Savvy consumers consider price, performance and reliability when making a major purchase. The greatest of these is reliability — particularly lately.

Supply chain disruptions can mean long waits for parts or replacements if something breaks. Getting a new refrigerator or other major appliance now often takes weeks or months, says

Paul Hope, home and appliances writer for Consumer Reports.

1 Price and reliability aren’t necessarily related

Finding truly reliable and durable products isn’t always easy, however. You might assume that more expensive products will last longer, but that isn’t necessarily the case.

Consumer-generated reviews may alert you to products that break quickly or don’t perform as expected. But such reviews can be skewed by a grumpy few who had bad experiences, or by fake reviews designed to boost a product’s rating.

To create reliability ratings that are actually reliable, you need large sets of data. Consumer Reports surveys tens of thousands of people each year about various products. J.D. Power, which rates cars, bases its dependability ratings on reports from more than 80,000 owners of 3-year-old vehicles, who detail the type and number of problems they’ve encountered in the previous 12 months.

2 Watch warranties

A long warranty can signal a company’s confidence in its product’s reliability. A one- or two-year warranty is standard for major appliances, but some brands offer longer guarantees on certain parts, Hope says.

Lifetime warranties are obviously the gold standard, although companies differ considerably in their definition of “lifetime.” With Craftsman hand tools, “lifetime” essentially means indefinitely. Yoga supplies maker Manduka offers a lifetime warranty for many of its mats — but it’s for the expected 10-year lifetime of the mat, not your lifetime.

3 They don’t make ’em like they used to

Some products are better built than ever before. Cars used to be ready for the junkyard at around 100,000 miles, but you can expect a typical new car to last over 200,000 miles without major problems if it’s well maintained, according to J.D. Power.

Other products may not last as long as in the past, which means budgeting for more frequent replacements. Your grandma’s clothes washer may have chugged along for 30 or 40 years, but most major appliances these days have an expected life span of around 10 years, according to Consumer Reports.