I have a wood paneled SZ 632. It was shipped unskinned as expected and I had my cabinet company make the door panels to SZ's spec. While one might assume that an unskinned, panel-ready unit is a metal paneled unit without the outer metal skin, this should be checked with SZ to assure that metal skin removal and repaneling with wood is feasible. If it is, perhaps SZ would ship you a copy of the drawings that the wood shop will need, or provide you an Internet link to the drawings. My impression is that SZ is generally pretty helpful.

kas

Heard the same advice as ekscrunchy. Our certified SZ installer said he rarely gets called back bc of a faulty SZ. The Liebherrs he gets call backs all the time. For his own home he has a SZ.

Thanks, all. I sent a note to the seller to try and get the model number to verify what options there are to make it not white (stainless or wood are ok), but haven't heard back yet. At this point all i have is the age, condition, width and a picture. Good to hear they're reliable, I've actually done a lot of appliance repairs before, but never refrigerators and nothing this nice.

There's also another for sale for 1,500 but it was made in 1996 and to me that feels too old. I would also have to drive an hour to see it, but this one is local.

The model number is 590 and I now have a serial number. I thought the 590s were discontinued someone in the 1990s?

Edit: the seller I think is older and communication is over Craigslist, I'm going to call SZ with the serial number and get a build date. The math might end up changing if the thing is twice as old as advertised in favor of the other one.

A 590 is more than 10 years old. I believe the 500 series was changed to the 600 series roughly 15 years ago now.

If the unit is functional perfectly and clean, I would estimate it's value to be around $1000-$1500 today. I have bought/sold/brokered enough subzero second hand units over the years.

$3000 is not a reasonable number. Depending on build date it's reasonable to expect 20-25 years out of a well maintained SZ. So best case you are buying 5-10 years of life...maybe.

Thanks! Just for fun I'm going to have a look at the one that I have good info on ($1,500 / made late 1996). Looks good in pictures anyway and my IR gun should help figure out how well it works. I called SZ up with the serial number for the "10 year old" one and it's actually 19. Small margin of error there.

Is the compressor on the top or the bottom? If it's on the bottom, like my old fridge only was, you may want to pass. I was warned not to build it into my new house because a replacement won't fit in the same cabinetry when it dies.

OP is looking at a top compressor one.

The 1,500 one did not end up checking out ok - there was heavy rust on some of the brackets in the icemaker and it was obvious in person that it was not taken care of well.

It's been fun but I've learned that what would actually work best for us is an integrated set so that we could have it blend in seamlessly with the cabinets, probably 18" freezer and 30" refrigerator columns. All of this running around wasn't a waste because beforehand I didn't realize there was a difference between built in / panel ready and integrated and now I know what we need.

Good to know. If you are looking at integrated units, I would recommend the thermador units. They are the best value in the segment and have been very reliable for nearly 10 years now

Thanks for the tip! A couple of friends are builders in my city and have pretty good discounts with Thermador through one of the local appliance places since they buy so much from them, so I think that will be a nice fit.

I have found that almost no sells an appliance that works well...while I have had great luck buying used over the years that has not been the case with appliances. Now I will only buy an appliance if I know the owner....