"Profile and Café are basically the same carcass with differing fit and finish; they are also better quality than standard GE models."

"Whirlpool, Kitchen Aid and Jenn Aire...are all the same manufacturer. They are quite reliable brands, but you will get more mileage out of their higher end lines than the Whirlpool."

You have provided no data that demonstrate that either of these statements is true. The following, for example, have identical specifications and differ only in appearance.

• Whirlpool WRF954CIHZ ($2970)
• KitchenAid KRFC704FPS ($3700)
• Jenn-Air JFFCC72EHL ($5700)

This is what I gleaned about the fridges of average consumer brands from my research, but what you hear might be different:

@wdccruise Perhaps you missed the above statement in my post. Do I really need to provide a list of works cited? All I offered is a summation of what I learned in my research.

And, you know as well as I do that differences in appearance between a manufacturer's low end to high end models can include cheaper, lower quality materials to finish off the appliance, with better finishing materials on the higher end line (think basic wire mesh freezer bins like some I saw on some Whirlpool models vs the heavier, specialized, divided freezer bins on the KA models.)

"...differences in appearance between a manufacturer's low end to high end models can include cheaper, lower quality materials to finish off the appliance."

If you have data that demonstrate significant differences among the three Whirlpool Corp. appliances linked above, please provide them.

" basic wire mesh freezer bins like some I saw on some Whirlpool models vs the heavier, specialized, divided freezer bins on the KA models."

Earlier you wrote, "you will get more mileage out of their higher end lines [KitchenAid and Jenn-Air] than the Whirlpool." Divided freezer bins has nothing to do with "more mileage". You are confusing features with greater reliability and longer life. You wrote, "Several salespeople told me they own Café fridges because they are sturdy and attractive with nice features." That's not research.

julieste: Thank you for giving us your opinion based on your reading and conversations with various people. It's always helpful to have someone else's insight. I too have a Bosch refrigerator, although I have the 800 model with no exterior water or ice.

Good luck with the Bosch. Like you say, every brand has some bad reviews. I did similar to what you describe about seven years ago when I needed to buy a new fridge. I chose LG - so far so good. These days I figure we're lucky if an appliance lasts ten years. Unfortuately my wonderful Bosch dishwasher croaked recently (also seven years old) but $500 and five visits by the appliance repair person got it running again. I seriously considered just buying a new one but they no longer make a model like the one I have and in spite of the failure there wasn't another brand I'd consider. Had very pricey Miele in the past and that was a big disappointment.

Julieste's summary fits with what I found independently. In case someone is looking for this information going forward, I'd also add that KitchenAid, GE Profile and Cafe have some standard depth models with dual cooling systems. Other brands have left that market (Bosch discontinued the 800 series full depth refrigerator), and I didn't find anything considered premium in this market segment.

It's interesting that you did all this research because of your 5-year-old LG refrigerator problems, but didn't happen to read about the LG class action settlement regarding said refrigerators. Per the Yale Appliance blog:

"In 2019, they settled a class-action lawsuit based on their new linear compressor not cooling.

Theoretically, the linear compressor should be more reliable because of fewer working parts and strike points.

Give them credit for improving the design and not starting over."

https://blog.yaleappliance.com/most-reliable-counter-depth-french-door-refrigerators

Yale Appliances is a high volume appliance retailer and servicer in Boston and they keep statistics on service calls (which is why I regard them as a reliable source on appliance quality). LG is 2nd most reliable brand in 2023.

@Brett

Perhaps you didn't notice how I started out this posting. " My not quite 5 year old, top of the LG line fridge just failed--even replacing the compressor didn't fix it, and it didn't last another week after getting the new compressor." They put in one of the new compressors; it still didn't fix the problem.

Although I eventually did get some money from LG for the defective fridge, I spent several months dealing with their customer service department trying to get this resolved. No way would I put myself in the position of potentially having to deal with them again.

