Nothing fancy, there are only two of us, we need the ice maker, but that's about all, it has to fit in a 34 inch hole, a side by side with about equal freezer space would be fine, other than that, simple is better, who makes the best ones ?

I went through this recently. Sadly, almost all of them suck. Read the reviews online at Lowes or HD. Motherboard problems are common. Refrigerators got schidt plenty cold before motherboards. I don't need a damn motherboard.

This is the same as I found, who needs a mother board, its not like I'm voting with the damn thing, I want my beer and my milk cold, its not rocket science !

Apparently rocket science is simpler than refrigerator science. Rockets are reliable.

34” wide is limiting too.
More than likely if you need it now you’re not going to have many choices.
Bought one for a rental last week, they had one basic model in white in stock.

We have an LG that's been flawless. However, from what I've read, a flawless LG is the exception. They don't sell parts so when it goes bad you trash it.

To find a 34" size, check out mobile home appliances.

Don't listen to that fugger....he could wreck an anvil and lose the pieces.

Not Samsung.

Inventories may not give you much choice. Good luck on finding what you need.

Had a GE that needed a new defrost heater every year or two. Replaced it a couple years ago with a Samsung that so far has worked fine except for the ice maker freezing up. Not a big deal.

Last week the GE dishwasher went up in smoke. Literally.

Motherboard shorted out and burnt up. Stunk like a SOB.
Dale is right. Not much in inventory. Bosch was the highest rated and everywhere around here told me itd be a month or two before they could fill my order. They had a Samsung in stock so I grabbed that.



Roll the dice and good luck.

KISS method.

The simpler the better.

Frigidaire or Whirlpool (or one of their “affiliated” brands). LG and Samsung are nightmares for parts availability. GE is owned by the Chinese, now.

We have a Samsung that is going on 10 years old that’s in the process of being repaired right now. I will never buy another Korean appliance ever again. From here on it’ll be Maytag, Kenmore, Whirlpool, Bosch, Miele, Wolf or Sub Zero. Most likely it’ll be one of the first 3 I listed. 😁

Well the independent repairman, and older gentleman with no affiliation with any brand, told me when I asked who made the best appliances he told me that no manufacturer stands out as better than the others. He went on to say that the electronics in them all come from China and the electronics is what goes bad. He had to put a new motherboard in my refrigerator because it would not go through a defrost cycle and would freeze the evap coil.

Less is more...

The last Samsung we purchased new in '19 was a total POS. It lasted 5 months. Had a 240V step-up inverter in it. Loud mofo!

I called the company and their service rep straight up told me to avoid their side by side refrigerators. The model we bought had 102 separate sensors and they are all prone to failure.
I bought a basic Whirlpool with freezer on bottom and haven't looked back.

Don't be afraid of Crosley.

^^^^ this ^^^^ Also, if buying at Home Depot or Lowes, probably worth considering the extended warranty. While I normally wouldn't for most products, their warranties are cheap. With product quality in a downward spiral, it's insurance against needing to purchase another fridge in a year or two.

Mine still works, just needs a little help now and again, thats why I'm in the market now instead of when it dies and I can't get one.

This whole deal sounds really sad. Who needs a touch screen and mother board to run a fridge? A cooling unit and thermostat has worked for decades.

Refrigerators are now a purchase you will be making about every 5 years. They are all trash with [bleep] Chinese compressors and electronic parts that aren't cost effective to replace.
The lights went out in my Whirlpool frige; just buy a new bulb and replace it, right?
Wrong, the LED lights are on a circuit board. Cost to replace just the overhead light was $100 on Amazon, more from the appliance rip off houses.

Yep.

We just looked yesterday on line for a new fridge...Anything we were interested in was out of stock with a 3 month lead time.

They could just say the fridge is on a boat from China, no guarantee when it will land.

🦫

Frigidaire has been good to us after a bad run with Samsung.

Man cave fridge haier brand for 2 people that’s all one needs

Plenty of room get the plastic ice trays from dollar general for the top

our maytag doesn't suck too bad. lowes special

Purchased all new Samsung Appliances in 2009 ....They have been flawless .....The fridge is a dual compressor model with a motherboard .... It has made it 12 years so far..... Works for me...If it goes out tomorrow I will buy another Samsung....

