15 months on a $2,500 refrigerator

[Pappymn]

So my very new refrigerator has been making a grinding noise for the past 10 days or so. Sounded like a teenage girl learning to drive a stick shift

Was doing this almost non stop. Noticed today that I hadn't heard anything for a few hours.....and surprise surprise.....the ice cream was getting soft.

Death of my fridge. I love my fridge.....it is a beast.

Been waiting a week for a technician....who is coming on Monday. Wrestling with the company on paying for the labor. Parts are covered.

Thankful to have my garage fridge and basement freezer. They are now jammed to the bone.

I guess they don't make them like they used too.

[Keymaster]

That sucks!! Sounds like the compressor has took a dump. Atleast 4 hours labor charge. Sorry Pappy....

[Smokin Don]

I feel for you Pappy and hope you have better luck than I did. You got me started on this one! After all were being made overseas with poor quality they dropped their warranty from 2 years to 1 year. Three years ago I bought a new Whirlpool with indoor ice maker, cube and crushed dispenser and water. Ice dispenser kept freezing up. After 3 service calls they replaced the whole door because the ice bucket was froze fast and the service man could not get it off. When he replaced the door he had to bust it to get the ice bucket off. He ask if I wanted to keep the door, that showed me they knew what the problem was. It now was only covered 90 days by the service provider and not even in my extended warranty. Whirlpool kept saying no one else had this problem. I found a web site where all kind of people had the same problem.

We now get by not using crushed ice and I remove the ice bucket every month and put Vaseline on the connector drive. I also had the plastic frame of a glass shelf break at 15 months. I called Whirlpool and they said I was way past warranty! Said to check with my extended warranty, even though I signed up for the extended warranty through Whirlpool it actually is a third party. They said the shelves were not covered! This allows for them to tailor the warranty for each model! I found also a lot of people had problems with the shelves.

So now I am stuck with a fridge that won't crush ice like it is supposed to. Water leaks out around the dispenser and the stainless door is permanently stained from the lime in the water and won't come off.
My old fridge in the garage still works at 17 yrs. it was made in the USA!

I say don't buy Whirlpool and stay away from the total ice maker and dispenser in the door. They look like you get more freezer space but the service man said they have less problems with ones that the ice maker is in the freezer part.    Smokin Don and I still smoke when I think about this!!

[Pappymn]

Great Story Don.....well crappy actually.

Cars have gotten more reliable.....and appliances have gone the other direction. Doesn't make any sense.

Recently replaced my washer.....only 8 years old.

[TwoPockets]

Must not be an LG fridge. My $2500 LG fridge did not last even 15 months. After about $800 in repairs to the ice maker on 2 occasions, I now have no ice maker and now no water through the door after waking one morning to find the water turned itself on during the middle of the night and flooded my kitchen and basement. What a POS.

[pz]

Sorry to hear about your appliance woes, gents.  I can relate similar, and it all relates to the planned obsolescence practiced by virtually all manufacturers:

Purchased a Maytag top of the line dishwasher about 5 years ago, and 4 years into the life of the thing we might as well wash dishes by hand because the dishes came out of the machine with more grit on them than when we put them in.  We now have a cheapo dishwasher because we know that within 5 years, we're going to have to purchase another one.  In contract, my wife's grandma (99 years old this year) purchased one of those old first generation dishwashers about 40 years ago - the kind you wheel up to the sink and attach hoses to the faucet.  She still uses it every day.

Purchased a Samsung dual door fridge with the freezer as a bottom drawer - very nice design.  However, it has to have the crappiest ice maker on the planet (next to yours, Don) - when you try to dispense ice from the door outlet, you can guarantee that you will get at least 1-2 ice cubes plus crush on the floor - I'm not sure how the thing does it because I've tried all kinds of techniques including waiting for about 10 seconds to be sure all the ice has fallen out.  What's the outcome?  as soon as I leave the &^@%#&# thing, it spits out another cube or two onto the floor.  This has been happening since the day we purchased it, and we are not the only people to experience the issue - clearly a design flaw.

The bottom line in my opinion is that the manufacturers realized how foolish their founding fathers were - why sell a machine that will last a lifetime when you can make orders of magnitude more money by repeat selling the came crap in 5-year cycles.  This is not something that is going to become better with time, only worse as the manufacturers carefully gauge one another for their planned obsolescence program.

