Good makes of fridge-frrezer?

Our fridge freezer is on its last legs: various plastic shelves have broken, the door seals are packing up and now the thermostat has gone. I could replace the 'stat and possibly the seals but if the horrid plastickey bits are even available I expect they'd be exorbitantly priced, and the appliance is old enough that a new one is probably a lot more energy efficient anyway.

So I'm looking at kelkoo and thinking what of the 1001 makes and models to go for. Since the plastic shelves etc seem to have been a weak point on all the fridges & f-fs I've ever come across are there any makes which do a decent job of them? Ideally at moderate price - maybe Bosch?

Reply to
John Stumbles
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I had the same search dilemma last year and went with Bosch. Impressed so far and discovered much cheaper online than instore. Powerhouse was very good and best price, easy to check with pricerunner. Which magazine also do a free test subscription online which allows you to read their reviews of fridges.

Reply to
bartlett_jane

Did you do that and were they any use?

I gave up on Which? years ago: their product reviews usually covered only a miniscule proportion of the products available, and many of the makes & models they did review were no longer available by the time their reviews came out. Also I was less than chuffed that, having subscribed to the paper copy of the magazine for years, they still wanted to charge me extra for access to the same content online (which would have been useful when, inevitably, I'd mislaid the paper copy of the magazine I wanted to refer to).

The final straw for me was that whilst being all self-righteous about not accepting advertising or donation of product samples to test they then started selling their own credit card and ISP services, and advertising them in their magazine, and still claiming that they could be impartial when they reviewed such services!

Reply to
John Stumbles

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:18:38 +0100, John Stumbles wrote (in article ):

Liebherr.

I looked very carefully at all the things you describe and especially the construction quality of the interior and how the doors operate etc.

The exercise then is to choose the model you want and find the cheapest supplier. Like many manufacturers they ship directly from the distributor (Coolectric) who also provides service and spares.

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Reply to
Andy Hall

(I mean: are we talking MAN Micromat sort of prices? :-)

Reply to
John Stumbles

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:16:32 +0100, John Stumbles wrote (in article ):

Certainly not the cheapest brand John, but not such a big delta as the Micromat vs. others.

You would pay more for the stainless steel models, of course.

However, say you want a 200cm high model fitting a 60cm or so appliance footprint, in white.

Bosch has KGU35115GB at £500

Liebherr has CN3366-20 at £570

Both are energy rating A but Liebherr has a few more features and better build quality. These were prices picked from an online site - electricshop.com - which seemed reasonably priced and has easy comparisons.

There are A+ rated ones as well but these tend to be more expensive and/or have smaller freezer sections.

I bought one of Liebherr's upright freezers a couple of years ago and have been very pleased with it.

You probably wouldn't be disappointed with Bosch either.

It's probably worth calling a few bricks and mortar places (Comet, John Lewis

- Wycombe come to mind) and see what they have and go take a look at the internal designs and finish

Then look for the best price.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Don't forget to see if a minimum outside ambient temperature is specified. The freezer I bought last year specified 16degC - not very suitable for an unheated outside utility room (or even for our kitchen). Have a good look at the manual before buying.

Edgar

Reply to
Edgar Iredale

Gulp!

I was looking at Bosches around the £300 mark. The Liebherrs - superior product that they undoubtedly are - are a bit OTT pricewise for us in that context :-(

Reply to
John Stumbles

On Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:28:38 +0100, John Stumbles wrote (in article ):

OK.

Then the percentage does become a bit larger

170cm Bosch KGN33V00 £325

159cm Liebherr CU2721-20 £350

179cm Liebherr CU3021-20 £370

If you want to compare, the main factors are

- height

- proportion of freezer vs. fridge

- frost free or not.

You do have to watch that you are comparing apples with apples and the things you care about

Reply to
Andy Hall

Andy Hall wrote: Liebherr.

They make all of Miele's fridges and freezers btw, apparently, at least according to a Miele service man.

Reply to
Bolted

Liebherrs unfortunately have a range of wrong sizes for us: I butchered our kitchen units to fit the present one which is 170 high so we'd have to lose fridge space to accomodate their smaller one, or butcher the units some more in which case we'd probably go for a 200 or so, but then we're getting into very serious money for the f-f. Hmmm.

The Bosch ones we've been looking at are.

The more expensive Liebherrs also had separate cooling circuits for the fridge and freezer, which is obviously A Good Thing but AIUI not so critical for a CH indoor location.

Reply to
John Stumbles

A mystery solved! Looking at a Liebherr and Miele model side by side in John Lewis recently it was obvious that they had come from the same factory, but not which.

Reply to
DJC

On Sat, 22 Jul 2006 00:41:58 +0100, John Stumbles wrote (in article ):

OK, then I think that it pretty much makes the decision, doesn't it unless you want to look at products from the other side of the Alps.

Reply to
Andy Hall

I've just been through the same process.

After only a couple of years with a Indesit fridge freezer. I had to call out the repair man, who quoted me £130 for its repair. In asking him the question which are the most reliable.

He told me that he does not see any Bosch's at all of any type of domestic appliance.

So we bought a Bosch Fridge/Freezer KGU311 from Coop, a Bosch Dishwasher from Comet and a Bosch Washing Machine from Argos.

Because they were all offering the cheapest prices, on the internet.

We have had no problems with any of them.

Check out

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for problems.

Reply to
boyoboyo

SWMBO & I have just been down to look at ffs at COMEoffiT. We were disappointed to find flimsy perspex salad crispers and drawer shelves etc on Bosch and even Liebherrs. The best-engineered-looking were on a Hotpoint where they were made of a more resilient white plastic (PP?). The tinpot also had slightly better designed freezer drawers (with handles in the sides to lift them out with). The door-mounted bottle holders & stuff seemed much the same on all the makes so the boss may just have to give up trying to ram oversize bottles into them.

Anyone have any horror stories about Hotpoint? Otherwise looks like they'll be getting our money.

Also anyone know a source of bottle-racks that you can hang from under a fridge shelf? We[1] were very taken with those on some of the more upmarket models.

[1] that's the Royal 'we' i.e. her :-)
Reply to
John Stumbles

I've had a pair of Hotpoints for almost 9 years - an undercounter freezer and larder fridge - and so far, I've had no problems (hurriedly knocks wood).

Sheila

Reply to
S Viemeister

Our bosch has seperate circuits as well - it's a few years old now and I seem to recall it being something like a 50quid premium for the dual circuits.

Well, 50 quid and a bit less capacity obviously.

The OP may want to have a look at the JohnLewis own brand ones if he is on a budget. No experience but I think they are offering a longer warranty and the customer service from JL is normally pretty hot. I'd certainly consider one when ours is up for replacement.

Darren

Reply to
dmc

Dunno if they do a fridge freezer, but my Liebherr fridge is the dogs bollocks*..also excellent service.

*interestingly whilst browsing the web I came up with the following derivation.

"In the twenties certain toys and kits (Meccano in particular) came in 'box, standard, and 'box, deluxe' forms: These became corrupted into 'bog standard' and 'dogs bollocks' respectively"

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I thought all the Hotpoints had the metal bottle racks as standard - ours certainly does and it's nowt fancy. Could it be that the shop/display models were just missing them?

On thing I did like, which I'm sure is certainly not exlusive to the Hotpoints, is the deep doors (as in front-to-back) and large door compartments - 6 packs fit in no problem (as do filter jugs etc).

Mathew

Reply to
Mathew Newton

(If it was on the web it must be true ;-)

I can see the former but the latter's a bit harder to grasp. A jokey Spoonerism, perhaps?

Reply to
John Stumbles

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