I respect the advice and information from Yale Appliances because they have their own in-house service department and sell most all brands. I'm hundreds of miles from their stores so can't buy from them but appreciate that they share so much information.

Yale Appliance blog posts on refrigerators

Because of the 1 year warranty Whirlpool was able to introduce when they bought out Kitchenaid, Amana, Maytag and Jennaire. They can afford not to care about consumers, or service or quality. But I see their stock is down. Maybe the market will finally take care of them.

My Samsung French Door counter depth refrigerator has had no issues in the 7 years I’ve owned it.

Appliances have become junk over the last 5-10 years. Probably blame on the big box mentality - price pressure becomes so great.

We had a Whirlpool/Maytag that survived 4 years and cost me 3 service visits in that time because of a bad design.

You generally have to go expensive to have longevity. We had zero issues with 8 years subzero. But the ice maker wasn't the best design. And it peed on the floor once from drain lines getting plugged. Easy DIY fix.

What David Cary said is what our salesperson basically said. He said that price pressures have driven the quality down and that unless you go to the built in price range most you buy will have issues at some point (said this not trying to get us to buy a built in, we weren’t shopping near that price range). He said American made brands are easier to get parts for so will take less time to repair, but expect to repair any of the average price models.

We ended up with a GE Cafe fridge. We have had it exactly one year this month and are overall happy with it, but we have had one repair. A small issue that was fixed quickly and under warranty (freezing food in fridge, needed new fan). We have had our Bosch Benchmark oven and Dishwasher for the same length of time and both of them have also needed one repair in the first year. We bought extended warranty’s on all the appliances for this reason.

I think the only reviews that are worth relying upon are aggregators - i.e. those which actually use statistically significant numbers of users so that one can actually compare repair records of various products.

As others have posted, except for forums such as these in which people who LIKE an appliance post in response to those seeking advice, the internet will have reviews disproportionately by those who have a bad experience - and even the best appliances can have a bad seed so to speak. For example, Kazmom had to repair a Bosch DW in the first year - my Bosch Dishwasher from 2004 but most people find Bosch dishwashers to be problem free for a reasonably long period of time.

Anecdotal reviews (ie. those written by individuals of their own personal experiences) are useful to me in terms of gaining knowledge of how I might like or dislike specific features of a product. For example, reading reviews of various hoods made enabled me to choose among several well reviewed products based on specific criteria important to me - in that case ease of removal of the filters. If I were a tall handy person, I would perhaps not have found that to be critical and might have found some other feature to be paramount in my choice.

After 9 months, I'm still loving my LG LFC21776ST. I chose it by looking first for refrigerators which had only the features I wanted. Then I considered only those with with an average rating of over 4 stars.

There's a lot of refrigerators with 4+ star average ratings.

Mo, I have had an LG fridge for 3+ years and I love it. I also helped my MIL buy a counter depth LG fridge and she loves hers also.

I have to disagree with price pressure being why they are poor quality. Fridges cost more than ever, are built from substandard plastic materials (those in the average budget of the middle class or lower anyway), have much shorter warranties, yet are very failure-prone today. They are built with planned obsolescence. Gone are the days of most appliances lasting 20 - 30 years as they once did no matter what the price.

The repair man yesterday told me that the 2 most serviced brands he works on is LG and Samsung because they break down so often. He says JENNAIR hardly ever has issues but who wants to spend that much? Guess you may have to spend more to get something better these days? Thoughts?

I have also had a Samsung french door for going on 9 years with only a couple of service calls for a very minor issue related to the water line having a slow leak. Total expense was a couple hundred dollars, I think. I think the addition of all the bells and whistles just creates more stuff to break. Don't get one with a hole in the door for ice and water and the likelihood of having an issue goes way down. They all used to be made that way.

We love our LG French door. Not sure what model it is, but it has a large tray that goes across the entire width that is nice for holding frequently used items or things to put out for a party. It has ice available from the door or from a tray inside the freezer. We never run out of ice, and with the Whirlpool before, we did. Btw, when we bought the Whirlpool, we were told it was the "Cadillac" of refrigerators, but online reviews were not available back then, and I think we got a Yugo of refrigerators when we bought it. The icemaker was always jammed with frozen ice cubes and we replaced so many things on it. Ugh.

My repairman said it's because of all of the energy-efficient things that are on them. We had a French door higher-end Samsung we bought in 2011. A couple of years later the icemaker died-out of warranty. $$.

Then a little after five years it stopped cooling. Called my repairman (whom I believe/respect) expecting to pay a few hundred to fix. It could not be fixed.

So we bought a basic SS French door without the bells and whistles. (about 1/3 the price of the fancy one) . It is Whirlpool but the guy at Lowes said they are all the same quality-wise. If you had a Samsung and it broke, you say you will never buy Samsung again. Then the next guy comes in and says the same thing about Whirlpool, LG, etc.

OTOH we have a 1989 side by side GE with the little snack door in the door--totally energy-inefficient. It has been in our garage (90+ degrees 6 months per year) and no problems at all. Almost 30 years and going strong.

