Well, today I bought an Electrolux French door counter depth. I'll let you know how it performs... but that won't be in time for you. I'm just writing because I too was hesitating between the E-lux and the KitchenAid due to being leery of complaints I'd seen online about E-lux. I went and looked at both of them in person THREE TIMES, on top of obsessively researching them on the web, and here's what made the difference for me:

(1) The KA just seemed a little flimsier and less well designed inside--I didn't want to fight with those annoying produce drawers every day for the next X number of years.

(2) I found some complaints online about KA fridges that were as bad--though not as numerous--as the complaints about the Electroluxes. In other words, fridges that died right when the warranty expired; ice makers that suck; fridges that have had 3 service calls in as many months; fridges that can't hold their temperature below 40 degrees; and--this complaint was unique to KA--fridges whose doors get so hot in certain places that you can't touch them for more than a second and you worry they might cause a fire. There just is no such thing as a brand that is consistently reliable. Every brand has some problems.

(3) The store where I bought the Electrolux also sold KitchenAid, Viking, Whirlpool, GE, SubZero and JennAir, and we looked at and asked about all of them, so theoretically the salesman shouldn't have cared which brand I chose (though it's true that I don't know whether some of those brands give him a higher commission percentage... although either way a more expensive fridge, such as a Viking, should net him more). He had good and bad things to say about every brand, and he knew about the various issues I brought up (Viking reliability problems, E-lux temperature and ice maker problems, etc.), but he said the E-lux problems had finally been resolved about 3 months ago, and he also said that E-lux had been a lot easier for him to deal with when he called them complaining that his customers were having problems. "I might be on hold with KitchenAid for four hours, and then they're like 'Whaddaya want?!' whereas Electrolux is like 'What can we do for you?' and I got things resolved with them a lot faster and a lot easier. They would send out new boards, new ice makers, whatever, with no problem."

He was resolving things for his customers because this store is a little family-run appliance store that's been around for decades. Not a Lowe's/Best Buy type place. So basically his message about the E-lux was, "I'm pretty sure the problems you're worried about have been resolved, but if you have problems with this fridge, it'll be easier to resolve than it would be with a KitchenAid."

It is an unfortunate truth that there's no perfect refrigerator. There's not even a super-expensive fridge that I think is perfect but don't want to spend that much on. Subzero is famously less reliable than a lot of much less expensive fridges. If they were tanks, if they lasted 15-20 years without a hitch, I would've considered one much more seriously; I probably would've ended up with one, on the rationale that it's better to spend $6000 on a fridge that lasts 15 years than to go through the hassle of buying three or four $2500 fridges over that same period.

And there are complaints about everything. I mean, here are some about the Bosch model one step down from the one you're looking at:
http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/B22CS30SNS.html#BVRRWidgetID
It's the same as all the other complaints about all the other fridges: the ice maker sucks, the control board went on the fritz, yada yada.

I don't know why that is the unfortunate truth about fridges, but it is...

I can only say that, when we went shopping a year ago, we weren't impressed with the KA fridges we saw & we zeroed in on Electrolux. We gave the Bosch a skip as well - they just didn't have the E'lux's features. Besides, we were looking to also get a drawer fridge for the butler's pantry and E'lux had a matching one. We pulled the trigger on a CD French door unit with an ice dispenser: EW23BC71IS.

Fast forward a year and we now consider that fridge to be the biggest mistake we made and wish we had sprung the extra few thou for a true built in.

We've had 2 warranty calls on the Elux - the first dealing with their infamously unreliable icemaker and the second to replace the door gaskets (the technician suggests that they'll likely go again in the not-too-distant future - most certainly beyond the warranty period). In the first repair, the tech didn't protect our oak floor and we now have a gouge in the floor from the fridge's rollers - E'lux tells us to deal with the company they dispatched and that company is basically flipping us the bird.

The good? The features, looks, and temp consistency are exquisite.

I'll never buy or recommend E'lux ever again. Ever.

Ideagirl, I've done the same thing in my search for the perfect fridge.
Yesterday in my 3rd visit to a local store, I talked to a sales rep from Whirlpool.
I took the opportunity, LOL, to tell her how much I hated the pebbled sides and the color of the sides on their fridges. I also complained that many of the kitchenaides have gone to the cheaper , magnetic SS.

She said that business right now was just not good enough for them to make any changes to the sides of the fridges and that she thought we would see more and more of their fridges with the lower grade of stainless.

Unlike you, I have a working 7 year old white SxS Kitchenaide refrigerator and so I can take my time. Everyone is having a 10% off sale this weekend so I was feeling a little panic to make a decision this weekend.

When I looked at the Kitchenaide, it is pretty much the same fridge I have now. They haven't changed much in 7 years. My husband's reaction to the Kitchenaide( he is not into aesthetics), "you're going to spend over 2000 dollars for basically the same fridge because it is a few inches narrower and a different color?"

Anyway, this morning I'm thinking more clearly and so I've decided to just wait to see if the problems with the electrolux continue or if they really have been fixed. It seems they are always having appliance sales.

Capts, thanks for sharing you experience with the electrolux. I don't really have the option of a built in since we aren't remodelling.

And, I'm still interested in hearing other's experiences with these fridges.

Ironically, I was hoping to get one of the magnetic frigs a year ago because of my magnet collection and the way it makes it possible for us to find that piece of paper!

You can search via google the past threads regarding Eluxe frigs and find my story there. We have the Eluxe CD FD model that ends in 36. We purchased thru a smaller company which was helpful in dealing with Eluxe. I am glad to hear they are more cooperative because they weren't a year ago. I credit that to websites like gardenweb where complaints were posted in a civil manner.

We are now happy with our frig and do recommend buying one. I was not happy with how the KA models felt and looked inside. Eluxe was the only frig that we found back then that had the three drawers with no holes in the front thus making it easier to control the humidity in those drawers.

The only complaint I have with this frig is that you do have to be careful with what you place on the top shelves. This space is used by the shelves on the door when the door is closed. We have discovered that the alarm doesn't necessarily go off when the door isn't closed because of this space conflict either.

While it is true KA frigs haven't changed much, if you really like your current one, then you probably would be happy with a new KA. It hopefully would be more energy efficient tho.

Good Luck!

The Elux arrived today. It's super quiet--I wasn't sure it was even on. It only took about an hour for the fridge to reach 37 degrees (we put a thermometer on one of the shelves to keep track). So far so good!

The delivery guys were ridiculously careful and thorough. One of them lay on the kitchen floor with a special screwdriver while the other held the right-hand fridge door so that they could adjust it to be perfectly aligned with the left-hand door, and then they lay there adjusting the leveling feet. Gotta love those small, local shops.

I hope it will be trouble free for you.
Can you tell where on the web sites you found the kind of SS they use?
I haven't been able to find it on any of their websites.

I just googled around--searches like "kitchenaid refrigerator stainless magnet" (no quotes) and such. I used the name of the brand and once or twice the first few digits of the model number, and the words "magnet" and "stainless." It took a while but a good deal of stuff came up.

Ideagirl,

Thanks. I'll try that.