<p>In home 20 yrs. on third refrigerator (Whirlpool gold) now which is about 12 yrs old. The first two In 8 yrs were GE. Nice features good price. Too bad too many repairs. I can’t remember why I bought a second one after bad results with first.</p>
<p>Agree with all of you who don’t like GE, mostly due to ice-maker issues. I also have the GE Monogram. Mine is the built-in model which retails for $8,400 that came with my new home in 2002. My GE fridge was serviced 8 or 9 times within a 5 year period. I would never, ever purchase a built-in because replacing them is not usually an option due of the high to purchase. You are probably at the service department’s mercy for at least 10 years when you go with a built-in. They look nice, but is it worth the expense? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>I’m a Consumer Reports subscriber and they like the Whirlpool Gold for the money. Personally, I like the french door models and design.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, I have room for a large side-by-side and really like it. But if I bought turkeys larger than the 18-20lb ones we use it might be a tight fit in the freezer.</p>
<p>A fridge repairman told me that LG and SubZeros are not recommended. He services a lot of those brands.
For recommendations, call up a few appliance service centers and speak to their repairmen about specific brands that you have in mind.</p>
<p>I bought a Whirlpool last year, after reading through the Consumer Reports recommendations. I have the freezer on the bottom and did not hook up the ice maker. I love the top part of the refrigerator, but the freezer on the bottom is too small. Overall, I’m still satisfied, but would like a larger freezer. There would be even less room if I was using the ice maker.</p>
<p>I just saw the link below on Yahoo. They have a paragraph about refrigerators. The article agrees with what seems to be the consensus here. Whirlpool is reliable and GE has more repairs.</p>
<p>[Bosch</a>, GE, Whirlpool among most reliable kitchen appliances - Yahoo! Shopping](<a href=“http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/912/bosch-ge-whirlpool-among-most-reliable-kitchen-appliances/]Bosch”>http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/912/bosch-ge-whirlpool-among-most-reliable-kitchen-appliances/)</p>
<p>I have a SubZero (side by side) that’s 10 years old. I’ve recently had to do two major (i.e., costly repairs). I have another SubZero in a vacation home (different style–freezer underneath), which is a few years older–it too just needed repair work. Problem was mice getting into the house over the winter and messing up the wiring underneath the fridge. (Yikes–gotta set those traps.) That being said, I do like the SubZero because it’s so large–I don’t need to keep an old fridge in the garage. I can keep everything, even when I have lots of food for a holiday or party, in the SubZero. I asked the repair guy for a recommendation on the best fridge. He said the Mercedes of refridgerators was a Traulsen. It’s kind of ugly. I looked it up. [Traulsen</a> UR48DT-14 Glass Door Spacesaver Refrigerator / Freezer UR48DT-14 | Traulsen Combination Refrigerator Freezer - Wasserstrom Restaurant Supply](<a href=“Traulsen UR48DT-14 Glass Door Spacesaver Refrigerator / Freezer | Wasserstrom”>Traulsen UR48DT-14 Glass Door Spacesaver Refrigerator / Freezer | Wasserstrom)</p>
<p>$16 thousand for a fridge?!? Wow.</p>
<p>And it only has a 1 year warranty.</p>
<p>So I looked tonight and sorta, kinda like a Kenmore Elite - French doors and bottom freezer.</p>
<p>Comments re Kenmore Elite?</p>
<p>Hmm, I wonder if Consumer Reports thinks the cheaper, smaller Whirlpools are reliable? I don’t…we had one that was so loud one couldn’t hear the tv in the next room. Warranty work did nothing to quell the noise (actually, my experience is that if a new appliance stinks enough to need warranty work, it doesn’t usually get much better over the long run). Put that fridge in a rental.</p>
<p>Next Whirlpool (ok, we’re stupid, but there are few choices in a narrow, small fridge)…this has a major design flaw easily googled and noted with gusto by the repair man…the defrost line clogs and freezes and then the excess water runs down the back of the fridge section and pools on the shelves and in the crisper baskets. </p>
<p>He taught me to fix it by removing all freezer items, taking out the bottom tray, baster squirting hot water in the back, blow drying it until it unfreezes, and then toweling it dry…the freezer stays clean when you do this 4x a year, but it’s sort of a pain…</p>
<p>I have to confess: Once I narrowed it down to the two or three that had all the features we wanted, Consumer Reports be damned, I bought based on whether the door handles matched the rest of the kitchen.</p>
<p>We just replaced our frig which was over 20 years old. Since our house is older, and the space for the frig is quite small, we bought a 21 cu ft model. Replaced the Whirlpool with another Whirlpool. This time we splurged for the icemaker!</p>
<p>We know that we could have spent a lot more (got it for less than $1K), but we know that it will be reliable and it does what we need.</p>
<p>Satisfied Sub Zero owner here. Twelve years old and no repairs. We have the freezer drawer on the bottom model which I really like. </p>
<p>LOL - not sure you can blame sub zero for mice eating the wiring…</p>
<p>To tag along with this-what size fridge is a good size to get? The space isn’t limited by width but height might be an issue. I am trying to price them online but what size is a “normal” size fridge. I don’t want too big because it’s him and maybe one renter, they just won’t have that much stuff in the fridge.</p>
<p>The bottom freezers are about $400 more for the same size/quality top freezer if anyone is interested :D.</p>
<p>Ask at the appliance store if they have any scratch and dent refrigerators for sale. We got one that had been dropped and the side of refrigerator was dented but we put it in our kitchen with dent hidden facing wall and no one could tell it was banged up. Saved some money with purchase.</p>
<p>Too, while I’m writing about scratch and denters, funeral parlors sometimes have banged up caskets in back of their regular displays if you ever have need for a casket and want to maybe save a few bucks!</p>
<p>That Traulsen fridge looks like it belongs in a commercial kitchen, not in a residential one. It is surely ugly! Does anyone have a Miele fridge?</p>
<p>If I had a $16,000 Traulsen refrigerator, I’d put it out on my front porch to show off to everyone in the neighborhood and let everyone know I had one. If you shopped around you could probably buy a dented one for maybe $12,000!</p>
<p>LOL, lizard! The $6K Miele we checked out the other day is a bargain, compared to that ugly box.</p>
<p>A few years ago we bought our Frigidaire side-by-side because we liked it (we wanted black, but not glossy), and it had good Consumer Report rating. It already had a decent markdown for the sale, but we got another 10% off due to minor scratch - we lucked out because it is a place obscured by the adjacent cabinet, I think we spent around $750. </p>
<p>Truly I would have splurged for a pricier french door model if it were a better choice. But my husband is tall, it works better for fridge and freezer to both have high shelves. He found the french door models with 2 freezer doors more appealing than those with one big drawer, but all involved more bending than he liked.</p>
<p>“not sure you can blame sub zero for mice eating the wiring…”</p>
<p>scualum - My understanding is that these were Sub-Zero branded mice, bred and raised above the Arctic Circle, and offered as an extra-cost option.</p>
<p>Any other experience with Frigidare? Sis is shopping for a top freezer fridge. Thanks.</p>