Refrigerator Recommendations

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We got a Whirlpool back in December, no issues with it so far. Read a bunch of horror stories about Samsung and LG's that made me steer clear.
 
Stay away from Samsung. Lots of issues and parts can take a while to get when it breaks. None are perfect but Whirlpool seems to be holding its own.
 
Isn't all this new high tech stuff great I remember when refrigerators used to run 30 plus years. Maybe its the new 0W-120 volts they use in them now?
 
Around 1972, Dad decided we needed a fridge for the garage. We pulled a likely suspect out of the county dump, took it home, plugged it in and it ran fine. Scrubbed it inside and out and filled it with pop, beer and melons from the garden. I forget the brand on the heavy chrome nameplate but below the name it said " by General Motors" or something to that effect. Was still running well when the house sold in 1990.
 
LG is a few steps above Samsung (a brand that even Koreans don't use).

Personally I had good luck with GE and Whirlpool. Keep things simple and if you can find a design that has been around longer with no problem, that's what I'll go for. Between the 2 brands I like Whirlpool better as they don't gouge me on parts like GE did.
 
Originally Posted by PandaBear
LG is a few steps above Samsung (a brand that even Koreans don't use).
.


Be VERY wary of buying an LG fridge. There is currently a HUGE class action lawsuit against the company due to their compressor design being
very defective and replacing them can be almost impossible due to supply and technician shortages.

Click on item below for links.

Class Action lawsuit against LG for defective compressor design in fridges

Read all the horror stories here..

Click on the link below

Consumer complaints on defective LG compressors in their fridges.
 
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We purchased a Whirlpool side by side refrigerator in 1990 and it is still going strong. It had two warranty service calls during the first two years of operation (one for a noisy ice maker and the other for a bad heater in the door to stop condensation) and none since then, and it has operated flawlessly otherwise. We also have a Whirlpool washer and dryer set that have been going strong since 1998.
 
I'll add/complain about Samsung. We bought our house with new Samsung appliances and were pretty excited for these "high-end" units. I had looked up the models and they are not cheap, they are on the upper end of the line-up. Now, three years of light use later (we tend to handle everything with care), the fridge has a non-functioning icemaker, requires manually defrosting several times a year, and groans at random times. The dishwasher top rack has plastic that can't withstand hot water and is repaired by zip-ties that render it not adjustable. The stove works ok but if you don't get the gas burner top back on just right after cleaning it will shoot flames a foot in the air, but at least the microhood seems to work. It's just overly complicated. Nothing is covered under warranty.

Regarding the fridge, there is a class action forming about the icemakers. It is a known design flaw that Samsung will not acknowledge publicly, but leaked internal documents reveal. Currently they are happy to sell you updated replacement parts to fix the problem for about $700 plus labor to install.

I have fired Samsung and will not buy any more of their products.
 
I strongly agree: Whirlpool, KitchenAide, Maytag, Frigidaire. got a KitchenAide for mom, no problems at all.
We had an LG (Kenmore Elite) and that thing broke every 6 months. paid almost $3k for it and ended up junking it after 5 years. replaced it with a Samsung; 3 service calls in less than a year. No more Samsung, no more LG.
 
Originally Posted by ABursell
I'll add/complain about Samsung. We bought our house with new Samsung appliances and were pretty excited for these "high-end" units. I had looked up the models and they are not cheap, they are on the upper end of the line-up. Now, three years of light use later (we tend to handle everything with care), the fridge has a non-functioning icemaker, requires manually defrosting several times a year, and groans at random times. The dishwasher top rack has plastic that can't withstand hot water and is repaired by zip-ties that render it not adjustable. The stove works ok but if you don't get the gas burner top back on just right after cleaning it will shoot flames a foot in the air, but at least the microhood seems to work. It's just overly complicated. Nothing is covered under warranty.

Regarding the fridge, there is a class action forming about the icemakers. It is a known design flaw that Samsung will not acknowledge publicly, but leaked internal documents reveal. Currently they are happy to sell you updated replacement parts to fix the problem for about $700 plus labor to install.

I have fired Samsung and will not buy any more of their products.


Good to know that we are not alone in this drama. The ice maker has NEVER worked right. I have to chisel ice off it every 2-3 weeks so it will resume making ice. Two computer replacements, and an "adjustment" later, and no improvement. Bad design is the only explantion. I should've known standing there in Home Depot that an ice maker located in the refrigerator compartment will never work.
 
FWIW: We had a 2016 model LG side-by-side that had to get a full compressor replacement done and had it not been for the extended warranty I purchased ($300) it would have run close to $900 for the parts/labor. It was a known design flaw with trying to be "too" energy efficient and not working well (or so the technician said). The parts took about two weeks to get and the technician said they were not as bad as Samsung on getting parts but worse than most other brands. I had been steered away from Samsung appliances from their own dealers that sell/service them.

