First, I should say that I'm in Alaska and supply and service are limited. We don't get Liebherr, even though there is an assigned dealer in our area. I haven't determined for sure that Viking or Miele could be serviced in the area to which I'm moving, but I do think I can get service on SZ & GE and the other two are not yet ruled out. The reason I felt the SZ was overpriced is that of the four brands I looked at (Viking, Miele, GE Monogram and SZ) the SZ was the highest by about $2K. The GE was around $6K, the Miele and Viking were both in the $7-8K range, and the dealer said the SZ would run us about $10K. That seemed substantially more. I'll be dickering, obviously. Why am I still interested in it? I have had a 48" SZ for 16+ years and have had no problems with it except the water dispenser in the door, which I can understand. We have high-mineral water and no filter on the fridge. I think we could fix that if we wanted but it isn't a big deal to us. Beyond that, *zero* problems. The overall quality of SZs is good, IMO, based on the superficial things you look at like hinges, plastics, lighting, drawer glides. That being said, I realize, as antss said, that price doesn't guarantee reliability. I'm not eager to spend $10K, but price wouldn't stop me from getting the best product I can get. Yes, looks are important, but if the thing is obnoxiously noisy or can't hold the temp, or the electronics flake out, those are deal killers. So the most important thing is reliability. We owned a business until 2005 that sold copiers, and in that industry the dealer also services the product; therefore, we always knew the stats as to which ones had the best or worst reliability. We could quote customers on this, and even tell them info on different brands. Unfortunately, in the appliance industry there is a disconnect between sales and service, and no one keeps score in any objective way about reliability (number of calls on average per year, that kind of thing). Sub-Zero did have a company doing warranty repair in the area we're moving to, but the dealer didn't have enough service calls to merit continuing his certification so now the distributor is trying to get him to re-up. There could be two reasons for that: not enough units sold in the area or not very many service calls. No one is keeping score so I have no idea which it is. I'm quite service-oriented so this is dismaying. As you can see, I keep my appliances for a long time. I don't want to "marry a loser" if I can help it. The only alternative I can see is to ask all of you to give me the benefit of your personal experience. I'll know it's anecdotal but that's all we have. I tried to narrow it down to the specific model type, at least, so I won't get all the previous french-door problems that I've seen mentioned. Experience with the 30" might do just as well as they seem to be similar. Can anyone help?

On my end, I'm still happy with the purchase (especially in light of the cost savings), but I have experienced a few issues. 1. The seal (at the base of the freezer where ice tends to build up) has cracked slightly, so I have experienced a minor drip as well. But that is nothing that a little replacement putty can't fix. 2. The hinge on the refrigerator makes a click sound once you get past a certain point. It hasn't bothered me enough to call Marvel though. 3. I guess the last thing is the noise. The refrigerator was pretty quite the first several months... certainly quieter than the posts on Houzz make it out to be. But in the past few months it has started to get a little bit louder. It's not loud enough to be a nuisance when you're having a conversation in the kitchen, but it's a bit louder than it was out of the box. At the price I paid, I would also buy again. But if price were no object, I would probably go for one of the luxury brand names.

