This article is the archived version of a report that appeared in the July 2009 Consumer Reports magazine.

When not to buy it

You need a new fridge. You want a side-by-side. You shop. You bang your head against the wall. Why? Because, although choice is good, 395 models’ worth of choice is just this side of ridiculous.

How can you possibly know by looking at a slew of products which ones will work well, which will let you down, and which will pose a safety risk? You depend on Consumer Reports to sort through all those models and give you our assessments.

For many years we've used the label Not Acceptable to alert readers to models with safety risks and Not Recommended for models with serious performance problems. But those distinctions are not as clear as they could be, so we're changing them.

Starting with this issue, you'll see new icons and designations:

Don't Buy: Safety Risk is our judgment that a product may be unsafe or dangerous to use, including those we believe could pose a health concern. A grill that presents a fire hazard or a supplement with potentially harmful ingredients would fit the bill. See Safety Alerts for examples of two elliptical exercise machines with this label.

Don't Buy: Performance Problem is our evaluation that a product doesn't work as intended or has other serious problems, perhaps because of a design defect, quality assurance concern, or other issue. A washer that puts schmutz on your clothes instead of removing it or multiple samples of a treadmill that, out of the box, have the same broken major part, are examples.

The advice and Ratings in Consumer Reports are designed to make it easier for you to choose the best and safest products. We're confident that these new tools will help you do just that.