• LG LSXS26366S (BB)
• LG LSXC22486S (BB)

Stick with Whirlpool. Counter depth costs more. If you get seduced by the features on brands known to have poor customer support and poor longevity, you may regret the decision to buy instead of repair.

If anything, anecdotal evidence on this site suggests that Samsung fridges encounter even more problems than LG. Agreed on staying clear of both of these brands.

Don't buy a fridge with lots of gimmicks. That's just more pieces that can fail.

Or ... buy from a local appliance store that has their own service techs who will service the appliance. And get the 5 year warranty. That's what we wound up doing. Tried 2 Samsung fridges that were both LOUD (the fans sounded like they were hitting something) and got an LG. I didn't want the ice and water thru the door but not a ton of options without that so we have it. I hate to admit that I do like the ice thru the door now, after trying to avoid it.

I have dealt with Samsung service techs on a washer and will never do that again.

Skip the side by side. The French door provides much better shelf space vs a side by side. Better organization trumps poor organization.

Thanks, all! I need the side by side because of my back and knee issues. I don't want to have to bend and crouch down by the floor in order to get something out of the freezer. With the side by side, I can place the items that I generally use near the top, and place other items that my wife would use lower in the freezer section, since she has no problem reaching them there.

Those LG units at Home Depot do look pretty nice; it's just that I've read that it can be difficult to even find a LG qualified technician to work on them. I noticed that those LG indicate a 10 year compressor warranty, which is nice.

I also read that Samsung has a better cooling design than LG, but I don't know if there is any truth to that.

There is a prominent, long-time appliance store here that I will check out today. They have a great reputation and I can't imagine them selling any appliance that they could not have serviced.

I bought a new fridge a couple years ago. I did a lot of research trying to determine best longevity and reliability. I can tell you there are complaints about every brand. I used to buy everything Whirlpool with good luck but after some less than stellar performance of a couple new KitchenAid appliances and finding plenty of complaints about Whirlpool fridges I ended up getting an LG FD - no ice or water in door. I've been very happy with it so far, granted it's early. However my expectation these days is that appliance reliability may be five years and life expectancy ten. Of course you'll never find a fridge these days that will perform as well and as long as the one that's dying.

Avoid Samsung fridges like the plague. We’ve had enormous problems with ours-three expensive repairs in the first three years we owned it, and each time it failed completely and we lost food. It was difficult to find a repair guy and the one we did find says the same thing-run away.

I hear you about the pro's of a side-by-side. Plus it's more practical for having ice through the door which is a common failure on the french door models. Think about it....an ice maker in a refrigerator section...what could go wrong? :)

My advice is to not shop at big box stores, because their selection is very limited. Unless that is your only option in your location. Agree with Zalco, Whirlpool would be your best bet for counter-depth. If you're ok with a full-depth, then look at Amana or Maytag which are made by Whirlpool.

"My advice is to not shop at big box stores, because their selection is very limited."

Refrigerator Type / Models at Home Depot / Models at Best Buy

• Top Freezer / 148 / 153
• Side by Side / 75 / 151
• French Door / 161 / 329

Why don't I need an appliance store:

• Consumer Reports's tests, recommendations, and reliability surveys
• Dozens or even hundreds of online reviews of the specific products I'm considering
• Q&A with manufacturers' representatives and owners at websites such as Home Depot
• Specifications, installation instructions, and user manuals posted online
• Liberal return policies.

wdccruise, are you really Lawrence Sprowls? He seems to have vanished but here you are being the same kind of CR propaganda machine.

As M said upthread, HD, Lowe's and BB have maybe 20 floor model units vs. 600 on their website. If there's a Nebraska Furniture Mart nearby, that's where I'd go for a hands-on feel for different models and styles.

Stick with Whirlpool. I used to sell appliances up until about a year ago in conjunction with cabinets. The only appliances I would put in my house are Whirlpool, GE or if I have the money Electrolux.

