The refrigerator brands in the survey are Frigidaire, GE, Kenmore, KitchenAid, LG, Maytag, Samsung, Whirlpool, and others.īelow is a detailed breakdown of the winning and losing brands across the major refrigerator categories, along with some standouts in the areas of reliability and owner satisfaction. They’re grouped by refrigerator type- top-freezers, bottom-freezers, French-doors, side-by-sides, and built-ins. The results are the basis for CR’s predicted reliability and owner satisfaction ratings in our refrigerator ratings charts. “These are the reasons we incorporate reliability and satisfaction data from our annual surveys directly into our Overall Scores for refrigerators,” says David Gopoian, CR’s survey research program leader.Īs part of our annual member surveys, we asked CR members about more than 108,000 refrigerators (all with icemakers) that they had purchased new between 20. If you’re in the market for a new refrigerator, you should be able to find one you can rely on-and you want to be happy with your purchase. In 2020 LG settled a class-action lawsuit over its refrigerator compressors, but the settlement didn’t cover Kenmore models manufactured by LG.ĬR evaluates refrigerators in our temperature-controlled test chambers for four weeks before scoring them in our detailed refrigerator ratings, but we know one month is a far cry from the 10 years people expect a fridge to last. The same went for Kenmore French-doors, which have compressors manufactured by LG. The data also reveal that LG French-doors, side-by-sides, and built-ins were more prone to having compressors that break or are faulty than competing models made by other brands. 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. Samsung refrigerators have been cited in hundreds of complaints to the Consumer Product Safety Commission because of unsafe temperatures and malfunctioning icemakers. The survey results also backed up recent problems consumers have reported with Samsung and LG refrigerators. Problems with core functioning, like an inability to maintain cool temperatures, or with compressors, matter more, but relatively few CR members report them.

The two most commonly reported refrigerator problems were related to icemakers and dispensers. But it turns out the odds of having a problem-free experience over that decade are not in your favor.īased on our most recent survey results, we estimate that 31 percent of all refrigerators will require repairs by the end of the fifth year of ownership, making them one of the least reliable products we analyze in our surveys. Consumer Reports’ member surveys back up that claim, with 10 years being the median expected life span for a newly purchased refrigerator. When you buy a new refrigerator, you probably expect it to last about a decade.

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