Would an old bad main meter panel wear out a newer panel and breakers in house?
Call your power company and report an outage
There's a logical hazard called &quot;target fixation&quot;.  You are focused on panel and breakers, because you have deemed the existing panel to be &quot;old&quot; and have already bet several thousand dollars on a panel replacement.  You haven't identified the panel, but I seriously doubt that's it.
Your symptoms sound like a very classic problem on the supply side, and 95% of the time this is in the power company's wiring between the pole and your weatherhead, which the power company is responsible for and fixes for free. That is a carrier wire which doubles as the neutral supply, and two insulated hot wires. Those whip in the wind for years, and eventually, break.

If a hot wire breaks, power on one half of the circuit will be weak and weird (it's leaking backwards through the water heater, range, etc. The best tests are: a) if you turn on range and dryer, the power improves on the wacky circuits. b) If you shut off all 240V breakers in the panel, the wacky circuits die entirely.

If a neutral wire breaks, then both legs of power will function but with bizarre voltages, and half your circuits will get a voltage well over target 120V. In this case it is urgent you shut off all 120V loads at once - the equipment can take damage if you don't!


The power company will fix both problems for free, PDQ, on a Sunday night.  Call them and report an outage. Do not complicate your story by editorializing about how it &quot;sorta works&quot; or how &quot;you're replacing your panel&quot;.  We have had reports of power company phone reps using such admissions to &quot;blame-shift&quot; the problem back onto the consumer to avoid rolling a truck.
... And if the truck roll fixes it, add photos of your panel and we can tell you whether a a panel replacement is a waste of money.  There's nothing wrong with &quot;old&quot; if it's the right &quot;old&quot;....