OT: Prestige - Who is the manufacturer ?

[Jo]

A little OT this one.

We are looking to replace our fridge/freezer and came across a brand in Comet yesterday that we've never heard of, nor can I find any infomation on the web - Prestige.

Years ago I recall my mum have a Prestige steam cooker but that's it.

What we found looks fantastic value for money at £380 for a Frost Free Fridge Freezer. Good size compartments, Twin Thermostats, No drinks dispenser. Item is

know I'm probably going to told it's rubbish and go for Miele, Siemens, Liebherr - but none of these seem to have the right layout for both fridge and freezer.

Any help appreciated.

Cheers

[John]

If you like it and it seems good then buy it. Makers do lots of 'badge engineering' and use lots of common parts (Miele owners opportunity to flame). Not really much bad stuff around - some mediocre - some you will be unlucky.

[Rod]

IMHO, almost certainly Comet own brand.

o no fast freeze o no temperature o 365 KWh per year (against 266 for a random Liebherr A+ FF on John Lewis).

Future parts availability?

[Rod]

Rod meant to type:

"no over-temperature alarm"

[Andy Wade]

So you had heard of it after all. It's very well known - everyone's mum and granny had some Prestige stuff. The firm used to be somewhere in Lancashire - the Burnley area IIRC, but ICBW.

A quick trade marks check at

shows several marks "Prestige" still extant - the oldest of which (registered 1940) was for razor blades.

The trade mark case history is here

together with the current details, nicely tracks its movement from London to Hong Kong via the British Virgin Islands.

[Dave Liquorice]

Eh? From the link posted "Prestige stainless steel fridge freezer with fast freeze facility and automatic fridge defrost". But I see a red cross next to "Fast freeze facility" in the full specification...

Personally I wouldn't go for a "frost free" freezer, adds greatly to the complexity of the device and reduces reliability considerably. Look at the posts in here about freezer problems, they are nearly all about frost free ones. FF also tend to use more power than a conventional freezer.

A tenner less electricity over a year, bear in mind the comet jobbie is only A rated.

Not normally an problem with fridges and freezers there is nothing to go wrong apart from the compressor. That can be replaced with a generic one if needs be.

[Bruce]

Prestige was a high profile British company making pots, pans, kitchen utensils and accessories but it went bust a few years ago, around the mid-1990s if memory serves.

A German company, Meyer, bought the rights to the name for use on its pots and pans. I have also seen some Prestige kitchen utensils in the last year or so, and the company appears to have branched out into small electrical appliances too:

is no mention of fridge/freezers on that site. So I think you will find that like Bush and Grundig electronic goods, the "Prestige" fridge/freezer is just another cheap Eastern European or Far East manufactured item masquerading under a familiar and formerly trusted British (or German) brand name.

Personally, if I couldn't establish who actually made it I would probably run a mile. Or I would look at a more established brand. I wouldn't necessarily suggest Miele, Siemens or Liebherr. However I would be very happy to recommend a Bosch or an Electrolux, two brands of fridge/freezer that have served my family very well over the years.

[Dave Liquorice]

Could have looked that hard... 2nd link in a google for "prestige"

is a link to but that fails at the DNS lookup stage...

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes, I spotted that and meant to comment on it. A "must have" on a freezer IMHO. Trouble is how reliable is that specification on the web...

[Bruce]

I saw this one in my local Tesco yesterday - excellent value:

was also a frost free version for about 20% more, but as someone else said, frost free fridge freezers are far less reliable,

[Rod]

Yep - was looking at full spec. when I was replying. Agreed - inconsistent.

At current prices. Probably be a fifty quid difference by end of life given trends. :-(

[Dave Liquorice]

Naw, we'll all have free nooklear lectrickery by then. B-)

[John]

Not many fridge freezers get repaired do they?

[John]

I am still waiting for cheap North Sea Gas.

[John]

I seem to recall someone telling me that there are only about 3 manufacturers of domestic fridge compressors in Europe. (Amazing how many devices have Electrolux motors for example)

[Rod]

Over the years, there have been various mentions of things like water filter cartridges and door seals, thermostats and lamps, shelves and so on. Maybe an issue. Maybe not. (And I did include '?'!)

[Andrew Gabriel]

I've got my mum's Presto 704B pressure cooker, which gets used every few months for something or the other. This dates from before the company was called Prestige. 704B was a particularly popular model, which Prestige continued to manufacture for years.

IIRC, Prestige was bought by Tower, who were then bought by Meyer. I don't know how the original Presto -> Prestige change came about.

[Dave Liquorice]

So am I no mains gas here. Even when I did live where there was mains gas 'twas cheaper than lectrickery or oil...

[Andy Wade]

Interesting - I'm not familiar with the model numbers, but the one my mum had is just like this:

IIRC, Prestige was bought by Tower, who were then bought by

Pass. "Presto" makes me think of drills, taps and dies...

[Frank Erskine]

A different thread...