What brand of fridge do you have and are you happy with it?

[hardhat]

I also have a Samsung with a freezer on the bottom, french doors on top. Bought it three years ago, no trouble yet. No ice maker or water dispenser.

I am happy with it. It was the biggest cheap basic fridge available when I was looking, and I got an additional 15% off through manufacturer coupon.

 

[misuspita]

Hotpoint - Ariston, bought în 2012, works ever since, no repairs necessary, not even coolant leaks. Widest one I could find, without being 2 doors side by side, with freezer on top. The compressor is not noisy, but there are some noises coming from the coolant that goes through the pipes sometime. Noticeable at night, but not waking me up, just hearing them when awake. No apps, bullshit secondary functions, only fridge and freezer. I'd probably try to buy the same (but newer versions) if it ever fails.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

We have a Kitchen-Aid french door top and freezer bottom and an older Samsung with the same configuration. The Samsung doesn't make ice anymore and one of the drawers cannot open for some reason. My newer (4 yr old?) KA has been awesome except it's starting to leak a little water. I'm not sure where the leak is, it's not coming from the water line because it's sporadic and not a flow.

 

[pcgeek11]

My Samsung ( same configuration ) ice maker would also stop making ice as it would freeze up and ice would block the light sensor indicating the ice bin was full. I would use my wife's hair dryer and thaw it out which would allow it to work for another few weeks before repeating the defrost. There is also a defrost mode, but it's a pain in the ass and takes forever.

It has been an issue with this design for a while. I found the way around it is to turn the ice maker off during the day and turn it on at night to make up the ice used during the day. This has stopped the ice blocking the sensor and I haven't had any more issues in well over a year.

 

[gorobei]

maybe stay away from LG fridges for a while. linear compressor wont last a fraction of the warranty term and the shipping box has an arbitration clause blocking suing.

 

[mindless1]

Primary fridge is a ~27 year old GE TFX27PFXFAA. It's one of the largest consumer grade side by sides I could find at the time, without paying a luxury tax.

It's needed a new ice maker, new water supply hose (the little 1/4" polyethylene tubing to the water dispenser), water valve solenoid, and one of the door open switches replaced. Also replaced the main water supply hose to it, just because it was so old and I don't want a leak causing damage.

No complaints otherwise considering how long it's been running, though I forget to clean out the drain hole/hose in the bottom so every few years it clogs and builds up more ice than the defrost feature can get rid of, reminding me that it's time to clean the drain out again.

My upright deep freeze is a ~40 year old Kenmore (rebranded Whirlpool) that hasn't needed anything, except recently the plastic door bushing has broken, and the door shelf plastic front rail side pieces have broken which I replaced with self fabricated sheet aluminum pieces.

My fault, I have a lot of weight on the door from blocks of frozen tomatoes, but they and the water bottle blocks I have in the freezer kept food frozen for 5 days during my last extended power outage. Biggest complaint is that it's not self defrosting so I have to manually defrost it every couple years, but that may have helped reduce running hrs. to prolong it's lifespan.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Kenmore side by side. It is at least 20 years old, never had a problem with it.

-kp

Also acknowledging Red Squirrel who has a Kenmore. I don't think the old 20-year-old standard-size model my Moms had at that time had malfunctioned, but only that we needed more space than what we had. I wanted a stainless steel unit that had the water and ice dispenser.

It was likely Moms' idea that we visit Sears & Roebuck to get the new refrigerator, and obviously our purchase was a Kenmore. The unit we chose -- and I did have a lot to do with the choice -- was a tight fit in the space available, but I had taken measurements before we went shopping.

Getting it into the house and the kitchen space was something to watch, though! They had to practically lift it almost to the ceiling to clear a kitchen counter separating kitchen from den.

I think it's great, but the plastic crisper drawers can be broken if the owner is careless. To repair them, I've used super-glue and pieces of foam art-board.

There was another shortcoming, or so it seemed, but I'm sure all refrigerators of this type require periodic water-filter changeouts. It seems at first a little tricky and tedious, but it's not that difficult.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Kenmore doesn't make anything, never did. They rebadge others. Currently their fridges are Dawoo. Good luck finding parts.

And I agree with that, or that it's likely. Our Kenmore might be an LG or Samsung -- I cannot be sure. We've not had trouble finding the parts needed so far, like the plastic drawers or filters.

 

[mindless1]

My ~40 year old Kenmore labeled deep freeze is made by Whirlpool. I needed a door hinge bushing/cam for it recently and appliance shops still have them, along with a few other misc parts.

 

[mindless1]

There was another shortcoming, or so it seemed, but I'm sure all refrigerators of this type require periodic water-filter changeouts. It seems at first a little tricky and tedious, but it's not that difficult.

