Finally quit selling luxury appliances after eleven years, so here's the honest version

I did six years selling at a regional appliance chain before moving on, and the warranty pressure was the same story. We got spiffed a flat bonus for every service plan attached to a sale, so the slower months turned into a competition over who could stack the most of them. I stopped pushing them once I read the fine print on a couple and realized how many claims got denied for things like rust or a clogged drain line, which they counted as customer neglect. Delivery was honestly the bigger misery for customers though. A slide-in range or a counter depth fridge would show up dented at least once a week, and the replacement cycle could eat a month. My advice to anyone buying now is to open and inspect everything in the driveway before the truck leaves, and to schedule the installer for at least a week after the delivery date, not the same day. The badge sharing thing is real too. I sold two dishwashers side by side that were made in the same factory, one just had a fancier control panel and a quieter decal on it.

I spent eight years on the service side as a repair tech, and my experience with the high end stuff was the opposite of what you'd hope. The fancier the badge, the longer I sat in the driveway waiting on parts. European built cooktops sometimes meant ordering a component from overseas with a six week lead time, and the customer standing behind me wondering why their five thousand dollar induction range was dead for two months over a $40 relay. The mid range units were my favorite calls. Parts on the shelf at the local distributor, panels that come apart without feeling like you're defusing something, and owners who actually used the machine instead of tiptoeing around it. Funny thing is the extended warranties made my life easier, not harder. When a Sub-Zero had a sealed system issue, the warranty covered a repair that would have stung the homeowner badly out of pocket. So I'd say they're not a scam across the board, more of a gamble that depends on the brand and how long you plan to keep the thing. One tip for anyone waiting on a delivery like the OP described, get the model's install sheet before the cabinets are built. Half my callbacks were fridges that fit the opening fine but had doors that wouldn't clear an island or a wall.

We just redid our kitchen and got talked at by a guy at the fancy store about a fridge that sits flat with the cabinets. He kept saying it keeps food fresher because of some special air thing inside. Is that actually a real thing or just a way to explain the price? We ended up with a regular one that sticks out a couple inches and honestly it fits more leftovers than my sister's expensive one. She swears her milk tastes better though so maybe the air thing works on milk, no idea.

On the fridge question from the kitchen reno poster, the 'special air' pitch is mostly dressed up circulation fans that mid range units have too. When my brother was picking between two models I taped a cheap thermometer inside each one at the store display and over a week of visits they tracked within a degree of each other. What actually matters is how the shelves are laid out and wheather the door bins hold your milk without eating shelf space. Funny detail from my own kitchen: the fridge that sticks out a couple inches fits my pizza boxes fine, and I stopped caring about the flush look after about a month.