>>913803
GE would be my guess from a business standpoint. No idea how Frigidaire is doing, but Maytag has lost its brand recognition with younger buyers, and surely sales suffer as a consequence, which means a cheaper, crappier product. GE is still huge, and can afford more in the way of R&D. FA may be owned by a bigger company.

Also, if you're rich, I recommend Traulsen. They're expensive as fuck, but I can personally guarantee you a life span of 20+ years in a home environment.

>>913803
They prolly come out of the same factory to be honest. I haven't been brand loyal for years, I simply set a price range I can do, make a list of "must have" features and a list of "would like" features, then see what I can find in the price range specified. If a "would like" is only going to push me out of my price range by 40 odd bucks I'll stretch, otherwise this system seems to do the job for me.

Also, are you totally fridgeless or is your old one working but seconds from death? Might be worth waiting till post Christmas sales if you can. Factory seconds are a good way to get more bang for buck as well, because who gives a fuck if the side of it is scuffed, you'll never see it anyway.

>>913808
>but I can personally guarantee you a life span of 20+ years in a home environment.

And how is their build quality nowadays as opposed to 20 years ago when you brought it?

Why do you think your fridge is fucked?

The expensive component is the compressor. Rest is pretty much cheap electronics and bits of copper.

You can fix your fridge for a 10th of the price of a new one. Just might be a bit more involved than last time.

>>913813
..until he has spent more on time and parts than the cost of a new fridge. There are limits anon, and sometimes, it's nice to have new things.

>>913811
Our build quality is unmatched. We are the Bentley of commercial refrigeration. Actually, I'd go as far as to say the Bentley of refrigeration period. If you're seriously considering a commercial refrigerator, but don't want to get anally raped, you can buy other brands for dirt cheap used. A used delfield will last you 10 years, any other brand would be up to 10 years.

Ohh, and if you can't tell, I work for Traulsen. Have you ever eaten at chick-fil-a? Every CFA has a minimum of 5 traulsens. Most VA centers, many, many government locations. Busch beer company, Disney World, the list continues.

>>913814
Yes, which is why the name of the board is /buyshitfromstores/

Hermetic compressors are both cheap to purchase and easier than you would think to install. All of the necessary tools can be rented, and cheap. This is far easier than working on car AC systems, especially if he can give us some info on what exactly is wrong.

>>913819
And why do your fridges last so long?

Better quality compressors, better QA on assembly.

OP, what is your fridge doing exactly?

>>913826
Better quality insulation, higher quality control boards, all name brand parts, Intellitraul, air flow designs, custom blower design, gasket material, hinge design, quality control, built by hand in murica, used worldwide.

Any info you guys may need is available on our website. I don't expect OP to buy a $8,000 ref/freez combo, and I really didn't mean to go all salesy in here. My point was that there are more options then the typical 3, and that OP needs to look elsewhere if he is so unsatisfied by the big 3 that he has to ask here what to get. I don't make a dime on sales anyways.

>>913838
>Better quality insulation
Generally not a factor for a home fridge, mainly an energy use issue.
>Higher quality control boards
Show me a fridge that failed because of the control board
>all name brand parts
Made at the same factory as the off brand parts
>Intellitraul
You don't know what that is
>air flow design
Like, across the coil and into the fridge? And some more over the condenser? What Genius! Great Scott!
>custom blower design
Wouldn't that fall under air flow designs? And how is it 'custom'
>Gasket material
I bet it's the same stuff they use on the Space Shuttle innit
>hinge design
Now you're just fucking with me
>quality control
said that
>built by hand in murica
Go buy a British car and let me know how that goes
>used worldwide
So are lots of things that cost way more money than they're worth.

SHILL! SHILL! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

>>913814

This, I've already ripped it apart and have had the multimeter / service manual going all night. I'm not a fridge expert and I've got food going bad so I need to just suck it up and buy one.

>>913819

I'm cost limited hence the reason I threw out the brand names I did and not LG, Samsung and alike. Thank you though either way.

>>913822

In BFE I can't get parts quickly. If I was near a metro center with a parts store I'd entertain this.

It would appear as though the controller board / motherboard has gone to shit. Cheap part I know but getting it to me is a 3-4 day process. Getting a fridge from a store is a next day, a buddy, and a 12 pack.

After the fact I'll go full AvE on it and see if I can't deflumux it for a garage fridge.

>>913850

See above, My GE failed from a controller board.

>>913919
Motherboards rarely, rarely, 'go out' without condensation/corrosion or external damage occurring somehow, but fair enough. I suppose this is as good a place to ask as any.

As someone mentioned earlier no real reason to be brand loyal. Amazon takes their reviews very seriously, and unless it's a small product with low sales, vets them pretty well. Head over there and check recent reviews out to two years of a couple models in your price range. You're basically looking for early failures that indicate a bad run at the factory, which can and will happen to any company. Should still be warrantable, but you don't want that hassle again. Not really going to be any difference in long term reliability, unless you go with
>ZEE GERMAN UBERFRIDGE ZAT VILL LAST TROO ZEE TOUSAND YEER REICH!
mentioned earlier by the nice gentleman that was just trying to help. Good luck!

