Transcription
Hi, my name is Ashley. I'm a Boulevard home, and I am in the service and repair department. I worked here for 10 years, and I'm going to talk to you about your fridges today.
In this video, we'll cover all you need to know about confidently purchasing a new, reliable, lasting refrigerator. Many consumers believe that appliances created today don't last as long as those from previous generations. This has coined the familiar phrase, "they don't make them like they used to."
To help provide confidence in your future investments in a new appliance, data from our service calls and sales data will be presented to help you make a competent decision regarding which refrigerator will provide you with the best value. Each different type of refrigerator and the way they are manufactured will have an impact on how reliable you can expect a particular refrigerator to be. Some examples include top mount refrigerators, refrigerators with ice makers, side-by-side, French door, and those with multi-cooling systems.
So, which of these is going to be the most reliable type? The short answer is your OG top mount basic fridge. The long answer: with so many fridge configurations, it's more complicated. A common misconception is that the brand or the manufacturer of the refrigerator can have more of an impact on the quality and lifespan. However, brand name doesn't always equal quality, even though many have earned the reputation of refrigerator reliability. Some brands, like LG and Samsung, have reaped backlash for their refrigeration appliances. While LG actually makes respectable washers and dryers, Samsung is earning a reputation for lower quality appliances.
Samsung may be a good choice for a phone, but they probably aren't the choice for this next fridge generation. They can also fall onto the other side of the technology coin. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is true, but if it's not providing you with peace of mind, let alone a fresh piece of fruit or even preserving your leftover pizza, then you may be on your way to a new fridge.
Regardless of how often one chooses or needs to replace or upgrade their valued appliance, there are additional assets that a consumer should consider in their searches and purchases. Three of the most important are efficiency, capacity, and convenience.
That being said, today there are technological trends that the refrigerator manufacturers may deploy to distract you away from the refrigerator's main purpose. These practices can be confusing and conflicting, which is not what you want to experience in your next cold investment.
LG and Samsung have introduced a lot of technology into their refrigerator features. Some of these have full-size tablets built into the door panel. This makes sense as LG and Samsung are tech brands, but at the end of the day, the reason you're buying a refrigerator is to keep food fresh and not split an atom. Rather than putting their innovations into fancy features, these companies should be focusing on how to make the refrigerators and appliances a better product for the consumer.
Right now, we do commend LG for their recent innovation in the door cooling plus feature, as this actually does solve an issue in improving refrigeration. This feature also includes better performing compressors that they say are more efficient and have proven to be more reliable. However, in our experience, I have not seen that change in the years that we have been servicing LG fridges.
There have also been reports of issues with the linear compressors. The bottom line is a proven reality that the more tech and features you pack into any appliance, the higher the chances of having issues. On top of that, the more difficult it may become to find someone qualified and affordable to tackle the service or repair job.
That is why today the most reliable refrigerator brands are those that stick to the basics, have superb build quality for their parts, and aren't packed with unnecessary features that don't have anything to do with the preservation of your food.
Sorry, ET, with all that said, let's dive into our data to discover which fridges are the most reliable and which ones will leave you with a cold shoulder. It's important to note that these are our percentages of manufactured defect calls versus the units we sold. Higher service call rates could be due to a variety of factors, including the prevalence of the brand on the market, the complexity of the product, or the availability of repair technicians.
Because we sell a lot of Frigidaire refrigerators, most of our calls will reflect this. It's also important to note that many of these service calls have been inexpensive and are very simple fixes without any further issues.
In my position, I get questions from customers all the time: "Why is this fridge only lasting me three years when I had a fridge that lasted me 20 years?" This is how everything is—if you think about it, everything becomes disposable as they are using different products and new technologies. So, not every fridge is only going to last you five years; it just depends on how they're manufactured and the type of fridge that you get.
So, previously we talked about LG's reliability, and as you can see from this data, it does fall in the middle of reliability. However, from my experience, it is the fridge that we replace the most due to its issues.
In this next data, you're going to see how many LG refrigerators we have replaced due to issues with their compressors. After looking at this chart, there are some things we'd like you to keep in mind: refrigerators with ice makers tend to have more repair problems than the refrigerators without ice makers. However, most of the time, these issues can be resolved easily and inexpensively.
Refrigerators with a freezer on the bottom are more likely to need repairs than the top mount refrigerators or a side-by-side fridge. LG and Samsung fridges are well built but mechanically complicated, so if you need a Samsung refrigerator repair, it may be difficult to find a repair person that's willing to work on it.
Adding to this frozen caution, we have to commend Ben from Ben's Appliances and Junk for creating a fantastic video on this topic. He specifically mentions the schematics of refrigerators and the correlation between more complicated schematics having a lot more issues than simple schematics.
In my experience, the most reliable fridges would be Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Electrolux, and Amana. The least reliable, also in my opinion, will be LG and Samsung. But regardless of which brand you choose, we will make sure your next refrigerator is out of this world but not out of your price range.
My advice is to do your research. Don't just go and look at a fridge, and because it's pretty, think that you have to have that fridge. This is a big investment; think about it like a car. You're going to want this to last, and you're going to want to not do repairs on it.
So make sure you do your research and get advice from other people. If you have a technician come out, get advice from that technician. You can always call into our service and repair department, and you can ask—call me if you wanted to—and ask, "Is a Whirlpool fridge better than a Beko fridge?" We would be happy to talk to you about it.
I want to thank you for watching, and I hope that you find your next best fridge. If you like this video, check out our ice maker troubleshooting videos; those should be able to help you with any non-repair issues you may be experiencing with your refrigerator's ice makers.