor and transmission, I could see that the coupling had worn out and broke. $7 to Amazon and the next day I had a new coupling which took a few minutes to install and ten minutes vacuuming and wiping the dirt and lint out of the inside of the cabinet and it is working as well as it ever did.