Reliable refrigerator?

Can't help you. I had a trouble free Samsung refrigerator in my last house for about 5 years before we moved. Bought a similar Samsung for this house and it has been trouble free for 3 years so far. May Samsung flat screen is still perfect after 5 years. Oh, my cellphone is Samsung too.

In the past I've had KitchenAid appliances and good luck with them too. Would have gone with that for the fridge but liked the Samsung better. Has ice maker and water dispenser too.

Luck of the draw, or perhaps you sacrificed to the correct gods.

I'd rather have the space! When I decide to get one I'm going to do more shopping than I did for the stove. The big problem is moving stuff around so I can get the old one out and the new one in. The stove wasn't as traumatic as I had anticipated, but there wasn't anything IN the stove.

The problem with any capital expenditure -- you don't know what you should have bought instead until it's too late.

Story: Maybe 2 decades ago my MIL in New York sent us a spaghetti dinner by Federal Express for Christmas. Frozen, packed in dry ice, etc. Her spaghetti sauce was indeed something special and it was a wonderful and original gift. She did the same thing a few years later and hubby decided to save it for later. The sauce is still there in the freezer. It's become a family heirloom.

Your choices might be limited if you want a single door for the refrigerator part. Consumer Reports has this to say. "What isn?t a gimmick, though, is consumer preference for refrigerator configuration. According to CR?s most recent refrigerator survey, French-doors made up 64 percent of new refrigerators purchased by CR members in 2019 and the first half of 2020, followed by side-by-sides at 20 percent, bottom-freezers at 6 percent, and top-freezers and built-ins at 5 percent each. Retailers are following this trend, too. According to market research firm Gap Intelligence, French-doors make up 61 percent of in-store selection."

Perhaps the law of averages just caught up with you. I have 2 Samsung HD TVs that are in heavy use and have never had an issue with either of them. I've got a 4 year old Samsung B&W laser printer with automatic duplexing that has never jammed, scrunched a sheet of paper, or printed unevenly. Recently my better half needed to replace her B&W laser printer made by a different company and we were dismayed to see that Samsung no longer is in the printer business. Neither one of us should use these selective anecdotes to generalize about a company's products. Sometimes you get lucky and some times you don't. I tend to see what Wirecutter and Consumer Reports say about appliances rather than rely on someone's experience with samples sizes in the single numbers.

I stopped reading CR years ago. So long I forget the details but one appliance I bought because it had a particular feature. They downgraded it because my feature was their problem.

Their reliability ratings may be accurate but their opinions don't agree with mine in many ways.

I detailed a while back my problems with a Whirlpool range. They are now off my product list.

I like Samsung TV's, tablet and phone but would not buy an appliance from them after hearing a son's problem in dealing with them on a warranty repair.

Read somewhere that while product reviews are helpful you should also consider service if the appliance has a problem and that will vary depending where you live.

I think I'd LIKE a side-by-side (freezer on one side, refrigerator on the other) with NO ice-making or water-dispensing capabilities whatsoever and LOTS of shelves and LOTS of internal lighting. I like the over-all practicality of the top-freezer design, though, and the shelves and lighting are really important.

I have to laugh at stuff like internet capability, extra clear doors so you can stand there staring into the depths while waiting for inspiration WITHOUT losing any of the cold air, a touch screen...

CR separates them by width. So, how fat do you want your fridge to be?

A friend also was unhappy because her Samsung front-loading washing machine started leaking within 2 years.

They always rated models that were only available east of the Mississippi and downgraded stuff for things like "you can get a shock if you jam a coat-hanger into this hole..." and other trivia that were never in any way important.

I do like the used-car ratings in the annual books, though. I bought my Corolla because it was deemed to be especially reliable AND my children thrashed the hell out of theirs before they sold them to the wrecking yards.

Plus I had to go to the library to look at the latest magazines/books. Our libraries have been closed for quite a while now, and the main library was just discovered to have earthquake-collapse potential and is completely closed until they figure out what to do about it.

I wonder if the earthquake-reinforcement plans were simply misplaced -- like what resulted in tearing down the lovely Throop Hall at Caltech...

What I WANT and what will fit through the door are different things.

Why don't they make the damn things taller? Unless you have built-in cabinets EVERYBODY has open space above their refrigerators.

The could be slightly taller. The house I bought has cabinets so that I can only use a smaller width of refrigerator. It is a 4 bedroom house and one would have thought the frig space would take a wider one. It could be a foot or more taller with no problem. The house I lived in before could have used a frig 5 feet wide if there was such a thing.

I have not looked very well,but think there are some that are what may be called cabinet depth. Not very deep from the front to the back.

Had a Side by Side. It was ok but glad to now have a French Door with an additional drawer.

The SbS was narrow and it you had large items it was not always easy to fit it. Like frozen pizza? Not in a SbS you won't. Stuff on the bottom was easy to lose.

The bottom freezer id a drawer and has a sliding bin on top so fairly easy to access.

Most seem to have good lighting today, not the single bulb in back of years ago.

Last house I had to take the bottom shelf out and cut the door bottoms off 2" to fit the new fridge. Width limited too.

Current house has higher and wider cabinet. Fridge under the cab int is 58"

House came with GE microwave, range, DW and disposal. They work well but the disposal leaked internally and shorted out after the first year. Since it was year two, a service call was charged and installation was charged. Should have just torn it out and put in and InSinErator and be done.

GE is off my list.

Icemakers are always the #1 problem reported to CR. My wife demands ice in the door so I am pretty good on the Whirlpool icemaker. My FIL has a new fridge with a different design but Whirlpool (Amana, Roper, Kitchen Aide etc) all used the same icemaker for decades. I keep a hot spare in my parts cabinet and I can usually fix the old one if I feel like fooling with it. These days you can buy the whole thing cheaper than a new part. The new Chinese replacement seems to lose motors but I saved some of the old ones that never went bad so that is an easy fix. Usually it is the contacts in the head and that is not fixable in any long term way. The head costs as much as the icemaker. The whirlpool with the bucket on the door also uses a photocell instead of the wire bail to detect a full bucket. They go bad. You can jumper it out with a paperclip to get it going again but don't be surprised when the bucket overflows. I have some diagrams on my web site if anyone is fooling with them.

I suppose it is the same price with or without so it might be as easy to just take out the icemaker and recover the shelf space. I had one for a while in the Tiki Bar with 2 icemakers. They are just a 4 wire hookup (120v, water valve, neutral and ground) so all I had to do was drill a hole for 1 wire to the valve and I used the valve for chilled water that we never used. The bottom icemaker used that big bucket in the bottom for storage. That holds about 25 pounds of ice. It worked out well. Since we don't boat as much these days I didn't do that again when we replaced the fridge.

They do make different heights, the tallest being ~71 1/4". I had to replace the upper over the fridge when my wife bought the one we have. Generally the top freezer, old style is the shortest and the french door is the tallest. It is really a wasted cabinet since it is too high even for me to reach without standing on a chair. (and taking the crap off the top of the fridge). I am not sure if there is anything in there or not ;)

We had a GE fridge and that ice dispenser never worked right. I welded the auger after the first 2 went bad, one on warranty, one I bought. My welded one did last. It still cooled OK tho until it rusted out. (living outside)

InSinkeErator's aren't perfect. Here's my anecdote that proves nothing. Got an InSinkerator as part of a kitchen remodel. It lasted a year and started leaking. I bought a higher end Insinkerator 20 years ago and it still works fine.