All refrigerators, of all configurations, and all brands, have ice maker issues. It’s everyone’s weak point.

You don’t want the issues? Buy a separate cheap countertop ice maker and bag up the ice to store in the freezer.

Buy a unit with water in the door or on the inside of the fridge portion and an ice maker in the freezer where it belongs. When you try to keep water frozen in an area where the temperature is above freezing...guess what happens? That design is recipe for water leaks. If you want an ice maker and water dispenser in the door, then you will need to get a side by side, end of story. Do what you like, unfortunately that is just the way it is. Some may work a bit longer than others, however it will eventually fail.

This Whirlpool WRF535SWHZ 25 cu. ft. French Door Refrigerator has internal icemaker and water dispensers, costs half the price of the Bosch, and 95% of 2,000 HD purchasers recommend it.

i think water in the door is really kind of gross, it always makes a white build-up and how clean it that water line??

install some sort of water filtration and bottle the water and put in frig.

we have a Liebherr 36"FD refrigerator and the ice maker has been great! one simple repair in 6 years and it was covered under the warranty...

our water jugs (below) we have 3 on the door, water is filtered through our pot filler!!!

see there is more than one use for a pot filler :)

@wdccruise

Yeah, that Whirlpool has a similar layout to the Bosch, i.e., ice maker in the freezer and water inside the refrigerator, except that it is standard depth and not counter depth. One thing it does lack is produce and deli drawers that have rollers for smooth operation. This unit's drawers just slide out, plastic on plastic.

"One thing it does lack is produce and deli drawers that have rollers for smooth operation. This unit's drawers just slide out, plastic on plastic."

My refrigerator has a produce drawer that's plastic on plastic and doesn't even have a deli drawer. I haven't slept a wink since I bought that thing 19 years ago.

Odd, my old Kenmore fridge of 19 years never had an ice/water problem and my newer LG that is around 5 or 6 years old does not have a problem. There is one small beef about both and I think it is common in many and could be why people think they don't work or why a problem develops. The arm that is supposed to trigger when the ice compartment is full and turn the water off, in both my fridges has been a thin wire. It should be wider so it can actually be pushed up and trigger the full message by the ice piling up. We just have to remember to occasionally turn the ice maker off. The ice just keeps producing past that arm as a thin wire just isn't the correct design..

Thanks, Matt. Yes, I saw that one, but the reviews are too bad on it. That model was released in 2015, and it seems the KitchenAid models from back then have a lot of issues. The Whirlpool model that wdccruise suggested seems to have been released in 2017, and the reviews on it are much better.

I had to cut about 1-1/2" from the cabinets to accommodate my fridge - you don't really notice it - it's above the fridge after all. Used an oscillating tool - there's even a youtube on it.

That's why I've never bought a refrigerator with a dispenser in the door. Unfortunately, ones choice today for such are very, very limited. I hope my 9 yr old KA lasts forever!

KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Maytag, and Amana are all the same company. With virtually the same parts underneath the slightly different layouts, trim, and features. They all use a variant of the same exact ice maker.

The fact that anyone rates one fridge higher than another (or lower) has more to do with the expectations of price point performance than the actuality of the same performance across skins. If you pay 3K for a KA, you’ll expect more than a 1.5K Amana. So you’ll rate it lower if it has the inevitable ice maker issues.

The reverse holds true also. If you pay a bargain price, your expectations are lower. You expect to have some issues as a trade off for the low price. It doesn’t matter if the two are virtually identical mechanically.

Anglo, I agree -- for our new house, I was specifically looking for a fridge without ice and water through the door, much to the disappointment of my kids lol. It was definitely a challenging search to find what we wanted without water and ice.

We don't use that much ice anyway, and like sprtphntc7a we keep three jugs of (spring) water in the fridge door.

I felt vindicated when the independent repair guy came out in the winter to do our BlueStar recall retrofit and congratulated us for having a fridge without ice and water dispensers.

We bought a Whirlpool WRF540CWHV counter depth with water inside and ice in the freezer. Only had it a few months but we are very happy with it. We didn't want water/ice in the door due to maintenance and space it used.

I bought a refrigerator with no ice (I use--gasp!--ice cube trays). Never had a problem. That may not help you, since I don't think anyone makes a French door fridge without an ice maker. But it is not obligatory to hook your ice maker to a water source.

