Fridge Freezer Buying Tips

Living_proof

I would be glad of recent advice as to reliability and after sales experience you may have had. I am looking for a 70/30 fridge freezer and prices range from under £300 to £2500. I am replacing a 12-year old Bosch which is no longer frost-free. Some of the cheaper brands have shockingly awful one-star reviews on Trustpilot and so close to Black Friday the situation is rather muddied with false reductions and traders trying to clear dodgy or unreliable stock. 

I would be grateful for any help or advice particularly from anybody who works with electricals - it is really difficult to imagine the build quality from an internet search!

AskAsk

there are reliable brands.  have you seen any that you liked?

EssexExile

Liebherr is the bee's knees for refrigeration. Most refrigeration is pretty reliable though, you'll get horror stories for every make.

floppydisk1

If you can afford it, buy Liebherr, ( Miele is the same , made by Liebherr but more expensive) everything else in domestic market is way bellow in terms of engineering and material quality. Ignore all " added value " wifi, tablet, all that stuff. fridge/freezer has to do one thing and one thing only - keeps  food cold/frozen. Better spend money on well made basic machine than cheap plastic s**te with fancy bells and whistles. Liebherr is also one of few brands that keep freezer cold for best part of 24 hrs in case of electric outage ( so it it does brake down, you don't have to throw everything out in couple of hours ) 

[Deleted User]

Ikea sell a fridge freezer for £250 called Lagon, it's not frost free but this makes it more reliable IMO. It has a 92L freezer and 192L fridge so is nicely proportioned. You'll be hard pressed to find anything better for the money.

MrsStepford

I love John Lewis own brand, really reliable. 

Living_proof

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I had to order one yesterday in the end so that it would be delivered when there will be some strong-arm help around and I decided on another Bosch, which at £613 is a good middle-of-the road buy. The previous one lasted 12 years and two moves, which is more than some I have had in the past. I decided against the 'smart' models which are £2K plus, so something for the future!

RelievedSheff

We have a Samsung American style fridge freezer and while it is very energy efficient (far more so than our previous Hotpoint fridge freezer) it is very noisy.

I'm not sure we would get another one after this one to be honest.

Tippytoes

One of the things I would consider is how many drawers are in the freezer compartment.  My old one had three, one of which was impossibly too heavy to remove when full.  This meant leaving the freezer door open whilst hunting for foods, only for the alarm to go off as the temperature was rising.  For this reason, I would always choose  a fridge freezer which has four drawers.

bob_a_builder

Too late now for the OP , but ....

I too have a Bosch Frost free Fridge / Freezer which has stopped being Frost free  twice in 20 years 
it can be fixed by removing the rear cover inside the freezer section and cleaning out the ice from there 
worked for me both times

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWMvuPMr_fw&ab_channel=RepairDIY

Frank99

I am yet to get a frost free but my Indesit is still going and i still have the receipt of purchase from Comet in 1988 lol!