My apologies to any appliance manufacturers on the forum if I am way out of line, but from a consumer's perspective, this is how I feel.

[/rant]  sorry chaps, you hit a nerve with this one.

[muebe]

Ok now your gonna hear my recent experience with my $2300 LG fridge...

It was a nice fridge with the bottom freezer, French door design, and ice maker built into the door. The first 2 years it worked great. Very quiet. You could almost not even hear the thing running.

Then I get a letter from LG stating they want to do a free-of-charge upgrade on some parts to make the fridge more efficient. So I called them up and they came out and changed some weather striping & replaced the computer board with an updated one.

Soon after that I had problems with water freezing around the ice maker door in the fridge. Then I would need to pour hot water around the door to melt the ice before I could open it.

Also the bottom of the freeze would ice up. Eventually so much ice would build up that the freezer drawer would not slide in and out.

After calling LG to ask them to put the old parts in I was advised they could not and the old boards are rendered useless. So I figured I was stuck with just these issues. Boy I was wrong..

Fast forward 2 years later(a few months ago). I started noticing that things in the freezer were getting warm. I checked out the compressor and it appeared to be running. So I had to call LG for service. Being the fridge is 4 years old I had to pay for the service charge.

First repair guy that comes out checks it real quick and states it is the compressor. I told the guy I thought it might have a refrigerant leak because the compressor appears to be working. Guy tells me that it is the compressor and he will order the parts then when they get here I am to call them back so they can install them. He did not even check the pressures!

So I wait a week and the parts arrive. Call them out and a different guy shows up. At least he has a brain. I explained to him that I did not think it was the compressor. He decides to hook up the gauges and finds that it is in fact out of refrigerant. He then fills it with dye and tells me to call back when it starts blowing warm. Guy leaves and 3 hours later the fridge is blowing warm air again!

I schedule them to come back out. Then a different guy arrives. He finds a leak and repairs it. Then fills it up. I did not dare put any food in it. This time it went for two days.

Then another guy back out again. Another leak repaired and refilled. 2 days later blowing warm.

Once again a different repairman. This time he slaps a nice big sticker on it that says "unrepairable". He determines that the leak must be in the sealed system so it cannot be repaired. I asked him what was next and he stated someone would call me.

After not receiving a call for a few days I decided to call to see what was up. They told me that they could give me $300 toward a new fridge! Less than the amount for the initial repairs! WTF! I told him that it was unacceptable. The fridge is only 4 years old and I paid over 2K for it. I understood that there is some depreciation but seriously!?!? I asked to speak to someone higher and was getting no where.

After looking at their warranty I had found something odd. I noticed that the sealed system had a 5 year warranty but the parts in the sealed system were not specified. Samsung and other manufacturers do specify the sealed system and parts in it. See the problem with the sealed system is that they will have to cut the fridge apart to fix it. So IMHO a part in the sealed system should be covered for the same time as the system itself.

I called them back and stated my case. And after several phone calls later they did not have an answer for me. They knew they were wrong, caved and gave me a brand new fridge. And it is not a LG!

[Pappymn]

Must not be an LG fridge. My $2500 LG fridge did not last even 15 months. After about $800 in repairs to the ice maker on 2 occasions, I now have no ice maker and now no water through the door after waking one morning to find the water turned itself on during the middle of the night and flooded my kitchen and basement. What a POS.

It is an LG.

[muebe]

Must not be an LG fridge. My $2500 LG fridge did not last even 15 months. After about $800 in repairs to the ice maker on 2 occasions, I now have no ice maker and now no water through the door after waking one morning to find the water turned itself on during the middle of the night and flooded my kitchen and basement. What a POS.

It is an LG.

Pow!

[TwoPockets]

Must not be an LG fridge. My $2500 LG fridge did not last even 15 months. After about $800 in repairs to the ice maker on 2 occasions, I now have no ice maker and now no water through the door after waking one morning to find the water turned itself on during the middle of the night and flooded my kitchen and basement. What a POS.

It is an LG.

