It seems that folks with the counter depth, french door models seem to be having significant reliability issues (mostly with water and ice dispensers) - have any of you had these with the all fridge, all freezer models? How difficult is it to keep the stainless reasonably clean? I had my heart set on a fridge/freezer with custom panels but it's an area we are tring to save money in the kitchen (the Thermador would have been $9000 plus the custom panels, Subzero was over 12K plus the panels!). Finally - I'm having trouble figuring out the difference between the Electrolux and Electrolux Icon models, other than about $450! The sales people haven't been particularly helpful either, they are just reading off the same sheet I am. Thanks for any input!

rhome 410 -- thanks for your response and your kitchen looks fabulous! You have given me some hope that the ICONS may work for us too. In both cases (left of freezer and right of fridge) the "wall" is actually part of a cased opening, so our situation is somewhat similar to what you have with your freezer. But our "wall" is a bit deeper -- the plans call for these walls to extend about 17" beyond the face of the fridge/freezer. We could make the cased openings a little wider if we need to. Would you mind telling me the distance between the face of your freezer and the doorway that the freezer door opens into (you say it is "about a foot or more")? And I'm assuming you can get your freezer door open wide enough to remove bins for cleaning? You are correct that most other fridges/freezers would have the same problem, but I have found a set that would work for us and of course they cost a mint. The Sub Zero 700TR and 700 TF would require much less clearance, and they are also narrower (27" instead of 32") so I could bump the fridge to the left and freezer to the right without changing cased openings and have plenty of wall clearance. They are shallower too (24") which would be better for our layout. But for a $8,400 savings, I sure would like to make those ICONS work! The ICONS look great online and in your kitchen. My reservations were mostly based on my visit to our local dealer. The dealer was very unimpressive and could not even understand my question, much less answer it.

Price negotiations are variable. In this case I would deal only with the manager, in person, using cash and figure the price you want including tax to get the deal done. Go to him, ask him to work with you to get a deal done, point out the damage, finalize the warranty, make the offer and be ready to walk. In fact, taking a lap around the area to let him think about losing your sale can be the decider. It kind of restarts the process and almost requires him to modify his position.

Loves2cook4six, thanks for the link to the Frigidaire thread. BethandKevin, it sounds as though all versions of this pair are noisy. I don't think that A.C. Woods makes the Frigidaire pair. During a discussion of Frigidaire, an appliance salesman told me that Woods makes the Whirlpool. I would still love to hear from anyone with experience with the Whirlpool Sidekicks.