Refrigerator input please?

Little Chef

Bubba Tim and I are shopping for a new fridge. Looking for Pros/Cons of Fridgadaire Gallery/LG/Samsung. (French Door fridge with bottom freezer). Anybody have any experience with the above, or other brands? Looking in the 28 cu/ft range. Also, efficient ice making is a must. Any input is appreciated!!
Also considering Sub Zero...but ouch! :blink:

Little Steven

Michelle,

We have moved eight times in eleven years so we have bought a lot of fridges. We bought Liebherr after the fire and it has been good. We joined Direct Buy after the fire so we were able to buy it at about 55% of list. They tag out about the same as Sub Zero. We have had several Gallery fridges and had no trouble. The Kitchenaid that was in the kitchen before the fire has been a tank. It is my beer and dry age fridge now and I love the thing. We ended up with a surplus gallery which we gave to Norma's parents and it is still plugging along too.

Steve

Fidel

I've spoken with several people,my parents included, that absolutely despise the french door/bottom freezer setup.

My Kitchenaid does a good job of cooling, but the ice maker gets cubes hung up at least once a week which means it stops making ice and you don't know until it's gone. The drawer design is poor - thought not an issue on the model type you desire. On the side-by-side you have to hold the door all the way open with one hand and open a drawer with the other. Just poor design.

fishlessman

my brother rescently bought one, not sure which, but there is alot of wasted space with the drawer on the lower freezer. seemed to be 4 inches a side for the door and slider. if i had room and money their would be a klondike fridge and a separate freezer in the house. lots of dryaging room in the klondike

stike

sub zero will have separate compressors for the freezer and fridge. expensive to fix, but will keep those compartments from stinking each other up (if that's important to you).

all i can say is that i haven't had good luck with fridges. they are all cheap crappy plastic nowadays. had two break in ten years. whatever happened to praying the fridge would break so that you could repaint the kitchen? my mother suffered with an avocado fridge until nearly 2004 :laugh:

i have no feeling re: brands. sorry. my one bit of advice though is to stay away fro water/ice/crushed-ice through the door. takes up a lot of room, the panels can burn out (buttons), and you won't miss it. well, ok, i miss crushed ice...

PattyO

I have two Gallerys. One is 8 yr old, the other about 15. The models are a little different from one another altho the older one, after seven yrs the lining in the freezer split and there was no fix. I was furious, so angry and called so many times that they GAVE me a new one. My contractors at the time used a silver tape on the tear and it's been 100% since and rehomed to my basement kitchenette.

PattyO

My friend has TRUE refrigerator and freezer. They are so loud that his condo sounds like a bus terminal. They are commercial and I guess they have to recover temperature very quickly but that compressor is impossible to live with.

Carolina Q

Michelle, my Mom still has her first fridge, a 1940-something Coldspot (Sears' brand at the time)! It's in the basement and isn't used for much, but it still works!! I bought a Kenmore in 1978 and it's still in my kitchen. Maybe you should check out Sears.

Fidel

Sears/Kenmore don't make any appliances. Their products are simply re-branded from other manufacturers and Sears gives them a nice price bump for the convenience. You can take the Kenmore model # and search on the internet to find out who the manufacturer of that particular model is and their own name brand model. Sears Model # Reference

Going further, most name brands are actually made by another, larger brand, through a series of mergers and acquisitions over the years. Nothing is as it seems.

Carolina Q

I know. Mine's a Whirlpool. I had heard that it was, but really had no idea for sure. We bought it without an icemaker and after a couple of years of filling ice trays and listening to my ex b!tch when "someone" neglected to refill them I went to a garage sale one day and found a box full of Whirlpool icemaker parts. I figured for 3 bucks, how wrong could I go? 30+ years later, both are still working.

No idea who makes their stuff now. Just that I would consider another Kenmore when mine dies. Would love a Sub-Zero, but $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Dimple's Mom

I did quite a bit of research before we got ours. I nixed the Sub Zero because so many people who have them have complaints. I really have never met anyone who has one who would get another.

I ended up with an Amana 25cu foot. It's huge. The freezer is on the bottom, which I recommend. I picked a fridge out of a catalog that Amana put out. When it was delivered, it wasn't the same fridge. Some of the inside components were different. Turns out they didn't actually make the fridge that was in the catalog. It also had a huge scratch down the side.

So I did some complaining and insisted they get me the fridge I ordered. The scratch would not have shown because it was covered by the alcove the fridge sits in, but I used it in part to return the first fridge and get my way.

I had them swap out some of the inside components with other models and come up with the fridge pictured in the catalog.

I really like the Amana and have no complaints (other than their questionable advertising practices) and would get another.

Jeffersonian

Whirlpool owns a ton of brands and their trademarks...if you're not sure who makes what you're buying, it's likely a Whirlpool manufacture: Amana, Magic Chef, Maytag, Norge, Roper, Kitchenaid, Jenn-Air...all of them are Whirlpool now.

Jeffersonian

We bought a Kitchenaid side-by-side built-in about 9 years ago when we remodeled the kitchen and we've had pretty good luck with it. Just one problem with the ice maker (it's not a through-door model) and one with a blower in the freezer. It has tons of room and is well-made, though there is indeed the issue of having to open the fridge door WIDE to be able to get the lower drawers to open.

I'd recommend it, though, like the Sub-Zero, it ain't cheap.

Desert Oasis Woman

my dream kitchen, indoor or out, would have a stand alone ice maker that would make crushed ice!!!
Our 3 y/o Sub Zero had to have the motor to the ice maker replaced....appliance store repairman said they are the only major flaw :S

MemphisQue

In the mass market sector there are only a couple of manufacturers. All the various brands get their refrigerator guts from these handful of manufacturers. We have a subzero and could not be happier. Yes they are considerably more expensive but it is not uncommon for them to last 25+ years. You will not find that with the mass market fridges. Plus, you will see a difference in how well it keeps food in comparison to fridges I have owned in the past. I would highly recommend the subzero.

civil eggineer

I have a Samsung with the bottom freezer with no complaints. Had it for 5 years now and aside from the fridge door light switch recently going out and rendering the fridge worthless for a few days no issue. Once I isolated the cause a $5 switch solved the issue. I wouldn't be afraid to purchase another one but for awhile I was cursing its very existance. My wife and I actually like the bottom freezer door as the fridge is used far more often and at a comfortable level for access.