slo’s WEDNESDAY 8/13 poll - New Refrigerator

[slo]

Since many of my polls are inspired by my life’s current events, you can probably guess why I’m doing a poll on new refrigerators . Friday I came home for lunch and the fridge was fine, my DD21 came home 2 hours later and the fridge was making a loud weird noise, by Saturday morning it had died - it was only 4 years old . My DH is very handy and bought some parts that he had minimal hope would work and it didn’t. The issue is with the compressor. Our family has a retired refrigerator repairman that is awesome and my DH called him yesterday and the repairman said he’ll save us money and not come because it’s a “COVID fridge” and was made with parts that he can’t get now to fix the fridge. He said that those fridges were poorly made because it was hard to get parts then, and it’s a mishmash of parts from all over the place. He said those parts can only come from Whirlpool (which he said Whirlpool fridges are not good) and it’ll cost us around $1500-$1700 to fix, and that doesn’t include the price for someone to come here to look at it first. Well, we’re not doing that, so I guess we’re buying a new fridge . Needless to say, I’m not happy . Thank goodness we have a small fridge in the garage that we are using. We did lose some food items from the freezer but not much, so I’m grateful for that.

So…let’s talk about buying a new refrigerator. Tell us today….


When was the last time you had to replace your kitchen refrigerator?
(when I say “had” I mean you had no choice because it was dying or died)

*Please post how old your refrigerator was when it had to be replaced.



For Me…..As I mentioned above, our fridge died Saturday and it was 4 years old. When we got this fridge, I had to get stainless and I really dislike stainless (sorry folks, I know my opinion is unpopular), because I love white appliances. My DH said that he thinks I can get a white one now with no long wait time. If he’s correct, I’ll be getting that. Then, everything will match again.

 

[leebee]

Also not a fan of stainless steel appliances- much prefer white to match the cabinets, but stainless is what we bought for stove and fridge. We bought this fridge in 2023 and I love it. It's not what I was looking for (wanted white, 18cuft, top freezer) but it was a SUPER deal ($1000 off the sticker price, not a floor model) and has worked out well for us. It's double door on top with a freezer drawer (which I thought I'd hate... don't hate it, but don't love it) that has a sliding drawer in it. i LOVE this fridge, but it replaced a 30 year old RCA side-by-side that had broken shelves in both the fridge and freezer, so it's not like the bar was set really high in the 'how much more do i love the new fridge' department!

 

[Skywalker3]

So, so very sorry about losing the fridge and how much it'll cost to repair/get a new one. Knock on wood, we still have the one that was in this house that we bought in 2008. I don't know how old it is past that though. It makes all kinds of crazy noises, whines, groans, etc. so I know one of these days it's gonna kick the bucket. Water/ice don't work, and missing 3 door shelves, it's ugly, very small freezer space, but we keep on with it......I know we need to shop around while we can though, before it does finally give up the ghost. Best of luck w your fridge shopping!

 

[CGB]

Yikes! Four years old is awful. I bought our main refrigerator (almond) in 1992 when we were PCSing to a new base. I bought it used (5 years old) for $500. It's still going strong. It started sounding like a helicopter last year and I was worried it was dying. So, I bought a $8 coil brush at Lowes, waited for it to kick off, and vacuumed out the back and scrubbed down the fan and anything in the back I could reach. That wait for it to kick back on was the looooongest. However, it kicked back on and has been running like a champ since then. Love that coil brush! I know it will die someday, but it's still going.

 

[clappyclaps]

A fridge needing replacing after 4 years is really bad, they should last longer than that!

When I last replaced my fridge it wasn't because I had to, it was because I was having a new kitchen installed. My old fridge/freezer were two standalone ones that still worked and were probably only a few years old, but they just didnt fit in with my new streamlined kitchen - I've now got a built-in fridge.

My old ones are stored away, still working in my garage, usually only used when I need to store extra food & drinks for parties and Christmas.

 

[Meriweather]

Good luck on the hunt for a refrigerator.
We had to replace ours last year, It was 15 years old.
But we had little choice because it is in inset one and they are hard to find.
I don't like stainless, but I don't like white either.....didn't matter since we could only find one.
And it was $$$.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We remodeled our kitchen in 2016 and bought a new refrigerator because the old one, which worked great, no longer fit in the redesigned kitchen. The new frig was an LG which had a few problems. It turned out that there was a class action lawsuit against it because of a faulty compressor. The refrigerator got to the point where it wouldn't keep food cold. We bought a new GE in May of 2024. The LG was only 7-1/2 years old. I told the salesman that I was never buying another LG again, even though he tried to assure me that LG's were better now.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I don't envy the task of looking for any new appliances. I don't think the quality is what they used to be. Stuff is more expensive, but disposable.

We got a new refrigerator when we bought the house in 2017. I guess it does its job keeping food cold, but that's about it. The light is permanently broken... doing a workaround by using a rechargeable stickup motion light from Amazon. It is amazingly effective. The ice maker is broken, it will work intermittently, sooooo annoying. The old refrigerator that was here when we bought the house is in the garage. Yea that one is junk.... certain areas freeze stuff, and no matter what you do, water will stand in one of the crisper drawers.

 

[Kitty 34]

Bought a new fridge 4 years ago. It's white with a freezer on top. It's a Whirlpool.