Pretty much everything is built these days to fail, you will be lucky to get 5 years out of some of these appliances (get the warranty if your home warranty doesn't already cover it). LG and Samsung have some of the hardest parts to get and no one wants to work on them. STEER CLEAR OF SAMSUNG APPLIANCES. I've heard and seen nothing but headaches with the things they've been putting out for the past 5 years and I had a rep who told me Samsung uses it's customers as guinepigs and mask it as "pushing the technological envelope" when I asked how am I supposed to sell people things that I see brought back after 2 weeks.

I would also be weary of buying from SEARS, they have turned into an awful company now that they're close to basically closing all of their stores. it's a shame since they had the best warranty.

If you want an unbiased opinion, (if you can) find a Lowe's or HD employee and ask them. they don't make commission so they could care less if you buy or not. They're usually just happy for the sale and a break from stocking shelves.

So, I just went over to Don's, and what a nice experience! They have refrigerators from Whirlpool, Samsung, KitchenAid, Amana, Frigidaire, Bosch, and Maytag. The sales guy was able to answer most every question without having to look things up. They sell Samsung for the features, but do not steer people in that direction. He says LG has been trying for years to get them to carry LG, but they will not do it.

They steer customers towards Whirlpool, Amana, KitchenAid, and Maytag because all the parts are easily sourced from US warehouses and they can service customers' appliances in a hurry.

They have 10 service techs and their own service vehicles, and when you need help, you call them or stop by the store -- no calling an 800 number. They service all refrigerators that they sell.

I'm now giving up the "door in a door" feature and thinking to just go with a side by side, either full depth or counter depth. I need to get together with my wife on that decision.

I was leaning towards KitchenAid, but looking now at the reviews on their site about all sorts of quality control issues and failures, I'm not so sure. I'm now going to check out Whirlpool and Frigidaire Professional units.

Frigidaire was having problems with their ice makers failing last year, not sure if they have fixed the problem.

Thanks. A lot of the failures I was reading about with KitchenAid was ice makers as well. It just seems like it doesn't make much sense to pay too much for the current refrigerators. Maybe go with a nice Whirlpool model.

As stated above, the more "features" these fridges have the more there is to break.

I put this one in my house (it is currently 6/mo old so only time will tell): https://www.homedepot.com/p/Whirlpool-21-cu-ft-Side-by-Side-Refrigerator-in-Monochromatic-Stainless-Steel-WRS331SDHM/305505697 but I wanted the water dispenser.

Whirlpool also makes: https://www.homedepot.com/p/EveryDrop-Water-Dispenser-in-White-EDRD101G1W/303787106 if you REALLY want to keep it apart from your fridge for even less to go wrong, but is a good solution if you don't mind the bulk.

KitchenAid is a Whirlpool brand. Whirlpool has owned KA since 1986. Most KA-branded and WP-branded refrigerators of the same configuration (top-freezer, SxS, etc.) are probably produced in the same factories ... just with different trim and features per the respective branding.

The guy at Don's today says that KitchenAid has their own manufacturing facility. Is this not correct?

Do you require water hook up to your fridge? We bought a KA with an ice maker and filtered water spigot inside, but specifically requested it not be hooked up. We had major water damage when pipes burst after a fire. There was no way I was going through that again - and reading on here, the water hook up to a fridge is often problematic. We buy a bag of ice or make cubes in trays the old fashioned way.

I have a two and a half year old Samsung side by side refrigerator. The ice machine has broken on it twice and the freezer on the bottom also doesn't work properly. Can't even imagine what it's going to be like when the warranty is over.

Compare the serial numbers on several KA and WP units, of various configurations (top freezer, SxS, French door, etc.) to see if any of them begin with the same one or two characters. The first character (typically a letter) is a code for the production facility (or possibly the first two characters if a foreign country is involved). Next character (letter or number) is code for the year of production. Next two characters (always numbers) is the week of that year. The rest of the numbers to the end is the production sequence.

Thanks, dadoes! I'm currently leaning towards Whirlpool model WRS571CIHZ. How would you decipher that?

