About 2 years ago I bought a GE refrigerator. I have never been more unhappy with a refrigerator than with this thing. It’s very loud, but more importantly, the functionality is crap. When the temperature is set to 38 degrees, ice builds up on the back wall, stuff near the back of the fridge literally freezes, and stuff at the front doesn’t get colder than about 50 degrees. I had an appliance repairman out to see if something could be repaired. He tried replacing the fan & motor but it didn’t help. He said he has seen the same problems with this model in other houses.
I want to replace this with something that works well (that is, keeps the food at the selected temperature throughout the interior). I would like a 36" French door design. I don’t want through-the-door water or ice (in fact I’m not going to connect the fridge to a water supply at all). I don’t need any “smart” features but I won’t reject a fridge just because it’s smart. I’d be very leery of buying another GE model. Price is no object. Any suggestions?
Based on the recommendation of our local appliance repairman, last year we purchased a 36" French door KitchenAid. We have through-the-door water & ice. We haven’t had a bit of trouble with it; my only complaint is that the icemaker is damn noisy when it drops a tray of ice. But if that’s not a feature you want, then that won’t be a problem. It keeps the food cold and has handy sliding, adjustable shelves.
KitchenAid is a subsidiary of Whirlpool.
Repair guy also recommended fridges manufactured in Korea: LG and Samsung.
When I moved into this condo 7 years ago, it had all GE appliances. The stove and dishwasher are more or less okay, nothing to brag about but the fridge had exactly the problems you described. We finally replaced it with an LG, the largest that fit in the space and we are quite happy with it. It had no water dispenser, but it did have an icemaker that I finally figured out how to disable (so it never tries to make ice). No more frozen veggies in back or warm milk in the door.
FWIW, GE appliances aren’t made by GE anymore; in 2016, GE spun off their appliance division to Haier, a Chinese appliance and electronics corporation. Apparently, they still operate GE appliance manufacturing plants in the U.S.
I’ve always thought of KitchenAid as high quality but expensive, but with all the mergers going on now, who knows. But I absolutely love my heavy expensive KitchenAid saucepan!
Back to refrigerators. When I bought the present house, the refrigerator was an LG. It worked fine for about a decade, but kept making loud popping noises whenever the cooling cycle stopped. I also bought (of my own accord – I’m fully to blame) two LG laundry appliances, a washer and dryer.
After about a decade the LG refrigerator compressor stopped working and could barely keep things cool. The LG front-loader destroyed its main bearing after just a few years. I know that YMMV but as far as I’m concerned I’m totally done with LG appliances.
I now have a Maytag top-loader which has been working just fine. And, back to the subject of refrigerators, I’m very happy with my basic Frigidaire top-freezer. I especially like the “meat keeper” tray which is usually a half-width tray, but in this model extends across the full width of the fridge, which seemed like a very practical innovation.
About 20 years ago, we bought a Kirkland (Costco) refrigerator made by Whirlpool. In fact, the nameplate says “Kirkland Signature by Whirlpool”. The ice maker crapped out a couple of years ago, but since the kids moved out, we don’t have much call for ice - in the summer, I buy a 7-lb bag about every three weeks and dump it into the hopper. We haven’t bothered to have the ice maker fixed because we expect the refrigerator to die, but it just keeps plugging away.
QFT. We had a Kenmore (made by GE back then) microwave/oven combo. When a component went out they claimed it was coming real soon now for months. They just couldn’t get around to manufacturing the part, it seemed. Avoid them at all costs.
As for refrigerators, we just bought an LG to replace one that lasted for a long time. We were constrained because our refrigerator is not near a water supply, so an ice maker is useless and just takes up space. Works fine so far. Not internet-enabled, I’m happy to say.
“Stuff is less reliable that it used to be” is an oft repeated claim, but from what I understand if you get yourself a basic, no frills, freezer on top style fridge, those are still pretty bulletproof. Anecdotally, the basic Whirlpool model I bought in 2008 has just sat there and kept running for 18 years and is still going with no sign of giving up any time soon.
This is actually my theory as to why fridges are less reliable – it’s less that the quality has diminished and more that we demand more features than we used to, which adds more potential points of failure. Even just moving the freezer compartment adds complexity. The old top-freezer design is the simplest way to make a fridge by far. That’s why we’ve been making them that way for 100 years. Put the freezer somewhere else, and now you have to make the cold air move a different direction from where it naturally wants to move. That means you have to add fans. That adds another potential point of failure.
True, but you’re sort of making my point. It’s pretty hard to find a fridge nowadays that I am confident will run for the next 18 years. I’m not suggesting you have to go back 40 or 50 years. My Whirlpool from 2002 is doing just fine.
