As we have noted, it’s hard to know which modern fridge brands will last the longest, though we do have an idea of which styles have a better track record and which specific models have a history of issues. Even then, the gap between the most-reliable and least-reliable brands looks pretty narrow. And any company can sell you a dud and drag its heels on customer service, whirlpool mini refrigerator even if it has the best reputation. You might be able to protect yourself by purchasing from a local store with good customer service, but that probably won’t work in all cases. True counter-depth fridges can blend into their surroundings, but even the pseudo-counter-depth freestanding fridges from mainstream brands don’t feel so dominating or imposing in a room.
Beyond that, it’s mostly a matter of homing in on what fits your space and budget, followed by many other individual preferences. We’ll walk you through some of the major choices you need to make, and we’ll point out some of the brands, designs, and features that real-world owners tend to like. This guide will be most useful for people who are shopping for a full-size, freestanding refrigerator that costs up to $4,000. Some of LG’s latest refrigerator models include thoughtful features like door-in-door storage—a hidden door within the refrigerator door that’s meant for accessing and storing your most-reached-for items.
Many of the complaints involve Samsung French-door refrigerators, which received a less-than-favorable rating for predicted reliability and a subpar rating for owner satisfaction in our survey results. Both the fridge and freezer sections of this refrigerator contain door bins. These bins greatly improve the storage space of this modern model. Frigidaire refrigerators come in a variety of different styles for every budget, design preference and kitchen size.
The evaporator fan motor circulates air over the coils to help keep things cool inside your fridge. If this motor starts to go bad, it will make a buzzing sound as it struggles to circulate air. You’ll need to replace the evaporator fan motor to fix this problem. A faulty fan motor is a repair that a professional refrigerator technician can help you complete. PureSource Ultra® water filter reduces contaminants including lead, chlorine and mercury.
The lines between these styles are blurry and pretty much disappear around $4,000, where many freestanding fridges are both well equipped and well appointed. GE Appliances is owned by Haier, which also sells the budget Hotpoint and city-sized Haier brands, which we didn’t evaluate for this guide. Your wall oven’s model number is typically located along the interior side trim of the oven and visible when the door is opened.
According to our reader survey, slightly fewer Whirlpool French-door owners said they were very or somewhat satisfied than their GE counterparts, and they trailed even further behind LG French-door owners. We don’t have great data on LG’s reputation for top-freezer models—we got too few survey responses regarding such models to reach statistical significance. And LG doesn’t sell as wide a variety of that type of fridge as other brands do.
It’s common among models of both types to have separate cooling systems for the fridge and freezer compartments (dual evaporators), which their makers advertise as an upgrade over the single systems used in most fridges. This design may improve food preservation, but we haven’t looked into the topic and can’t verify that that’s the case. We Arctic King don’t have enough evidence to say with confidence that one brand of top-freezer fridges is significantly better than others. In our reader survey, we didn’t receive enough responses about LG or Samsung top-freezer models, for example, for the results to be statistically significant, let alone for smaller brands like Insignia or Magic Chef.