Fridge/Freezers - manufacturers to go for and to avoid?

[jamma-plusser]

Currently looking into getting a new fridge/freezer and am looking at an Indesit - are they a make to go for or to avoid?

Any other manufacturer recommendations please, either good or bad?

Thanks

[Donwill]

[Andy Hall]

Take a look at Liebherr

A much better product and build quality.

[tony sayer]

In article , Andy Hall scribeth thus

Yep .. a service tech the only one we could find to sort out our Scheriber ballsed up fridge recommended them highly....

[Rod]

In case you are not sure which of the two replies so far to believe, I have been led to believe that Miele don't actually make their refrigeration products, they're made by Liebherr. (Hopefully someone will confirm?)

We bought a Miele freezer a year or so ago. On the basis of that, I would happily buy another of their products. Bought a Bosch refrigerator at the same time. That is also OK but somehow doesn't seem quite so good.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive got a Liebherr. Apart from overloading the plastic door skin that holds the milk bottles shelves and splitting it, its a very decent frdge with a little freezer at the top. Definitely if not total Miele quality, the 'best of the rest'

.

I've got better things to do than fix buggered white goods. Miele washing machine now installed. Flawless to date.

[meow2222]

FFs of all makes seem to be quite reliable, I've had various makes from posh to low end, and none have given inadequate performance or life. Because of this I dont see personal experiences telling you much - unless its that paying for a high ticket one is pointless.

Oh, the exception is frost frees, those have a noticeably higher failure rate. But even with those I've not seen any proving inadequate.

In fact since they perform so well, buying a 1yr old one may be a good bet. Unless you want a full size ff one, you wont find those used too often.

NT

[jamma-plusser]

Thanks very much for all the recommendations.

[Tim S]

jamma-plusser coughed up some electrons that declared:

Hotpoint freezer, 13 years old, still going strong. Not clever, needs defrosting 2-3 times a year, but simple, quiet and reliable.

Miele fridge - totally the dog's gonads. I *will* vouch that fruit and veg keep noticeably longer (several days longer) in the fancy veggie drawers (I forget the marketing name, but it's not the salad crisper drawers, but a seperate set underneath - claim to maintain a certain humidity). Stuff doesn't wilt like it used to in my old fridge.

Meat and fish seem to keep longer too - I have no problems with running 2 days past the "use by" date on this food group and I haven't died yet.

We have reduced wastage by about 10% since getting the fridge and I have the confidence to load it up with a weekly shop and not ave any nasty surprises.

Cheers

Tim

[John Stumbles]

We're on our 3rd Hotpoint (part of same group as Indesit) frost-free fridge freezer in 2 years.

Actually our 4th if you count the first one which when it arrived turned out not to be a frost-free fridge freezer but only a frost-free freezer with a normal fridge: apparently some PHB at Hotpoint/Indeshit decided they could upgrade their machines by calling them that, and calling real frost-free fridge-freezers "Fully Frost-Free Fridge Freezers". Grrr: took

6 weeks to get the pretend one taken away and a real one in its place.

FFFFF#1 stopped cooling stuff properly after 3 months. Engineer defrosted it. 3 months later I defrosted it ... and again a few months later. H-I sent a succession of dozy engineers and aventually (by which time it needed defrosting every few days) we got a new one.

FFFFF#2 started playing up after a few months. This time the engineer diagnosed loss of coolant and ordered a swap machine straight away.

We're keeping our fingers crossed with FFFFF#3.

A side-effect is that I've become almost proficient at swapping the doors on the damn' things over from right- to left-hand hinging. Involves screws with different types of heads, drilling holes, and tipping the machine over backwards to remove and relocate a tiny metal plate which wouldn't have been necessary it they'd fitted them to both sides at a cost of an extra £0.0001 or thereabouts.

[Piers Finlayson]

Have an Indesit FF, and had it for 1 yr, with no problems so far. Unlike other white goods (eg washing machine) I don't really see the point of paying a lot of money of a "decent make" FF. I figure if it's going to break it'll likely be an early life failure or an end of life failure. If the former then I'll just get another free out of the retailer. I doubt the lifetime is that much different between the good makes and the cheapo ones.

Will second John's comment about it being a right royal pain the arse to swap the fridge door over. Spent a good hour swearing at the designer while doing it.

[Tim..]

Liebherr, (good enough for Miele so make your own assumptions here) or Bosch.

Tim.

[John]

Assume that if you buy an expensive one you will scratch or dent the door and it will look an eye-sore but as you will feel it hasn't earned its keep and you will put up with it for 15 years. If this happens to a cheap one you will just replace it.

[Andy Hall]

.. or if it's a decent one, claim on the contents insurance.

[Rod]

Consider - the cheapest Indesit is £200 and the cheapest Liebherr is £300 [1].

If I could afford to bin a scratched 200 pound Indesit, I wouldn't have that much problem doing the same to a 300 pound Liebherr - at least well within 15 years. (Of course, if you pay 900 pounds for a stainless steel Miele you might think differently. But I did not get the impression that the OP was likely to be going for top of range Miele.)

[1] John Lewis prices - approx.

[Owain]

So why not buy a pre-scratched expensive one and save money?

I just bought a pre-scratched laptop as I knew that if I had a new shiny one it would be painful when the first scratch arrived.

Anyway, it's not scratched, it's "distressed"

Owain

[Andrew Gabriel]

Indesit, Hotpoint, Ariston, (and maybe others) are names now owned by the Italian Merloni Brothers.

For reliability, avoid frost free which introduces lots of extra less reliable single points of failure. A Basic non- frost-free freezer really has very little to go wrong, and the components are extremely reliable.

You might consider checking the door seal. My Hotpoint is 7 years old, and I'm just thinking about doing its first defrost.

Note that 13 years ago, Hotpoint was part of GEC and made in Peterborough. Their products had a high reputation back then. The name has changed hands a few times since then. Not saying for the better or worse, but I don't think you can just assume that your appliance is necessarily representitive of anything you might buy today. That's true of much of the white goods industry.

[meow2222]

Yes. Defrosting is downtime too though, and personally I'm glad not to need to defrost, so I'd still choose frost free if funds permit

NT

[Tim S]

Andrew Gabriel coughed up some electrons that declared:

Possibly - after all this time it's probably hardened. BTW - how did you manage 7 years? I did once a year when the freezer was new and I didn;t have little hands in it every five minutes back then...

Good point. Even Bosch is effectively two brands; I remmember reading that the good stuff is more or less german and the cheap stuff is spanish made very much to a price. "Logixx" isn't bad and is (was?) german made (but not in the class of say Miele). "Classix" is cheap crap IMO. Not sure which camp "Excell" fell in.

Cheers

Tim

[Bob Mannix]

Indeed, plus New World, Creda - not sure about "now", many years! Their spares network is (or was) pants

Candy (down the road from the Merlonis) have Hoover (probably least said)

Meanwhile the Swedes keep the n. europe end up with Electrolux (Zanussi, AEG, Frigidaire) OK

Then there's Robert Bosch and Miele (The Germans major on single owner/family corporations) good + expensive and very good + very expensive

Personally I like the young Turks. Bought a Beko washing machine for 1/4 the price of a Miele. It washes clothes fine without complaint or drama and I could buy 4 new replacements to match the Miele supposed extra lifetime.

You pays yer money.....