Killer Fridge Deal

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Nope. Nice try Satan!

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Centauri said:
The amount of complaining in this thread is truly unreal.

I managed indoor appliance showrooms for 10 years that did $5-6m in sales annually. LG had the lowest failure rate of any major fridge manufacturer and it isn't particularly close.

I had a handful a year that were problematic. Out of hundreds.
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Curious the time frame as I’m pretty sure one of the class actions did uncover LG had higher compressor failure rates than other brands.
 
LG and Samsung need to get out of the Appliance business and just do what they do best. In upstate NY appliance repair people refuse to work on either brand because they can’t get paid for warranty work. Our LG fridge compressor died after 2 years, no problem, under warranty. Home Depot guy assess sends to LG to expedite. Total lack of communication. 2 weeks later a compressor gets delivered. We ask when the tech is coming, they say they’re working on it. A week later they call to set an appointment for 13 days later. The guy shows up at 4 pm and takes 3 hrs to replace compressor. 38 days without fridge. So not a good experience. 0 for 1 with LG. BTW tech guy lived 2.5 hours away.
 
Thug Esquire said:
Based on your experience, what were the most reliable fridge designs? E.g., side-by-side vs. french doors vs. drawer freezer, etc. I might need to get a new fridge soon, and I have my preferences but I also wonder if specific kinds of fridges are more or less prone to failure.
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The compressors at this point are all incredibly efficient, and that really is the heart of the fridge. The basic electronics are also simple enough nowadays that none of them seem to be issues either.

Re: Top-freezer, side-by-side and french-door/bottom-freezer...

The refrigeration side of a fridge/freezer is really just piggy backing off the operation of the freezer environment. The fridge allows more or less 'freezer' air into the 'fridge' to maintain that temperature. And with colder air naturally falling, there are two schools of thought; it's either better to have the freezer at the top so that cool air 'falls' to the fridge environment naturally and with less mechanical assistance; or... bottom freezer is better for the opposite reason - the colder air lives and stays where it is created, and is only fed up to the fridge as-needed. I haven't ever seen any evidence that either is worse than the other from a reliability perspective. But freezers on the bottom, as in modern french door fridges, are mostly a return to the original bottom freezer-favoring layout from many decades ago - take from that what you will.

A side-by-side is really benefiting from neither of the above, and on top of that your widths are extremely limited in both the freezer/fridge environments. But generally if you personally favor freezer access more than fridge, and/or have a bad back, the vertical freezer in a side-by-side is nicer to get into, easier to keep organized and easier to find what you need.

That all said; the biggest enemy of any fridge is the water/ice dispensing system. Failure point #1 and it isn't even close. If you can live without water in the door then choose to do so. Ice makers on-their-own don't tend to be as bad since it's much older, more refined tech at this point. But the advantage to a side-by-side, again, is easy access to ice if you do indeed get an ice maker - whether through a door dispenser or by scooping out a larger amount by opening the door - and the ice lives where the cold be.

French doors generally try to make the ice maker and its dispenser live in the refrigerator area which, from a convenience standpoint, is great; but it necessitates heavily insulating the ice maker/storage from the fundamentally warmer air of the refrigeration area around it. And you wind up with weird condensating/freezing issues that eventually lead to major problems.

So, yeah... There's a reason all 3 still exist. Neither of them is an ace across all use cases.

Edit: And personally I went with a Samsung french door. I generally loathe Samsung after their all-2010s-long service and reliability issues. But I have ice in the bottom freezer - which I need to scoop out. And while the refrigerator door has water, it isn't dispensing - there is an integrated pitcher inside the door that automatically fills to the Full level with filtered water.

A good mix of both convenience and reliability-issue avoidance. Problem free for 4 years.
 
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Centauri said:
The compressors at this point are all incredibly efficient, and that really is the heart of the fridge. The basic electronics are also simple enough nowadays that none of them seem to be issues either.

Re: Top-freezer, side-by-side and french-door/bottom-freezer...

The refrigeration side of a fridge/freezer is really just piggy backing off the operation of the freezer environment. The fridge allows more or less 'freezer' air into the 'fridge' to maintain that temperature. And with colder air naturally falling, there are two schools of thought; it's either better to have the freezer at the top so that cool air 'falls' to the fridge environment naturally and with less mechanical assistance; or... bottom freezer is better for the opposite reason - the colder air lives and stays where it is created, and is only fed up to the fridge as-needed. I haven't ever seen any evidence that either is worse than the other from a reliability perspective. But freezers on the bottom, as in modern french door fridges, are mostly a return to the original bottom freezer-favoring layout from many decades ago - take from that what you will.

A side-by-side is really benefiting from neither of the above, and on top of that your widths are extremely limited in both the freezer/fridge environments. But generally if you personally favor freezer access more than fridge, and/or have a bad back, the vertical freezer in a side-by-side is nicer to get into, easier to keep organized and easier to find what you need.