The first time my ice maker went out out I was pretty sure it was the solenoid since I had fixes a few ice makers before with a $20 part from Washer And Refidgeration Supply. I went there to get a part and they said LG would not sell them parts and I had to get an LG certified repair vendor to come out and fix it. There were only two in Alabama and it took about 3 weeks to get one out.  That $400 visit lasted about 3 months until it went out again then the next one was a different part at about $400. When it went out again I figured I would just buy a bag of ice a week for $1.99. When the water through the door went out I didn't even call. Hell I have a faucet 3 feet away. $2500 pos.

[drholly]

Dang - that bites.  :'(

[rexster314]

We bought an Electrolux from our local appliance dealer about a year ago. $3300 for a 28 cf bottom freezer, French doors ice maker in the door as well as an extra ice maker in the bottom freezer. I told the salesman I did not want the floor demo, I wanted a new one from the back and he said that's what would happen. Later that afternoon the delivery people installed it hooked up the water for the water/ice dispenser but after they left I noticed the bottom drawer was not seated right and would not seal. Since it was a Saturday I had to wait till Monday for someone to come out. During this time I found the ice wouldn't dispense from the top icemaker. Repairman fixed the bottom door on Monday since it was just needing alignment but couldn't get the ice/water dispenser to work. After several hours he decided it needed a new circuit board. He came back several days later and still couldn't get it to work properly. After all this I asked him when enough is enough to bring out a new refrigerator. He didn't know but after he got back to the shop I got a call from the store manager telling me that they didn't have a new one in stock but was getting one from the warehouse in Dallas (I think) The next day I get a call from Electrolux Customer Service telling me that there were four of my refrigerators enroute to my dealer and should arrive within 3 days. Sure enough, 3 days later I get a call from the dealer. They brought out a new one that has worked flawlessly since. I knew I wanted to steer clear of LG, Whirlpool and my bro in law had a lot of trouble with stuff breaking on his 3 year old Samsung. I'm knocking on wood as I type this as I know any appliance can go out at anytime, but we've been pleasantly surprised with our purchase.

[veryolddog]

I am not so sure that you can trust any appliance manufacturer these days for quality. My wife and I renovated an inherited property that was 28 years old by gutting it and replacing everything about 6 years ago including all brand new Whirlpool Gold appliances. During the first year, they were out to repair the dishwasher, the washing machine, and replaced the entire refrigerator all under warrantee. For the next two years everything worked fine. Then we sold the home and doubled out money.

We purchased a new home in January to downsize both the size of the house and the property. We have all Whirlpool appliances installed that were provided by the builder. The only thing that we purchased are Samsung Washer and Dryer from Lowes.

I am keeping my fingers crossed as to the longevity of these products.

But, the overall point is, there is something wrong with this picture as Pappy has described. This should not be so. Why can't, we, as consumers expect quality and longevity from our purchases. Like someone said earlier, their parents purchased a fridge and it lasted 30 years. Unfortunately, this is no longer true. 

I can tell you this for a fact. The house that we recently purchased, although it is much more energy efficient than the one we sold, is not constructed as well. And, if a tornado, cut through here, this place is gone. The other home was concrete block. When they build the new ones, here, they are stick framed and then they put up the exterior siding. They don't put up plywood and then the exterior siding. My house is filled with foam insulation and other energy saving stuff. Yes, my electric bill is extremely low, but this house is not well built.

Ed

[muebe]

The only long lasting and reliable fridges out there IMHO are the high end ones like Sub-Zero, Viking ect. But they can be over 5K and require a kitchen remodel for them to fit.

The parts and labor are so expensive now that even if you want to fix it the parts can cost almost as much as you paid for the thing. And now with the sealed systems the fridge is molded at the factory with the parts in there. But cannot be disassembled to even make repairs.

Even if you get the extended warranty they can deem it unrepairable after the third attempt making the same repair then offer you a few hundred dollars toward a new one. Not even worth it as these extended warranties can be very expensive.

The two worst refrigerators made as far as I can tell are by LG and Samsung. Their front loading washers have nothing but problems also. I trust their electronics like phones and televisions but not their appliances.

Pappy you get 10 years warranty on that compressor and your going to need it. They should cover the parts, labor, and your food loss cost. You will have to argue with them but if you push hard enough they will cave. Just don't give up!

[sliding_billy]

I hate these stories.  I hate buying appliances, and my refrigerator is a little over a year old.