If you want a drama-free refrigerator, get a top-mount freezer with no ice maker and no through-the-door anything. Nobody buys them because they aren't cool (and often lack some of the amenities of more popular configurations), but there is very little that is likely to go wrong with them. As as added bonus, they are the cheapest refrigerator configuration on the market.

I've nearly given up on reading customer reviews. when I was looking for a refrigerator, There didn't seem to be one model that had more positive customer reviews than bad ones. I read Yale's reviews as well as Consumer Reports and just went with the best price with the features I liked. Have been very happy with a Liebherr.

Reviews are just demoralizing. Makes you not want anything. Overall, I’ve been reasonably lucky, except with Whirlpool Gold ranges. Both needed the “unique” ignition system replaced within a couple of years. The same thing going bad leads me to warn people to avoid that brand for that appliance.

Avoid in-the-door things and the refrigerator should last a long time.

I'm looking for that great refrigerator also. Need help and will be following this thread.

Had our home built in 2003 - The only options for kitchen appliances where Whirlpool -we upgraded to Whirlpool Gold - Only issue was that the ice maker water line froze up once and it finally died and stopped making ice this year - 2020 Oven still works although 2 of the 4 burners have to be lit by external source and the dishwasher line out gets clogged every once in awhile. I read reviews for Samsung, LG, and Whirlpool still beats them...I'm thinking of going Cafe just for the design options.

I have a LG fridge that works well. Nothing fancy, 31 " wide, bottom freezer. I did not choose it, the previous owner bought it, but it is now about 6 or 7 year old and works perfectly. If I go to LG, the reviews are terrible.

On the other hand, I have a Whirlpool DW, also inherited from previous owner. Apparently the same age. Probably $400 or $500 new. The rack were all rusted and needed replacement. Buying one rack online for it was $200. We temporarly decided to use pro racks. They work ok but hold less items. Next one will be a Bosch. A little more expensive, but for me, it is more important than a new fancy fridge.

I stopped considering reviews. Each series has lemons.

My 8 year old Frigidaire is junk. NEVER EVER GET ICE/WATER IN THE DOOR OF A FRENCH DOOR REFRIGERATOR. Mine worked for a month and hasn't since after several attempted repairs...the repairman told me to give up on it...works against mother nature. Every time you open the fridge, warm air goes in and somewhat melts the ice compartment and it gets clogged.

Within two years the tiered freezer drawer broke and we had to remove it. Now I only have the one tier. Then a couple of years ago, the bottom refrigerator interior drawer broke...we could still use it but we had to pull hard to open it and it wouldn't close all the way. We finally had to just remove it last week.

My ex-husband just bought a new Bosch I think...he was surprised that he couldn't just walk away from it and flip the doors shut. You actually had to use both hands to close it properly. How can you do that when your hands are full of food? ugh. I felt bad for him....so try to see your refrigerator in person to see how well it opens and closes.

Ill be in the market for a new fridge soon....I'll be reading this and other reviews very closely this time.

We just got a counter depth GE Profile French Door with internal water. We had to have the internal water (well DH had to and we both didn't want to give up the real estate for the in the door dispensers) and had to have counter depth.

I mean we really just got it, like a week ago. I knew the features we wanted, and the only brand I was ruling out was Samsung.

Check back with me in a few years.... but so far, I hear you- there is no longer the good, 20 year fridge. And the brand that might have lasted 20 years is not the same anymore. So yeah it's an educated bet.

I wrote this 2 years ago about our GE PE23KSKSS counter depth French door fridge:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/5057752/counter-depth-refrigerator-advice-needed

I'm still really happy with it. It's much easier to keep clean inside than any fridge I've owned in the past. We stack foods stored in Glad or Rubbermaid containers, and so far, I've not felt that 23 cubic feet to be too small. The freezer capacity is larger than it looks. I stack 2 loaves of Pepperidge Farm bread, one on top of the other, on the top sliding freezer shelf, to give you an idea of its depth.

"DO NOT BUY ANYTHING MADE BY WHIRLPOOL" who sells products under a wide variety of brands such as Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, Jenn-Air, and Consul. We waited 3 mo. for our fridge ... it died just 3 months later. Made numerous calls trying to get parts. Talked to a superviser & told they had all 4 parts & the other one was on back order. He said they'd put a rush on sending them out ... 7 wks. later ... more calls, more delays, no answers, more false promises not to mention "many" hrs. spent on hold. In addition to this, it was a fully stocked 36" wide fridge (loss of $ to food spoilage) & major inconvenience. Found out that they were aware of the control panel issues & ended up settling in a class action suit for 21 million in Nov. 2020. See the link below. They are still selling them with these same issues. Totally unacceptable!
https://www.classaction.org/blog/control-panel-parts-defect-in-whirlpool-made-fridges-can-cause-ice-build-up-leakage-class-action-says

My 13-year-old Liebherr is still going strong, can't recommend highly enough. Basic 30" freezer on bottom model, no icemaker. Lovely silent machine, just needed the electronic control panel switched out once a few years back.