I don’t know what a ‘French door design’ is (I googled it - double doors?). But 12 years ago I bought a Fisher and Paykel (single wide door but they do all types). It’s so beautiful you could put it in the Louvre, and it keeps food for AGES it’s so cold. I’m still in love all these years later.
Mind you, I’ve just had a look at the US prices. Wow. You guys are getting ripped off. Is that tarifs? Because what’s showing at $8,500 US, is $2,600 in the UK. It’s a New Zealand import.
My old squeaky fridge(I think Whirlpool) has been running in the garage since we built this house. 20+ years. And it was older when I put it there.
The fridge came from our previous home.
It has an internal bird. Every hour or so it lets out a series of squeaks that sounds just like birdsong.
I knew it cooled well. No ice maker. No in the door stuff. Just a basic white box. The door has rusty spots on it. I’ve toyed with sanding and painting, but it’s a low priority when we just keep fish bait, the odd watermelon and freezy pops for the kids. Some bottles of water.
If Son-of-a-wrek is frying fish and people are coming he often stacks canned beverages in there. Thirsty work, that yard partying.
You will get that outlier in any appliance that just keeps on ticking. If you don’t flap the door every 5 minutes throughout the day I think it preserves their function. I have no cite or proof. I just think it.
When I got my current kitchen fridge, there were two nearly identical models, the only difference was one was $50(?) more & had an ice maker but 1/10 ft3 less freezer space (where the ice maker was/not). My old fridge didn’t have a water line in it & it’s not next to the sink, or even on the same wall as the sink so I got the less expensive model w/o the ice maker. When they came to install it, they were like, okay, we need to put in the water line for your ice maker. Wait, wut??? You’d do this for free & I wouldn’t need to bring in a plumber? Oh wait, you got the model w/o the ice maker, sorry, we won’t install it for you so even if you buy the ice maker as an add-on accessory you’ll still need to get your own plumber to install it. D’Oh!
My basement freezer died. It was mainly used to hold cold liquids, the spare milk that wasn’t needed exactly when I went to the supermarket but a day or two later, a 12-pack of soda, beer, Gatorades, water bottles, with an added bonus of some ice cream novelties in the freezer. First thing I need to decide is whether to get a fancy new one for the kitchen & move the current kitchen one to the basement, get a mid-level one for the basement, or get a bargin one for the basement since it doesn’t need to hold that much. Then rearrange a bit so there’s space to get the existing one out/new one in.
My neighbor got all new kitchen appliances on Friday; they had a fancy-schmancy four door model with water/ice in the fridge door. I don’t know if it still worked or not as it came outside w/o the freezer door attached; not sure if that was to make it easier to get thru the door or because it was broken. If it was working, I wish I had known they were replacing it in advance as I would have had a new basement fridge for the cost of a tip to the delivery guys.
Kenmore fridge, standard size iirc, plain French doors above a pull out freezer drawer. Huge amounts of space with the double doors opening wide enough to hold large pizza boxes and long platters. Two side by side crisper drawers and one wide meat/cheese drawer. Freezer is mega big too, it has an icemaker but it’s not hooked up.
And now I’m curious, does your 2002 Whirlpool have the freezer on top? Bottom? Side by side? Pull out drawer (were they making those in 2002)? Does it have an ice maker? Water dispenser?
My 2002 fridge is a side by side, with ice maker and dispensers in the door. It has more features than I would like, but it’s basically completely mechanical in the way it operates. When I look at newer units, I feel like I’m seeing cheap metal and trim (and some dubious electronics). Who knows what the guts are like?
Sadly that’s just not the case anymore. Those models have been so cost-cut for the bottom of the market that they’re going to leak out their refrigerant or the compressor is going to die in a matter of years. I had a decent sized Frigidaire (Electrolux) top-freezer model from 2009 that developed a leak in 2023. The maintenance man was surprised it lasted that long, I think he said they only expect to get eight years out of them. Sigh.
Their entry into the US market was their dishwasher drawers, which tend to be used as secondary dishwashers in fancy wet bars or kitchen islands in high-end homes here. Their other appliances are more recent introductions, but they’ve positioned themselves as a luxury brand to go along with Wolf/Sub-Zero, Thermador, or Miele. I’ve not heard great things about reliability, but they may still be the only game in town if you want a dishwasher drawer that’s fully integrated (i.e. with custom cabinet drawer panels rather than stainless steel). They’ve always been expensive here.
Oh one other thing. I would never recommend any LG appliance or anything with a refrigeration system (air conditioner, heat pump, refrigerator, etc.). The stories about their washers and dryers are legendary. Their air conditioners all seem to be under-built, under-specced, and are poorly assembled rattle boxes. Their TVs seem good though.