We need a new fridge. 1780mm tall and built-in. Choice essentially boils down to a Neff, a Bosch or a Siemens. Printed out pictures of all three so domestic MD can make the decision.
"Err, these are all the same fridge?"
And she's right.
For at least 20 years (and possibly much longer) there have been nowhere near as many manufacturers of domestic appliances as there have been manufacturers' names.
I doubt any manufacturer over that period has had anything close to a full range of appliances, but they all have to present a full range in their catalogues. They do this by making appliances for each other. E.g. years ago, Hotpoint manufactured washing machines and fridge/freezers for the likes of Bosch, but it got it's dishwashers from Creda, microwaves from someone else (Bosch maybe), etc.
What's happened more recently is that manufacturers have been buying each other up, so there are actually fewer of them now. E.g. Hotpoint, Ariston, Indesit, Merloni (and maybe more) are all now one company.
I don't know about Neff, Bosch or Siemens, but chances are they are at least manufacturing products for each other, and might even have merged their white goods divisions togther.
I dislike built-ins, and reckon they can be more awful than normal white goods. Most people source them from the kitchen supplier instead of independently, in this case they seem to be unbranded and built cheaply yet sold at a high price as they're more fashionable than free standing goods.
A good indicator of quality is where they're made, as they're often sold primarily to the home market, so stuff made and sold in Sweden or Germany is often fairly good quality.
cheers, Pete.
Neff and Bosch are the same company now, the same srive engineers come along. Electrolux own Tricty Bendix and AEG. One Electrolux engineer told me to buy the Tricty washing machine as it is identical to the more expensive Electrolux. Many parts in the Electroluxs are in the AEGs. Although the up market high efficiency AEGs do have some superior components, mainly trim to give the expensive feel.
get a liebherr. Much better quality.
Ther are apparently just three manufactires. One UK one German and one Italian.
About 12 years ago, I acquired a second-hand Bosch dish-washer. One reason why it was cheap was that the latch which was supposed to release the detergent was broken, so I needed to open the machine and chuck this in at the right time in the cycle. I visited a local small independent repair company[1] (sadly, long gone and replaced by yet another unwanted housing estate) seeking purchase of just the latch part.
Bosch could/would supply only the entire dispenser, at a price of about GBP90; however, the aforementioned LSIRC knew a thing or two and said "Bosch dishwashers are identical to Elecrolux models" and hoicked out the microfiche for the latter. Result: he ordered the part, which arrived within the week, and cost me less than a fiver.
The machine is still working well, although the door handle has lost part of itself, which makes opening difficult. I went to another LSIRC, and hoped that the handle would also be an Electrolux bargain, but sadly such external trim fell into the category of "design" and meant that I had to pay a tenner for a small piece of plastic from Bosch.
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