Update:

Well, today I made a choice I never thought I would. I bought a Samsung refrigerator. After about three weeks of reading reviews, evaluating refrigerators in person at retailers, and discussion here, the Samsung came out on top. There were a lot of factors that came into play, including design and features, reviews, sound levels, aesthetics, and price. I also bought the 5-year extended service contract. Samsung is running a promotion on it through tomorrow, discounting it $1,100.

https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/4-door-french-door/22-cu--ft--4-door-french-door--counter-depth-refrigerator-with-food-showcase-in-tuscan-rf22r7351dt-aa/

My wife really wanted to go with counter depth, so I finally decided on a four-door counter depth model. The 22 cubic foot capacity Samsung is just so much nicer than any of the traditional American names. I also think it is as nice or nicer than the Bosch they have in the store. This model is new for 2019. It includes the Food Showcase, which we really wanted because our 35 year old Kenmore has that feature and we are spoiled by it. The particular unit that I bought was on the showroom floor of the retailer, and is plugged in and running so that I can tell that both the freezer and refrigerator are working great. They do not have any more of this model in stock, and they can deliver it tomorrow, so I bought the floor model. My wife really wants it before this weekend, as she is having a group of ladies over for the weekend. They say that it has been on display there for about 20 days. I kind of like that it has been running for that amount of time and nothing has gone wrong with it! There is not a scratch on it, so less likelihood that I will receive a damaged unit. I pulled it out such that I could check it out on all sides. Then, I got down on my knees behind it and put my ear right behind the compressor, and it is pretty dang quiet.

There are not a ton of reviews, but they are overwhelmingly positive, with just a couple poor reviews. I realize there has not been that much time for things to go wrong with this model, but if you check reviews on earlier models, lots of poor reviews were immediately posted on them. Anyway, thanks again for all the info and suggestions. Hopefully, this unit will work out well for us.

I think it was that built-in pitcher that won you over. (Who dreams up this stuff?)

Update #2:

Our new Samsung refrigerator was delivered this morning. It took a while to figure out the control panel and how to make all the settings. I can hardly believe it, but this thing seems to work perfectly so far. The best thing is that I hit a home run with my wife on this thing! She absolutely loves it. I checked the temps and the refrigerator is at 37 degrees, the Flex Zone is at 34 degrees, and the freezer is at 2 degrees. The door in door feature is great for grabbing our milk and coffee creamer without having to open the main door, which helps to keep cool air in the fridge. The LED lighting is fantastic in this model and the crisper drawers glide in and out so smoothly.

I was initially dead set against getting a French Door model, because I do have back and knee problems, and I didn't want to have to bend down every time I wanted something from the freezer. But the reviews on most side by sides were so bad that I just couldn't pull the trigger. Also, my wife wanted the French Door so she could chill foods prepared on cookie sheets or store wide food platters, which you cannot do in a side by side. So, my solution for the freezer is that I will store the items that I use on the top drawer, and my wife can put other things on the lower level. It's actually not that hard to access my items because the freezer drawer pulls out so far and I don't really have to bend down that much to grab something off of the top drawer, and I am almost 6 feet tall.

This is, by far, the quietest refrigerator I've ever heard. When the house is dead quiet, I can barely hear it running from 10 feet away. I guess our old fridge had gotten really loud after 35 years of operation! About the only noise it ever makes is the ice maker dropping cubes and the water pitcher refilling.

Samsung refrigerator · More Info

Samsung refrigerator · More Info

Samsung refrigerator · More Info

Thanks for starting this thread last year.

Interested to know if you developed any issues? I have also been researching French door refrigerators but it is going on 5 YEAR hunt for me. My daughter bought a brand new Samsung about a year ago and has struggled with the icing up/jamming ice compartment. My husband found a Rev D ice maker replacement which he installed about 3 weeks ago in her frig. So far the ice is flowing🤞🏻but given the class action law against Samsung for their ice makers, I cant say I trust them so I’d be grateful for an update on your experience with the one you bought. I wonder if refrigerators are like the old adage about cars, don’t buy one made on a Friday!