That all said; the biggest enemy of any fridge is the water/ice dispensing system. Failure point #1 and it isn't even close. If you can live without water in the door then choose to do so. Ice makers on-their-own don't tend to be as bad since it's much older, more refined tech at this point. But the advantage to a side-by-side, again, is easy access to ice if you do indeed get an ice maker - whether through a door dispenser or by scooping out a larger amount by opening the door - and the ice lives where the cold be.

French doors generally try to make the ice maker and its dispenser live in the refrigerator area which, from a convenience standpoint, is great; but it necessitates heavily insulating the ice maker/storage from the fundamentally warmer air of the refrigeration area around it. And you wind up with weird condensating/freezing issues that eventually lead to major problems.

So, yeah... There's a reason all 3 still exist. Neither of them is an ace across all use cases.

Edit: And personally I went with a Samsung french door. I generally loathe Samsung after their all-2010s-long service and reliability issues. But I have ice in the bottom freezer - which I need to scoop out. And while the refrigerator door has water, it isn't dispensing - there is an integrated pitcher inside the door that automatically fills to the Full level with filtered water.

A good mix of both convenience and reliability-issue avoidance. Problem free for 4 years.
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Brilliant. I'll definitely keep this in mind if I end up replacing it--really hoping I don't have to, since it's working well otherwise and seems pretty efficient.

I have an RO system on the kitchen sink which obviates the need for a water dispenser. I don't mind opening the freezer to scoop ice, but it would be nice to not have to bend over to do it. So a side-by-side, sans dispenser, with the ice tray near the middle of the fridge, could be helpful.

No matter what, I'll avoid something that has an ice dispenser in the refrigerator compartment. Those things do get clogged all the time and I appreciate the insight into why.
 
Centauri said:
Well... obviously.

But where are all the people chiming in with LG fridges that have never had a problem? Because they outnumber the sour-experiences exponentially; LG's failure rate was so much lower than Whirpool/Samsung that we actually lowered the cost of extended service plans for their refrigeration and laundry. That says a lot.

But as we all know, people are far more inclined to critique than to praise. You see it across all forms of feedback from consumers.
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Um, that's typically how it works. People satisfied with their service/product choices rarely can be bothered to go out of their way to make a comment about them. People that have problems often find time to make their opinions known. That's why they're called the vocal minority.

That said, by volume you're probably right about LG's reliability. I must just be unlucky... really, really unlucky to have problems with 3 different LG appliances. Statistics happen, but it has left enough of an impression that I won't buy them again because I don't like tempting fate. *shrug*
 
SunnyD said:
Um, that's typically how it works. People satisfied with their service/product choices rarely can be bothered to go out of their way to make a comment about them. People that have problems often find time to make their opinions known. That's why they're called the vocal minority.

That said, by volume you're probably right about LG's reliability. I must just be unlucky... really, really unlucky to have problems with 3 different LG appliances. Statistics happen, but it has left enough of an impression that I won't buy them again because I don't like tempting fate. *shrug*
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I'm reminded of hard drives. People who lose data on a Seagate might never buy Seagate again.
 
The biggest issue with most modern appliances is the electronics, IMO. That seems to be a big failure point and when it does you're kind of screwed unless there's an easy way to get a new circuit board or something. My gas oven recently started throwing up an error code, and of course online documentation is "It could be either this, or this, or this" (seriously WTF? are the same people who design the system for car error codes doing appliances?). It's wasn't even a "well I won't use the oven situation" it would constantly beep to let me know there's a problem, so I did what any sane man would do, I disconnected the power to the circuit board of the oven... stove still works, gas flows, piezoelectric "zapper" lights it, we good for that. But I am thinking of replacing it, and even going induction if anything for easy of cleaning, but I am honestly scared about how much more crap there is in there to worry about, hell I know all the Samsung units I've been looking at have wi-fi for some fucking reason.

Meanwhile downstairs my drier is a 30+ year old unit, only replacement needed was a belt for the drum, which did require some higher dimensional thinking of spatial pathing, but that was a $10 fix. I'm not even sure there's even a moisture sensor, I think it just has a timed setting ... which sure might not be efficient, but still super easy.
 
DrezKill said:
My parents have a bunch of LG and Samsung appliances, which I warned them against getting, and sure enough all of those things, from stove/oven to fridges to washer machine to dryer, all fucking failed. If it's not an HDTV then they both suck, and that has been true for a very very long time. Although in the early 80s my parents had a Samsung microwave that lasted an extremely long time. But modern day Samsung, I wouldn't trust their shit to last very long, and same with LG. I only trust them for HDTVs, and Samsung also for memory chips (DRAM, flash V-NAND, etc).
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I have a pair of Samsung washer and drier that have been going for well over probably 9-10 years now. Even dinged up the washer body, still works fine. The drier did have an issue where the tensioning wheel came off probably 4-5 years in maybe more (tensions the belt around the drum, which turns it), which I fixed just by opening it up and plopping it back on. It's loud now because I probably didn't use some grease that I was supposed to use there, but it has still been working fine for years like that. My guess it was only an issue because I had this bad habit of the inside of it it manually myself while it wasn't actually on. Also have a Samsung gas stove that has been working fine. I'm honestly not sure how you can break a gas stove, I guess maybe messing by putting the control board for anything that isn't analog operated too close to the heating element.