 

[disney212]

When we bought our house in 2001 it came with all Kenmore appliances, fence, furnace, etc. The home had been passed through the family for over 100 years. We are the first non family owners. The house hadn't been maintained and had been empty for about 2 years. The refrigerator smelled like rotten food. We did every trick in the book but couldn't get rid of the smell. We bought a new GE one, lasted 6 years, then a Frigidaire which lasted 5 years, then a Whirlpool that lasted 8 years we we are now on a second Whirlpool. Same with dishwashers. When we replaced the GE with the first Frigidaire we bought the matching dishwasher, we are now on our 3 one not counting the old Kenmore which I should have kept as it still work

 

[easyas123]

We bought ours in 2014 when we built our house, and it's on it's last legs. Ice maker components have been replaced twice, some of the seals are ripping and one of the door shelves fell off & broke. It's a Samsung (already replaced the heating elements in one of the ovens & the microwave & dishwasher - all Samsung). I need to get a new one, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[design_mom]

We had to replace ours in 2018 or so and it was a nightmare. We wanted white to match the rest of our appliances and it seemed like everyone only stocked stainless. White was special order.

We finally decided on a KitchenAid and looked at it several places. Most places told us that it was special order and would take 6-8 weeks, but Home Depot said they had it in stock and could deliver the next week, so we ordered from them. In short... they iied. Apparently all of them pull from the same warehouse so if one could get it, they could all get it. In addition, they do "runs" of the colors so we had to wait till they did another run of white. (I was ready to switch to stainless to get it faster, but my husband was adamant that they had to match... so we waited.) It ended up taking almost 4 months to get the refrigerator (we have a bare-bones 'extra' refrigerator in the basement, so we were able to get by without one, but it was a big pain.)

And... I hate the new one. We both thought it would be great... and it's HUGE square footage wise... but nothing fits! I'm seriously not even sure how that's possible, but there's hardly anyplace to put anything tall (we ended up taking out a shelf) and everything gets shuffled to the back so you can't find anything! It's so frustrating! Especially to have waited all that time and not like the new one.

I'm not wishing this one dead simply because I don't want to shop for another one... but I will definitely make different choices next time (from the layout, to the store we order from, EVERYTHING!)

 

[TiggerTrigger]

We got a new fridge when we moved in July 2017. We left our old fridge at the last house and the one that came with this house was too small for the space and our needs.

We opted for one with French doors and a bottom drawer. It is stainless steel and from afar, it looks nice. It matches our stove/oven, microwave, toaster, sink, and even my stand mixer. Our dishwasher blends in with our cabinets. However, up close, the fridge has not worn well and shows a bit of corrosion. It's more of a long galley style kitchen though and the fridge doesn't face out, so it's not a huge deal to me since guests really have to be on top of it to see it. That being said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE having a French door model. It's so nice for large items like big bowls, turkeys, and cakes. It took nearly a month+ to get it because it's not a standard size you'd find in store.

 

[WDWEPCOT]

So sorry for this but I feel your pain I have bought three in the last seven years and I am sick and tired of it and I’ve experienced the same thing you just went through and I did it with the refrigerator and I did it with a washing machine And I am not happy with any of it but nobody cares
I’m just happy that I have a garage refrigerator it’s 40 years old and I just thank the Lord that it’s still running because they don’t make them like that anymore

 

[kanerf]

Had to replace all of my kitchen appliances after a flooding incident after my boiler failed during the winter. I went with Black Stainless which is really kind of a dark grey. It was all US made Whirlpool and has been working flawlessly ever since. I have a double door fridge with the freezer on the bottom and built-in ice maker and water to the outside.

 

[easyas123]

garage refrigerator it’s 40 years old and I just thank the Lord that it’s still running because they don’t make them like that anymore

A older, decent garage fridge is a treasure! And many of us are not transitioning our old fridges to the basement or garage as much anymore because they aren't worth keeping around.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I honestly don't remember when we got our current fridge. It feels like fairly recently, but it definitely wasn't. The seal is not good, one of the baskets in the door kept tipping until I finally just took it out, and we had a problem not long ago with ice build-up under the freezer drawer. I expect it will have to be replaced soon.

It's a Whirlpool, with the double doors on top and a freezer drawer below, and I don't really love the configuration. If I didn't have a second freezer downstairs, it wouldn't be enough space. We do use the water in the door, but not the ice maker option. Oh, and it's white. - I'm with you @slo and @leebee on not liking stainless!

 

[AppleDumpling]

Mine is a GE from 2011. Late last year, thought we needed a new one, but a local repair company came and diagnosed a problem with the thermostat. They charged us about $300 to fix it, which we figured was worthwhile, if it buys us another year or two. So far so good. When the time comes, I’ve already picked out the one I want to replace it.

 

[leebee]

I forgot about our second fridge. It's white, top freezer, 18cuft, Whirlpool (or Frigidaire? It's downstairs, I'm up, it's 88 in the house already so not running down and up to check). Anywho... we have had this fridge since 1995. The only issue is the freezer door gasket; it's crushed on one side as we swapped the door opening side when we moved, so the top of the gasket is a little crushed from where it used to close on the same side as the hinge. We are having issues finding a replacement for it, so "temporarily" (20 years now?) the gasket is stuffed underneath with paper towels.

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

I think our fridge is in the 15 year range. It kinda konked out once and my husband took it outside hosed and washed it down and lo and behold it's worked since. It's a MAYTAG.
I'm with you, SLO, I do not like stainless at all. I only have a stainless front dishwasher and I hate it.