We now have a full set of mid-tier GE appliances (frig, stove, microwave, dishwasher) in our new house and have been pleased thus far (1.5 years).

On the other hand, my 11 year old Whirlpool HE washer and matching dryer (Duet series) keep on rocking along.
 
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I've found that surprisingly when it comes to appliances the sales people WILL actually tell the truth about reliability of specific models and brands.
Not what you'd expect today either, but seems to be true, especially at the big box stores like Lowes, HD, ect.
 
Okay, I'm going to name a brand that I'm going to get a bunch of flack on (because it's BITOG, it's the norm), but it's one that my wife and I have been happy with....so far.
The 'fridge I'm going to mention is...(drum roll please)....Crosley.
Okay, before you fire away that the company went out of the manufacturing business and it's a rebadged name only, yes, I know that. They put their name on other company's products.
Before you say it's not the most energy efficient model on planet earth, yes, I know that also.
It does, however, have a 10 year warranty standard. The dealer said it's reliable so I made the local dealer knock $100 off the price and write on the receipt that it's a 10-year in home warranty on everything.
The reason I went with this warranty is because we live out in a rural area where the electricity supply isn't as great as a lot of city folk have and it's hard on compressors. The dealer had to problem with me telling him that.
Our two previous Maytag refrigerators were complete junk. We've had this one for several years and it's been doing fine, PLUS, the most important reason, my wife loves it.
Ours is a side-by-side with water in the freezer door.
Not sure in Texas where you live, but I see there are some dealers down there.
 
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My son's Samsung, with the freezer at the bottom, has been trouble free for six years. What ever you get, don't get the ice and water in the door feature. It is more trouble than it's worth.
 
Originally Posted by WylieCoyote
Originally Posted by ABursell
I'll add/complain about Samsung. We bought our house with new Samsung appliances and were pretty excited for these "high-end" units. I had looked up the models and they are not cheap, they are on the upper end of the line-up. Now, three years of light use later (we tend to handle everything with care), the fridge has a non-functioning icemaker, requires manually defrosting several times a year, and groans at random times. The dishwasher top rack has plastic that can't withstand hot water and is repaired by zip-ties that render it not adjustable. The stove works ok but if you don't get the gas burner top back on just right after cleaning it will shoot flames a foot in the air, but at least the microhood seems to work. It's just overly complicated. Nothing is covered under warranty.

Regarding the fridge, there is a class action forming about the icemakers. It is a known design flaw that Samsung will not acknowledge publicly, but leaked internal documents reveal. Currently they are happy to sell you updated replacement parts to fix the problem for about $700 plus labor to install.

I have fired Samsung and will not buy any more of their products.


Good to know that we are not alone in this drama. The ice maker has NEVER worked right. I have to chisel ice off it every 2-3 weeks so it will resume making ice. Two computer replacements, and an "adjustment" later, and no improvement. Bad design is the only explantion. I should've known standing there in Home Depot that an ice maker located in the refrigerator compartment will never work.


Yes- it freezes up and stops working. I gave gotten to the point that I just leave it turned off. A big annoyance but not as bad as the several times a year the fridge will stop cooling and I have to go buy ice and load all the food into coolers so I can manually defrost the fridge. At least I sometimes get warning because the fan starts making extra noise. No idea what causes the other groaning noises though. And this is on a still relatively new $3k refrigerator that the company says are not manufacturing defects and no longer covered under warranty. Never again...
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
A quick search brought this up.
https://www.reference.com/home-garden/crosley-appliances-8289c8efe5a15529
r. It sounds like Crosley is just a nameplate.


Did you really read any of my post? Obviously not. Here, let me help you out just a little bit, as taken from my previous post.

"Okay, before you fire away that the company went out of the manufacturing business and it's a rebadged name only, yes, I know that."
 
Quote
China's Haier buys GE's appliance unit for $5.4 billion( in 2016). General Electric has sold its appliance business to Haier for $5.4 billion, a deal that will greatly expand the Chinese firm's footprint in the U.S. Haier is best known as a manufacturer of household goods including washing machines, refrigerators and microwaves.


Good luck with it.

I recently bought a GE air conditioner which was the same basic design as one I bought in 2014. However I noticed that the new unit had many cost cutting signs in it, and is not nearly as good as the 2014 unit when GE small appliances were still under the control of GE.

Did you carefully check the "most recent" reviews on Lowes website of this model? You might want to check these out.

I'd trust a Whirlpool or Frigidaire (Electrolux) over the GE (Haier) unit.
 
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