>>913819
I'd be surprised if it wasn't matched by, say, Gram.

>>913808
you realize not even GE wants GE appliances... they just pulled out of selling to electrolux because the antitrust suits got to crazy...

I do appliance repair and if you want a good fridge ignore brands and buy the simplest one you can find... preferably with a mechanical cold control and no circuit boards on it... topmount freezer style... less things that can break and give you problems...

>>913838
>Better quality insulation, higher quality control boards, all name brand parts, Intellitraul, air flow designs, custom blower design, gasket material, hinge design, quality control, built by hand in murica, used worldwide.

how is it being consistently beaten in home refrigeration by Sub Zero?

>>913963
appliance repair fag here. the problem with online reviews is they at best give you a 2 year opinion of something that you want to run for a bare minimum of 10.

>>914027
Yeah, but you're not going to see that much difference among low-end major brands in longevity like that. Generally you can look for bad runs at factories, so you can stay away from them. Whether or not a cheap hermetic compressor is going to last 10 years doesn't change much.

>>913808
Didn't know they made home appliances, but from restaurant work I can attest anon speaks the truth. Traulsens just work, and keep on working, regardless of age. New units have the same build quality as thirty year old units.

>>914050
I do first year warranty service on frigidaire/ electrolux, whirlpool/maytag/kitchenaid, lg, samsung, and GE. I work in the second largest city in my state. the VAST majority of the problems I see on these across the board regardless of manufacturer comes from electronics, or features other than cooling. and yeah their isn't much difference amount low end brands when you get into the cheaper models because they all use the same or stupidly similar parts. Ge's mechanical defrost timer is identical to whirlpools, and shockingly.. has about the same failure rate. regardless of who makes the fridge the compressor is most likely made by either panasonic or embraco. you may think you can look for "bad runs from the factory" and whatnot. but I can tell you from first hand experience it is not so.

>>913803
my grandpa asked a repair man once, the guy said he wasn't allowed to suggest whats best per company policy, but he did love samsung tvs.

>>913850
not him but insulation is key to a long lived refrigerator, no matter how good the compressor is it will die after x amount of hours, the less it works the better.

>>913838
Fuck bro they coached you up real good like.
You sound like my companies sales force, I cringe when I hear stuff like "industrial grade relays" and "shatterproof PCBs".

>>915157
Samsung might be okay for televisions, but I'd be nervous about other household appliances. Seen a few videos of Samsung washing machine failures when supposedly only a few years old. Scary.

>>913803
>GE, Maytag, or Frigidaire

those plus kenmore and whirlpool all come out of the same factory.

>>913850
>Show me a fridge that failed because of the control board
I just replaced one that failed because of the control gear. Refrigeration loop worked fine, thermostat developed forty degrees of hysteresis.

>>914062
I had my suspicions about this. Some time ago I was looking for a part for a dishwasher and found it to be compatible with several brands across several priceranges.
Perhaps some parts have higher QA standards for the higher end models?

>>913803
My 2 years old Kenmore Elite is on it's 3rd service right now. Apparently the door on the freezer doesn't close properly to hit the switches. This causes the ice maker ti intermittently work, it dumps water through the ice dispenser randomly and it doesn't keep a temp within 30F.

They've reshimmed it once already, even replaced the whole ice maker. Now they have a revised shim and the tech is going to replace the switches.

Fridges now are made of crap and frustration. I paid $700 for the extended warrantee and the service calls are already almost what I paid for fridge. At some point Sears is just going to refund me the purchase price because they losing a shit ton of money on this lemon.

I help a friend out at his store and he easily sells 10 used appliances a day. He sources them from apartment complexes, appliance repair people, scrapers, etc. I can say without a doubt that none of the brands is exempt from being a piece of crap. I was going to suggest you get a used one. Sometimes goodwills or salvation armys get them. You may have a store around you that sells used appliances. We check them out before we sell them. We also fix most of them through trial and error. A multimeter is never involved. Its not usually the compressor. Its kinda like buying a new car its going to break eventually and they don't resell that well. I can tell you that after you move a lot of them you can just tell that some of them feel like a piece of crap. The way the door opens, how much they weigh. Check the seals. For some reason seals are super expensive.

>>913803
get this sears/04651122 or get the whirlpool equal
poorfags get this 04660412

>>914025
Wouldn't a bottom freezer be better? Whole heat rises...

In my opinion and experience:

The least amount of features on a fridge (or any appliance for that matter) the better.

The more crap it has on it the more crap can break on it.

When I bought my fridge I wanted it to do 3 things: keep my food cold, be big enough to fit large items in, look good.

so with this in mind I avoided any with water dispensers or ice makers ect.

Brand wise, after research I was not convinced that any brand was superior to another.

Generally speaking, the simpler it is, the less distracted the manufactures were when building it and the easier it will be to fix.

I'm not a fridgy, but i would guess that a lot of internal parts for most brands are either generic internal parts from the same factory or can be replaced with after market parts.

>>915221
>kenmore
is rebranded what-the-fuck-ever with a Sears sticker slapped on it.
t. former Sears employee