That's the model number and not the serial number. You wouldn't be able to tell where it is being built by looking at that.

mtrot,

The serial number is coded for the production information, not the model number. Serial numbers are on the the ID tag on the appliance, or on a tag affixed to the factory box in which it's packaged.

Model numbers are coded for various bits of marketing information such as appliance type, year of market introduction (not production year), color, and engineering change iteration.

Thanks again! After just looking again today at counter depth and standard depth, I think I'm not going to go with counter depth, as it just limits versatility too much. For example, a large Digorno pizza box will not allow the freezer door to close with a counter depth.

I'm now looking at getting the Whirlpool WRSA88FIHZ, which is their 28 cubic foot, with the nicer sliding bins in the refrigerator section. The sales guy turned it on and it seems to run very quietly. However, there are reviews on the Whirlpool site complaining that produce freezes in the refrigerator section when the unit is set to the default temps of 0 and 37 degrees.

There are 47 consumer reviews of the WRSA88FIHZ on the Home Depot website but 1183 reviews of the WRS588FIHZ which appears identical except for the door handles. Consumer Reports gave the WRS588FIHZ only a "Good" rating in temperature uniformity which could explain the freezing problem. Using a refrigerator thermometer, you may have to fiddle with the controls to optimize the temperatures in each compartment. I did.

My counter-depth SubZero has shelves that are 14" deep. I can't easily check other refrigerators. How deep was the one you looked at?

14" is the size of a typical "large" pizza, and in fact I currently have exactly that in my fridge. It fits fine. But I have no idea what Digorno does for their large pizzas. It might be different size, as this obviously isn't really standardized.

I can go deeper than 14". In fact, up to 16" shouldn't be too difficult. But then, the pizza box is going to extend past the shelf and into the door. That requires a little bit more planning in what you stuff into your refrigerator, but it does work fine.

For me, 14" is generally good enough, because it also holds a regular half-sheet from my oven. But I wouldn't want to pick a fridge that gives less than 14" for that very reason.

@ M, I just checked the DiGiorno pizza box and it measures 11.5x12 inches. I think I will take the box itself up to Don's and see how it fits in the counter depth model.

@ wdccruise, I suspect that the WRSA88FIHZ is more newly released model than the WRS588FIHZ, since it has far fewer reviews. It's the same way on the Whirlpool site. If this is the case, then I'm hoping that perhaps Whirlpool may have addressed the temperature uniformity in the newer model.

> The sales guy turned it on and it seems to run very quietly.

All you can determine inside a store is whether one display model is louder than the other, and that's not even going to tell you if it would be more annoying than the other inside your house. To be blunt, you can't assess fridge noise inside a store where the ambient noise level is so much greater than inside your house.

Consumer Reports gave the WRS588FIHZ a noise rating of "Very Good".

Eighth character in WP model numbers has long been code for the model-year (market introduction) ... but I is not a valid code, so they may have changed the syntax (which they do occasionally when too many cyclic repetitions occur, or maybe just for refrigeration products) for the ninth character. H fits for 2018, WRSA88FIHZ and WRS588FIHZ are the same in that respect. The next character after the market year is color/finish ... which you'll notice it changes on WP's web site when different color choices are selected. The next one or two characters (always numbers) after the color is engineering revision, which is noted on the tag ON the appliance but not in sales literature or web site references.

Sometimes a model is produced for several years after introduction, which may be evidenced by a high-count engineering revision. My parents have a wall oven tagged as a 1995 model-year (or 2014 but they've had it much longer than that). The engineering revision is 15 and the serial indicates production in 2005. Revisions typically range from 0 to 3 so 15 for a very long-time production fits with 1995 model-year and 2005 production-year.

Thanks, we pulled it out from the wall and I got down on my hands and knees behind it and listened right behind the compressor area. It seemed pretty quiet.

I'm impressed your repair guy could fix a 35 y/o refrigerator! Our Amanda side x side died after 21 years of food service and the part we needed was not to be found anywhere. It was a second fridge, living in the basement. I called up my local indy dealer, asked what they had in reliable s x s and they brought out a Whirlpool the next day.