We weren't *going* to replace the fridge in the remodel, but then DH saw the Miele and all was lost. He gave up replacing his '97 Altima this year, and I gave up 12" of pantry. So far, he still thinks it was worth it. We opted for the 18" freezer + 30" fridge. Unless you have a *very* small family/don't shop much/only buy for parties, I'd be loathe to go smaller. We have a family of four and cook *a lot* - I felt like my old French Door was always crammed to bursting. It really feels different than a standard fridge - being shallow and wide makes a huge difference. I don't feel like I could cram as much in there, but I also don't feel like I have to - there's isn't any place for the old stuff to lurk, so it always gets thrown out. We're still working on layout, but with the CSA basket this summer, having one drawer for fruits and one for veg is working out really well - it all fits, even in massive quantities. (Of course this causes meat/deli/cheese to divide up between the shelf and drawer, but it still seems okay.) I also like that when winter hits, I can change one of the drawers to "meat" and condense my non-root veg and fruit down to one bin. It is *really* hard to lose something in the Miele, and given that I'm the condiment queen, that's saying something. (I'm one of those people that has soy sauce, fish sauce, and three kinds of mustard - the door trays are great for that.) The freezer definitely holds more than your standard side by side freezer, even with the ice maker. I think the weirdest thing is that the door bins are actually useful - the freezer is so cold that we can put gelato in the door and it's still hard as a rock when we take it out. Like the fridge, it's easy to be well organized and have high visibility. But there is no way you're going to fit a standard size cookie sheet in there - if that's crucial to you, keep looking. And if you're a big freezer user, you're going to want a something bigger than the 18" or a deep freeze. I have a small chest freezer, though I'm beginning to mock it for being so inferior. ;-) If I had the wall space, we would have opted for two 30" and I would have gotten rid of the chest freezer. I've always hated side by sides with a passion and never want one again. Luckily, the 18" x 30" layout doesn't feel like one - it feels like what it is: a giant refrigerator with a skinny freezer. So the layout is working for me, much to DH's delight - I fought long and hard against it, and just a couple months later, don't know if I could ever go back. It's just soooo good at keeping food fresh and keeping us organized. Last note - how tall are you? The Miele top shelf is pretty high - well out of my kids (and MIL's) reach. I've got long arms, so it doesn't bother me - I made it a shallow shelf and wedge cartons of eggs up there. But if reach is a problem, then a fridge with a lower reach might be better. We seriously considered the Miele French Door, but ultimately decided we needed just a little more room. I think if it had been just the two of us (or if we didn't entertain so much) it would have been fine. Good luck!

Gary's picture is a very helpful illustration. It shows raised panels that do not have that puffy look that I warned against. I totally disagree with LWO, which is very rare. It is a designer's job, and LWO is a professional designer as is the KD you're working with, to say these things, but it doesn't sound to me at all like you're planning an "upper end kitchen". It sounds like a very nice kitchen, but more value oriented than high end. I definitely agree with your reasoning that the choice of fridge should be based on your ideas of form and function. You like your choice of fridge. Choosing a different one to suit what the Jones are doing in the magazines or what designers think is the latest hot look will take away from the rational choice you've made for yourself. I went into my own kitchen remodel assuming I was getting SubZero, and preferring integrated, and still looked at freestanding fridges like the KA to compare them and see if I liked them better. I didn't. I liked Miele better, so went that. You sound like you've done enough shopping and know what you want. If the look of what you want bothered you, you would have worded your post differently. There is nothing wrong with having the edge of the fridge showing like Gary has--it's a very nice kitchen, but not designery and it wouldn't change the look if the fridge were integrated. There's nothing wrong with having the freestanding panelled fridge you're talking about, and putting nicely made panels on it, and having the sides show a little in the opening with a couple inches of air space. It's not built-in, but it's decorated to match the kitchen. It's not a high end, designery look, but it's perfectly fine. I find the comments otherwise to show more about the snobbery of the people writing them than the look itself. Matching things are out, right now. That's a big part of the problem. The people who want to be "in" decide that it's wrong to match if you can't make the match indistinguishable. It therefore must be integrated. Some people really make the match perfect, with faux drawer fronts and all so that you really can't tell where the fridge is. People aren't advocating that. I think if you can tell by the size and shape of the panels, it doesn't matter whether it's integrated, built-in but frame showing, or free-standing. It's still a fridge, and a fridge is a fridge, and what you want it to look like in it's fridgeness is entirely up to you. I also disagree about the death of the work triangle. I cook. I walk that triangle constantly. I have two fridges and two sinks, so there are different versions of the triangle which overlap, but I would never, ever, given a choice, remove the fridge from the main cooking area. People remodel their kitchens just to correct this problem. A big reason I planned a full remodel from the time I placed the offer to buy the house was the distance from the fridge to the stove. It was massively inconvenient even in an almost straight line. Moving the fridge out of the kitchen just so you won't have to look at it is something that people may do nowadays, but it is greatly impeding the function for cooking. People also buy vastly uncomfortable chairs because they look good, and then sit on the floor with pillows because they don't like sitting on the chairs. For some people looks is the most important thing of all. I've always admired the Duesenberg, one of the best and most beautiful cars ever made. They designed the works first, then designed the beautiful carriage to fit over them.