Repair systems in games are usually a bit wonky but Misery aims for realism, that's where it gets its difficulty from and it tries to avoid artificial difficulty, such as single use repair kits.
I'm not really interested in specifically looking for stashes I've been told about, I'd rather just find them if I find them kinda thing. If I'm in an area that I know a stash is in already I'll sometimes grab it if I just 'happen' to find it though.
Also I hate snorks in vanilla, I'm just going to never go near them in Misery. Controllers, Snorks and Chimeras are long range explosives only for me, which makes the IEDs a welcome addition. Nothing in a game has ever scared me like Controllers do and Snorks and Chimeras are too fucking jumpy to hit properly, plus Chimeras will fuck you up anyway.