Yes, but I do have an apparent fix for one issue for your daughter. The ice maker did stop working last year, but my dealer service department came and replaced all or a part of it. After that, it worked well for some time but later the ice maker started jamming up, which also caused the ice bin to be stuck and unable to be removed. I twice had to rectify the situation by melting the ice in the ice bin with a hair dryer. It takes a long time, but you can melt that glob of ice and then you can remove the ice bin. Then you just clean out the bin and put it back in.

Upon investigation, I figured out that what is happening is that the ice is melting and "globbing" together towards the back of the ice bin. This means that the temperature in the ice bin is rising above 32 degrees.

So, here's the fix. Since the ice maker is located in the refrigerator section, I theorized that if I could lower the temperature in the refrigerator section, that might also lower the temperature in the ice bin, such that the ice cubes might not melt and glob together. My refrigerator temp setting was 36. I measured the temp of some items in the refrigerator section and they were 39 to 40 degrees. So, I reduced the fridge setting to 35 degrees instead. Bingo! No more ice melting in the bin, and that was several months ago.

So, at this point the Samsung is working really well, and I am very satisfied with it. One other tip -- I would only buy a Samsung appliance from a dealer that has their own service department. And I would definitely buy an extended service contract.

Thanks for the further details, mtrot. She did the hair dryer for many months and we would routinely dump the ice, clear the mechanisms and start over. I think your suggestion to lower he frig temp makes sense. I’ll suggest she tries that going forward since the new ’rev D’ ice maker seems to be working. The later rev product must mean Samsung is trying to resolve the problem too. Thanks again and glad you are happy with your frig.

Ice makers / dispensers on French door units are problematic by nature being that the dispensing is through a door of the fresh food section, which means the ice maker must be located in a separate "ice room" in there at below-freezing temperatures when the rest of the fresh food compartment can't be that cold.

Dadoes, I’ve been thinking that my ice/water dispenser on my side by side frig has NEVER been a problem (because those are built into the freezer side of the unit) but my sister has a fairly new KitchenAid side by side and they have had numerous issues with their ice maker. The shut off failed and they came home from vacation to find a cavernous ice castle in their freezer. They replaced the unit and have had continuous failings and now simply removed the ice maker and use ice trays (as one other commentor on this thread suggested).

I ordered the Café French door that has an internal water dispenser in the fridge and ice maker in the freezer. Yes, You have to open both to get ice water but, no unsanitary, bound to fail worries.

@kmginNH Gagnon my MIL had a similar ice sculpture a couple of years ago. She called us because it was all clogged up and wouldn't dispense. My husband found a block instead of cubes.

I didn't say that ice makers in the freezer section can't exhibit problems. :-)

The inlet valve on my SxS failed several years, seeping and causing the same iceberg situation that kmginNH describes but that (thus far) was once in 17+ years. The solenoid that operates the rubber flapper that opens for ice dispensing and closes to seal the chute also rusted and seized from condensation. A long-time service tech I know advised that leaving the dispenser light/nightlight turned on continuously generates enough heat to ward off condensation (and mold accumulation up in there) so no repeat problem thus far after I fixed it and follow his advice.

Ice makers mounted in the door of the freezer also exhibit more problems than those mounted in the freezer compartment-proper. Door shelves are not insulated as well as the interior and are subject to more temperature fluctuation from opening/closing the door. Thus, thus the common advice to store milk on an an interior shelf of the fresh food section, not on the door. My neighbor and an aunt/uncle who have SxS models with the ice maker in the door both have continuing problems with it.

One of my sisters has a French door model (came with her current house) with ice maker and dispensing in the left fresh-food door. She hasn't mentioned specific problems with the ice maker (other than the dispenser gets gnasty-moldy) but there are a couple other issues with the unit. The dispenser light on hers is LED (and doesn't have a continuous-on nightlight function) so doesn't generate heat to dry condensation. The light on mine is a little incandescent bulb, perhaps a bonus of having an older model.

@mtrot I just wanted to thank you so much for your fix from 10 months ago, about lowering the temperature. I have that exact fridge unit, and I had read about the ice maker issues, just dreading when it would happen. Sure enough, it did. I was on the verge of buying a new fridge, when I stumbled across your post. Ever since I lowered the temp in the fridge, I have not experienced any freezing over in the ice maker area. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! (I signed up for a Houzz account just to thank you! :D )