I recently bought a new French door fridge. It is counter depth but it also comes in regular size. It has 4 doors, 2top are fridge and 2 bottom are freezer, although bottom right can actually operate as fridge if you prefer. I love the doors as opposed to the drawer. I have water/ice in the door, but haven't tried that yet as the fridge is in the dining room til floors are done and not hooked up to water. The doors all open independently of each other, so you can open either on its own or both together. The space is divided in half, so if you have one side open, you can access anything on that side as well as some of the stuff on the other side. LOVE it so far. Oh, it's a Samsung, btw.

That 4-door Samsung looks cool!

We had an Electrolux french door fridge with ice and water on the door, freezer drawer down. It was pretty excellent all round. The door on the right did have the flappy panel but you could still close either door first, and open either one independently of the other. Its hard to describe but the flappy panel goes into a guide that folds it in and around the other door so you are not prevented from opening or closing it on its own. The flappy panel is what allows the doors to have a tight seal in the middle. I thought all French door fridges were like this? This style is so common now that a quick trip to any store that has a few appliances will let you see what I mean.

This is similar to the one we had (replaced only because I was able to fulfill my dream of having a panelled column fridge):

http://www.electroluxappliances.ca/Kitchen-Appliances/Refrigerators/French-Door-Refrigerators/EW23BC85KS/

I did try the flappy seal things on some in store models and they are less annoying than the ones I've seen, the flap seems to automatically fold over if you open and close the left door only so no need to open right door in order to shut the left door.

I'm also looking at some 4 doors (whirlpool and samsung) where the bottom drawer is freezer and the second drawer up is flex zone frig that runs all the way across and none of the drawers in the upper part run all the way across. They cost more but I think that's the way I'll go to avoid the wide drawer in the upper 1/2 of the fridge.

Thanks for the input.

In many designs, the flapper part slides under the right-hand door. No need to open the right, but you get into that habit anyway.

In some designs now, that big center drawer is now divided into two drawers. You still have to check how far the doors need to open before removing a drawer.

If the motor is no longer made but you can get it out, why not try the online part companies. Many carry equivalent replacement parts and some have instructions too.

The online part companies have message that say things like "We don't have this part, it's no longer made, we don't know where you can get this part, we don't know of a workaround and if you call us we will not be able to help." We've Googled the part #, looked on Craigslist, Ebay etc. Trust me if this frig could be fixed we would fix it. It makes me sick to think about replacing the entire thing because of one small motor :-( That's why I said originally we could easily replace it ourselves. Except we can't because the part doesn't exist.

I have the same problem with my 40" Kenmore Elite electric range. Oven doesn't work and they don't make the part anymore. It is 10 years old and the cooktop is fine. Bummer because I am having a problem finding 40" range.