So I don't think everything Samsung is bad, but I have read that they're more annoying to get parts for and tend to use newer unreliable tech (which has upsides and downsides). Maybe my washer and drier are just exceptions. I don't even remember when I got them at this point.

I definitely stay away from their fridges, though. Nice fridges are way too expensive to possibly have issues with down the line. But heck I'm still using a super basic GE fridge that's probably over 20 years old. Every time I keep thinking about getting something new, I just keep thinking about how everything is made to fail these days due to planned obsolescence and I just stick with it even though it's a super basic model fridge. I just don't have too much need for anything better, though. It keeps shit cold, done.

sfsuphysics said:
The biggest issue with most modern appliances is the electronics, IMO. That seems to be a big failure point and when it does you're kind of screwed unless there's an easy way to get a new circuit board or something. My gas oven recently started throwing up an error code, and of course online documentation is "It could be either this, or this, or this" (seriously WTF? are the same people who design the system for car error codes doing appliances?). It's wasn't even a "well I won't use the oven situation" it would constantly beep to let me know there's a problem, so I did what any sane man would do, I disconnected the power to the circuit board of the oven... stove still works, gas flows, piezoelectric "zapper" lights it, we good for that. But I am thinking of replacing it, and even going induction if anything for easy of cleaning, but I am honestly scared about how much more crap there is in there to worry about, hell I know all the Samsung units I've been looking at have wi-fi for some fucking reason.

Meanwhile downstairs my drier is a 30+ year old unit, only replacement needed was a belt for the drum, which did require some higher dimensional thinking of spatial pathing, but that was a $10 fix. I'm not even sure there's even a moisture sensor, I think it just has a timed setting ... which sure might not be efficient, but still super easy.
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I had a dishwasher that had the ribbon cable to its control board running across the fucking place where steam comes out when it does its drying cycle. This is why I'll never buy Maytag again. Can't really trust anyone. Your note about a gas oven kind of scares me, though I guess at worst since the top side is nothing but knobs, at least the stove will work, just not the oven. They have a very clear and obvious incentive to make appliances stop working after a point, to get more sales, and electronics makes it a lot easier because it's less obvious. But that said, if your brand goes bad on me, I'm not buying your brand again, period. So idk what the point of it is, I guess eventually you run out of brands and circle back around.

My water heater has a fucking wifi module you can plug into it. Ostensibly the reasons for it are good, but no I'm not using it, screw that.

Edit: dead anyway.
 
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Decided to take Costco's offer and keep the $500 gc and my existing bespoke 29 cu ft fridge, checked out the side by side LG in person yesterday and it is limited in width due to the design. Also the water dispenser as convenient as it is may eventually have issues since it's on the freezer side.
The samsung has an internal water pitcher in the fridge and 2 types of ice in the freezer which seems to be a more robust long term design, not to mention the width is really nice to use for stuff like large dishes or pizza boxes.
 
The appliance repair guy that came out to replace the ice maker in my 12 year old Kenmore (whirlpool) fridge said LGs are trash. He's constantly doing major surgery on them replacing huge items like compressors and very ivolved component replacements. Whirlpools like mine? Usually my case, an ice maker, every 10 years or so.
 
OFaceSIG said:
The appliance repair guy that came out to replace the ice maker in my 12 year old Kenmore (whirlpool) fridge said LGs are trash. He's constantly doing major surgery on them replacing huge items like compressors and very ivolved component replacements. Whirlpools like mine? Usually my case, an ice maker, every 10 years or so.
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I stickily only use Maytag and Whirlpool for everything if I can. Not their top of the line stuff but their cheaper stuff. My Whirlpool french door had a mainboard issue at 8 years old (it was a known issue apparently, usually failed in warranty) Replaced the two bad caps and it's been fine running since. It's 18 years old now. My garage fridge is 21 years old, with the old school analog dials.

The newest items are the front loader LG washer/dryer. They been fine so far but time will tell if it will outlast the front load Whirlpool I had for nearly 20 years. I doubt it. Might get 5-8 years out of them before some electronic bs fails.
 
LOCO LAPTOP said:
I stickily only use Maytag and Whirlpool for everything if I can. Not their top of the line stuff but their cheaper stuff. My Whirlpool french door had a mainboard issue at 8 years old (it was a known issue apparently, usually failed in warranty) Replaced the two bad caps and it's been fine running since. It's 18 years old now. My garage fridge is 21 years old, with the old school analog dials.

The newest items are the front loader LG washer/dryer. They been fine so far but time will tell if it will outlast the front load Whirlpool I had for nearly 20 years. I doubt it. Might get 5-8 years out of them before some electronic bs fails.
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My issue with Whirlpool is they all use the same crappy door model of their ice maker. My WP ice maker has been repaired 4 times over 10 years.
 
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