"My not quite 5 year old, top of the LG line fridge just failed--even replacing the compressor didn't fix it, and it didn't last another week after getting the new compressor." They put in one of the new compressors; it still didn't fix the problem."

You say LG replaced the compressor but "it didn't last another week" implying that the replacement did fix the (undisclosed) problem for a while. But then you repeat that it didn't fix the (undisclosed) problem but it's unclear whether the problem reoccurred after a week or was never solved, and whether the (undisclosed) problem has anything to do with the compressor at all.

I'm not julieste, but I could have written the same story. I have a home warranty who sent a repair person, who, just like julieste's, looked at the fridge and declared it was a compressor problem.

Fast forward through a lot of repair company nonsense (not the home warranty, they were wonderful) and repair person comes to install new compressor. he spent a lot of time welding, filing, welding, and filing. he then declared we should be working fine and should stabilize temps within 24 hours. . I was skeptical because of what I was hearing, but OK After an hour or so and the fridge temp was still a balmy 78 and i knew that it was still dead, so I put in another call to the repair company. I also called in and paid for another repair person to come and look and the first thing he said was was, “Oh, my god, what a mess.“ I didn't want him to fix it, just to confirm what I thought.

A week or so later, boss of the first appliance repair place comes and takes a look and I could tell by his face the repair guy messed up. Now maybe if the repair guy was competent, the fridge might have been fixed, but I had already read about the horror stories of the failed replaced compressors. I did receive a very generous cash settlement from the home warranty company and bought a GE.

In my research I had found that LG along with several other brands are still using that style linear compressor with high failure rates, as it was explained to me by 2 repair persons and several appliance retailers. So julieste is certainly not alone.

Thank you for the breakdown. It aligns with my own research and experience. We replaced a Samsung fridge a few years ago with a Whirlpool and have been very happy with it.

@julieste Are you positive it was one of the new (i.e., post-redesign) compressors or a "new" compressor (i.e. specified replacement part for your model of LG refrigerator that was still the old design compressor)? It isn't clear if you asked that question of the technician doing the replacement and then if the tech gave a definitive answer.

We ran into a similar problem with our top of the line Jenn-Air double wall oven. If the electronics got too hot (like when you ran the cleaning cycle on the oven, LOL), the board would burn out (a $900 part). We went through a couple of those under warranty, and then, Jenn-Air support informs us they had redesigned the part and sent us the new one for our local service person to install (part # wasn't even listed in their system). That seems to have solved the problem. Hilariously, then then sent us another one (left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing), so now we have a spare.

@brett

The repair guy actually had several new compressors in his truck because he was one of the very, very few LG authorized repair people in the large metro area I live in. He replaced so many of these that he just carried them all of the time rather than having to wait to order one. LG told me that this was the repair service they used when fridges have compressor issues.

He told me that he hadn't had any problems/issues with these new replacement compressors. That leads me to believe that he installed the new version in my fridge. Maybe I was just unlucky and got the random bad new compressor.

My experience also was that there aren't many repair people who are willing to service LG fridges, and their numbers are diminishing.

Yikes. Thanks for the reports! I'm just glad someone is still making full-depth fridges! I feel like my 25-year old KA is living on borrowed time. Family members with the exact same fridge as mine in a Whirlpool model have finally had to replace theirs this year.

This is tangential and not directly fridge related but I thought about it today with the dehumidifier recall. I bought two dehumidifiers - exactly the same brand/model. One croaked a little after the one-year warranty period. I expected the second one to drop dead any day after that. It's now been about five years and the second one is still going strong. I don't understand why this happens but perhaps parts are different, assembly slightly off-kilter - who knows. Whatever it is, I think it's what leads to some people having a great experience with a particular brand and others having a horrible experience. You can do all the research you want but every brand has problems and you have no way of knowing if you're going to get one of the problems or not - kind of like my Bosch dishwasher. Great brand for dishwashers - I never expected to need a major repair before any of the other appliances I bought at the same time.