I second the motion. I will never own another LG fridge.

What is the issue with yours?. I just bought a motherboard for my GE on ebay for $89.00 and replaced it in 10 minutes.

We bought a Frigidaire about two years ago, but had to go with a single door to fit a 31" hole. A word of caution, and I never considered this when we were shopping, but the shelves in the doors don't extend all the way to the bar that holds bottles and stuff in. Stuff is always slipping through and falling on the floor. What a POS! Also, the plastic crisper bins have to be made out of the cheapest, most brittle plastic they could come up with and the trim around them are in pieces. Did I mention this frig is a POS? It has kept stuff cold, so far.

Kitchenaid and Jenn air have been good for the last dozen years. Get your freezer on the bottom if you can.

Anything but LG, after 5 years my $2500 Frig was only good for a boat anchor.

Ha. We evacuated from Ida and went to my daughter's house. Right after catching up on this thread, I went in to get a drink from the fridge. Crosley. Had never heard of them.

Put in over 100 sets of whirlpool since 2012 when we switched from GE. 30 appliance packages since March. Base package with glass top range. Not one single call back.
We have whirlpool gold series in our home.
Have had issues with Samsung, Frigidaire, and GE. Wouldn’t consider LG.

Well perhaps I'm a lucky one, two LG full French door fridges aver 10 years old no issues at all. Daughters Samsung didn't go 5 before the ice maker went. None of them are what they used to be.

Not a Samsung.

Get one from Costco.

They'll take anything back...

Not but 2-3 actual manufactures of fridges, just a lot of different names on the same fridge. Pay your money and take your chances.

Bought a Samsung. Water pools in it- known defect. We won’t be a repeat customer. Wasn’t inexpensive, just cheap.

Amana

Unless you spend several thousand bucks, they are all the same quality, which isn't great. We just got a Whirlpool 21.5 double door last November, and the veggie drawer has already broken. It is also noisier than our old fridge.

... sigh.

We are 8-1/2 years into our Whilrlpool 22 Cu ft. With only 34" I suspect you are going to end up with an 18 Cu ft refer. Very happy. One of the few items we've found that is worthwhile to get an extended warranty.

Last whirlpool lasted 15 years.

Got another SxS 25 cubic in. Whirpool.

Basically the same as the last one except no icemaker or water this time.
Amazing how much extra space in freezer you get with out all the BS.

Compressors are made in Mexico, have been for 25+ years.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Whirlpool-...int-Resistant-Stainless-Steel/1000332339

Our LG has been flawless for eight years now.

Fridges are hard to find around here. Still very low stock and everything seems backordered. We just got a samsung, 1000 bucks off and lowes gonna give me no interest for 24 months....no brainer. Yes, I've heard bad reviews on some of these but this one had good reviews. We didn't want the ice dispenser in door, etc. Our ice goes straight into a bucket in the bottom freezer. Pretty cool, freezer has two sides, one can be refrigerator side if you want it to. We had issues with kenmore and a whirlpool gold, figured we'd try something else. Took 3 months to get after ordering it.

Friends sister is suing samsung right now due to a leak that ruined her hardwood floors.

LG , Whirlpool and GE...run like hell from Samsung

my local appliance guy was pushing Crosley. I'd never even heard of them (other than the radio's from the 50's), He didn't mention the fridge but he said their washer and dryers were high quality.

My samsung leaked and ruined my hardwood floor. The lesson I learned is don't have hardwood floors in the kitchen. I am going to tile it this fall.

Whirlpool

We've got an Amana with A bottom freezer, and no ice maker.

Had it about three years now.

Been going OK so far.

We had to have a smaller fridge to fit our "spot" in the kitchen cabinets,and this one is "just right"

Virgil B.

Find a 20+ years old one that still works and don't look back!

I’m an appliance department supervisor at Lowe’s. I’d go with a whirlpool,Maytag or kitchen aide. Since you aren’t looking for fancy I’d go whirlpool.

My fridge is a whirlpool and my washer dryer are Maytag

jackmountain;
Top of the morning to you sir, I trust this finds you well and the last weekend of August was a good one for you all.

