Most and Least Reliable Refrigerator Brands
Consumer Reports' latest survey results can help you avoid aggravating repairs
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It takes four weeks in Consumer Reports’ temperature-controlled test chamber to collect all the temperature data that goes into scoring each fridge in our refrigerator ratings. And that’s not counting our evaluations for storage capacity, energy efficiency, ease of use, and more.
But testing a refrigerator for one month is a far cry from relying on one for 10 years, the median expected life span for a newly purchased refrigerator, according to CR member surveys. If you’re in the market for a new refrigerator, you want it to last for years to come—and you want to be happy with your purchase.
“These are the reasons we incorporate reliability and satisfaction data from our annual surveys directly into our Overall Scores for refrigerators,” says Simon Slater, CR’s associate director of survey research.
As part of our annual member surveys, we asked CR members about more than 125,000 refrigerators (all with icemakers) they’d purchased new between 2011 and 2021. The results are the basis for CR’s predicted reliability and owner satisfaction ratings in our refrigerator ratings charts. They’re grouped by refrigerator type—top-freezers, bottom-freezers, French-doors, side-by-sides, and built-ins. The brands in the survey include Frigidaire, GE, Kenmore, KitchenAid, LG, Maytag, Samsung, Whirlpool, and others.
Top-Freezers
Short on style and features, this traditional configuration offers the best value. Only 6 percent of refrigerators in CR’s survey are top-freezers.