Well, not ALL of this type. My ~27 year old GE has both a water dispenser and ice cube maker, but no water filter... at least I don't think it does. I've never seen it, having been hands on maintaining it all this time, and it does have electronics with a diagnostic panel that never showed it wanted a new one.

I don't really miss not having a filter. I drink water straight from the unfiltered sink tap more often than chilled from the fridge dispenser or ice cubes from it. Obviously this is going to be region specific but the community water system here is not too bad, besides being hard water, but I've never had to decalcify the fridge either, though mineral deposits might be what caused the water valve solenoid to fail a few years back... and of course, I'm a barbarian. I also drink straight out of a garden hose in summer.

 

[tcsenter]

I have been told by TWO different appliance repairmen/installers to avoid the South Korean appliances. Said they make great consumer electronics but not household appliances. Is it true? I don't know. My neighbor tends to buy Samsung and he has problems with two refrigerators, the ice maker lines freeze up. I guess there was some kind of lawsuit.

 

[marvdmartian]

Up until last year, when it finally died, I had an LG French door/bottom freezer unit, that I picked up at Best Buy for ~20% off (it had been a floor model, never plugged in, still had all the styrofoam and tape inside to hold the shelves & bins in place, and came with a factory warranty).

The bottom line, imho? Get the simplest refrigerator, from the most trustworthy manufacturer that you can afford. The more complicated your fridge is, the more likely it's going to break, sooner than later. If your fridge needs a WiFi connection? Good luck with that!

 

[jmagg]

We have a single door bottom freezer Whirlpool that 2 yrs ago had its third mainboard installed. The first 2 were done by appliance repair at approx 300-350 each. Number 3 I installed myself for a 50 buck part. I have suspicions that the defrost cycle once again is going bad, so soon ill grab another mainboard for reserve. Considering whats out there I would buy again.

I'll add that I never installed the ice maker because that's just a problem waiting to happen. As a matter of fact, I removed the mechanism from the freezer compartment for more space.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

We have a single door bottom freezer Whirlpool that 2 yrs ago had its third mainboard installed. The first 2 were done by appliance repair at approx 300-350 each. Number 3 I installed myself for a 50 buck part. I have suspicions that the defrost cycle once again is going bad, so soon ill grab another mainboard for reserve. Considering whats out there I would buy again.

I'll add that I never installed the ice maker because that's just a problem waiting to happen. As a matter of fact, I removed the mechanism from the freezer compartment for more space.

Our Kenmore ice-maker has never failed to function. Occasionally it needs to be emptied and cleaned. The refrigerator is more than 15 years old.

 

[jmagg]

Our Kenmore ice-maker has never failed to function. Occasionally it needs to be emptied and cleaned. The refrigerator is more than 15 years old

15 years is fairly modern, so I'm somewhat surprised. While an icemaker would be nice at times, id rather use a few trays and take another failure point out the equation. This particular fridge has failed with the same part 3x in 6-7 years, and had been worrisome until i figured out how to fix the nagging problem myself. The mainboard is now a 35 dollar part that installs at eye level. I ordered another one this morning for reserve.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Answering jmagg :

It stands to reason -- for either of us or anyone else to conclude potential trouble for additional gadgets in the product. I was always leery of electric car door windows. With the Kenmore, I just try to replace the filter after the reminder warning light appears. We have legendary hard water here in Riverside, CA. It leaves deposits, causing hose-bibs and other devices to fail. Just today I discovered that the mister configuration I'd installed under my pop-up canopy only has half the nozzles working properly -- the remainder clogged up with calcium deposits. I must go around and replace the failed nozzles with new ones -- of which I luckily have plenty.

 

[jmagg]

Answering jmagg :

It stands to reason -- for either of us or anyone else to conclude potential trouble for additional gadgets in the product. I was always leery of electric car door windows. With the Kenmore, I just try to replace the filter after the reminder warning light appears. We have legendary hard water here in Riverside, CA. It leaves deposits, causing hose-bibs and other devices to fail. Just today I discovered that the mister configuration I'd installed under my pop-up canopy only has half the nozzles working properly -- the remainder clogged up with calcium deposits. I must go around and replace the failed nozzles with new ones -- of which I luckily have plenty.

Our spare main board arrived, so when its time for #4, there wont be any down time. We also had a boiler malfunction yesterday, The igniter didn't fire when asked for hot water, but when i tapped on the igniter box, it fired, and has continued to fire since. I'll speculate that's on its way out, so be grabbing a reserve igniter. This will be #3 on the igniter counting the original. At least the boiler waited for the warmer weather before asking for new parts.