Between 2014 and 2019 I worked for or remained associated with a local construction and development company. We likely installed 3 dozen or so sets of GE appliances in the lower end or spec houses and then a mixture of Samsung and LG in the higher end stuff.

Some of the GE didn't work out of the box, but the boss didn't care as they were cheap and the place he bought them from would replace them. Somehow our labor doing the re and re didn't bother him as much as it bothered me - which is partially why I quit actually.

At this same time the construction and development company that my good wife has been working for for 32 years now was installing high end German appliances in their higher end homes - either Miele or Bosch - and they'd had enough trouble with theirs that they'd been eliminated even though we could have had them at cost.

Thus, when we were looking for a set of appliances a couple years back, we wanted to purchase US made if at all possible, as there's no more Canadian made ones that we could find. As well, our current situation where we live is there is or was then one warranty shop that would handle LG and Samsung issues for the entire south valley and it was an hour north of us.

Stories of folks waiting months to get their Samsung stove looked at, then waiting for parts, then getting them installed were standard fare.

In the end, we bought Maytag appliances directly from the shop who do the factory warranty work. We've bought from that place once in awhile over the past 30 years, it's a small family owned place and were always pleased.

So far, knock on wood and all that, the Maytag appliances have run perfectly.

To the OP, when we were doing our research on refrigerators, by far the most common warranty issue is a malfunctioning ice maker. That went for most brands across the board.

We opted to not have the ice maker installed on ours as frankly I'd rather fool with plastic ice cube trays than come home someday to 5 gallons of ice cubes on the floor or worse.

That very thing happened to us when we rented a place in Oceanside, WA for a couple of nights. We walked in to the start of a nice curling rink....

We cleaned it up, called the contact we'd rented it from and she wasn't surprised, so that says something too. Sorry I can't recall the brand of fridge there.

Hopefully all that was useful to someone out there.

Good luck on your upcoming hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Bingo.

Only guarantee with a Samsung is that is will take a dump sooner rather than later.

We have a 36" wide Frigidaire side-by-side basic model w/ice maker and water outlets through the door, 6 years old and no issues. Probably shouldn't post this, may have just jinxed myself!

I have a Estate fridge, top freezer, made by Whirlpool, came with house I bought. Not a problem and its a 2000 model.
Only replaced the icemaker few yrs ago.
No complaints as it's still going strong.

We've had Samsung appliances for years and have never had any issues with any of them, our refrigerator is a side by side with a freezer underneath and it is a counter depth model. We did buy a new Kitchen Aid gas stove only because my wife got tired of the black top on our Samsung stove having to be constantly cleaned, it now resides in our cabin. That said, we are now looking at possibly getting a new fridge as we do not use the water/ice dispenser that is on ours, if we can't find another Samsung in the model we want we will more than likely look at a Kitchen Aid, Maytag or Bosch.

Icemakers seem to be the biggest problem in kitchen appliances. Nice when they work, but never seem to last more than a couple years if that.

Jerry

my 1952 International Harvester works well. sure it costs 300 bucks a month to run and freezes everything solid but at least the food ain't rotting and the beer is ice cold. literally.

True !

Two years ago I called every appliance repair shop in town .... and ask them ..if I don't ever want to see you again what do I buy .....they said Whirlpool..... but you're still going to see me sooner or later...so far so good !

Two weeks ago we discovered that the ten year old GE Profile at the cottage had quit two weeks before that. 80# of fly food. They don't give you any indication they died unless you get the 3K one with wifi that tells your phone app that the frig just puked. We've always been pleased with the GE stuff and warned away from Samsung refrigerator freezers. Service was the big issue with us up north. Locals would deliver up there, but not service it. We bought another GE from a dealer up there who would service what they sell.

LG is what a local repairman just recommended. All types of appliances, LG is what he personally suggests.

Appliances used to work for 20 to 30 years. Now most will crap out around the 5 to 10 year mark.

I have used nothing but Maytag for years with zero problems. Knock on wood!

Like others have said do not buy a Samsung.Never know what its going to do next.Ice maker freezing to one big chunk of ice.Water running across the floor or water freezing pantry drawer tight.

Subzero.

I'm trying to buy one without a computer in it.