The breakages happen a year apart when the summer heat gets bad, if we were going to replace a lot of components at once, at that point we could have just got a new system entirely as this one is really old

We don’t replace the whole thing, only the part that broke, and again, this system is 20+ years old

My 20 year old AC breaks once a year, at this point it’s the ship of theseus. One year it’s the capacitor on condensor, then condensor fan motor, then fan motor that circulates air instead, then circuit board that controls all HVAC functions, then capacitor for circulation fan. Every year, when the heat hits strong, something breaks, I have become proficient in diagnosting HVAC system at this point.