All fridges have some horror story reviews.

Through the door ice/water dispensers/makers are the most problematic components in a fridge.

Most people think that putting the ice maker in the fridge and not the freezer,like a through the door ice dispenser on a french door must, is a fundamental design flaw.

The most reliable french door,Liebherr, does not offer that option.It cost $5K.

If it were me and I had to spend $2.5k on a french door fridge with through the door ice/water dispenser I would through my lot with JD Power and get the Samsung.

It seems there are many reports of significant imrovements in customer service and parts distribution.

We are happy with our KitchenAid -- of course owned by Whirlpool. You can get them with ice & water in the door, but we chose internal water & ice in the freezer. I think I saw a GE recently that has water only in the door which doesn't compromise the refrigerator space as much & has the water more accessible.
Good luck with your decision.

The Samsung gets some very good reviews and is 20% off at Lowes until tomorrow. Add a 10% coupon and you're doing good.

I just got the Samsung FD CD fridge, a week ago or so now. 23 cu. ft. for a counter depth is the most cu. ft. you can get in a CD fridge and the layout and flexibility of the interior is outstanding. Granted it's only been a week but so far I am BLOWN AWAY by this fridge as are friends who have seen it. To be fair, I haven't hooked up the ice/water in door yet cause they don't come to do it till I think Tuesday but I did some pretty heavy research prior to choosing this model w/ regard to the ice/water in door. Most as you know have terrible reviews in this dept. but Samsung's reviews were much more positive in this regard - as well as in every other regard.

I'm one of the rare ones who wanted ice/water in door because my husband and I are trying to be healthier and drink more water but we only like it super cold. Our old fridge was the old fashioned kind w/ ice trays in the upper freezer and we never seemed to have enough ice and it was just a pain. Plus the house is old so we'd let the water run a while from the faucet just to clear the pipes out well just in case. It was all a hassle that I swear sometimes we didn't even bother. Now we'll have instant cold and filtered water at our fingertips (and extra ice in the freezer since we got the model #238 - only found at Lowe's - which offers ice in both door and freezer). I just hope the in-door feature doesn't break or that if it does, we get a good amount of years out of it beforehand. I got the 5 year warrantee - although Samsung seems to have a 5 year warrantee too but I just wanted extra coverage to play it safe. The filter needs to be changed only twice/year however if we get tired of it and stop using it I guess it has a cap so you don't need to use it - either that or you can purchase the optional cap separately (?).

Anyway, knock on wood big time. This was a big purchase for us. I'll let you know how well the in-door stuff works once it's hooked up. So far everything else is a dream. All the functions/features have been incredibly useful - even the ones we didn't think we'd need. And its looks are so impressive! :-p

Any feedback from Electolux CD FD owners?

I would never buy another FD refrig again. We purchased ours about 8 months ago. If you always put things away in the same place then you won't have to open both doors looking for them again. I only agreed with my husband to get the FD because it would increase the area between the kitchen island and the refrigerator. We bought an LG without the water/ice cube as I thought there would be too many repair issues with it. As it happened we had a lot of problems with the doors sticking. The service was excellent. The repairman came back about 3 times trying to fix it (adjusting doors, taking out foam insulation around doors) but there was a limited change. I was getting frustrated with it and he called his manager and they decided the last resort would be to change the doors. Well, that worked! He thought that sometimes on the assembly line they put too much insulation into the doors - I guess it's sprayed in or something and makes the door not fit properly. So I'm happy with LG and their service but would pass on another FD refrigerator - any brand.

Liebherr French door is great!

True cabinet not counterdepth refrigerator with stainless on sides too!

Electrolux owner here... tho ours does not have the water/ice in the door because we just didn't want to risk that problem.

Overall, we are happy with the frig. It is easy to find things and the deli drawer is wonderful for storing multiple baskets of berries from Farmer's markets. Trying to be better about organizing the freezer which is challenging but doable. Really like the little rack that is on the freezer door for placing those partial bags of frozen veggies/fruit so they don't become buried in the drawer.

Shows fingerprints but easy to clean up. Brightly lit inside and easy to find things in frig. So far, so good on keeping temperature etc.

Would do a cautious recommendation because of the problems we had with the first unit we tried of this model.

We do not have the ice maker on and thus can't comment on noise or issues related to those. Overall the frig is quiet, tho can hear the compressor unit working late at night when things are quieter, but still is quieter than our old frig.

electrolux 36" CD FD IQ tough I believe with no ice/water in door.

Electrolux owner, CD FD Wave Touch for about 8 months. LOVE this fridge. Have had no problem with it whatsoever. It does have ice and water thru the door because we use a lot of ice.

I am having a kitchenaid french door fridge delivered tomorrow. It has the ice/water in the door. Will let you know how I like it.

I've been using a 25 cu ft Samsung French door for over a year and it's the best refrigerator I've ever owned. The GE one is made by Samsung and they charge a few hundred dollars more.

Configuration is very flexible and temperature holding is to die for.

Need more space, Samsung makes a 29 cu ft 'thin-wall' that takes the same space as the 25 cu ft.

Kat

We also have the Samsung FD (not CD though) and continue to love it. No issues at all, but we also skipped the water/ice through the door. I bought a separate water cooler to keep my bottled water super cold and we just open the freezer to access ice (which we don't use more than a couple times/year).

29 cu ft. Samsung FD refrigerator. The newer ones are 28 cu ft with 2 pull out freezer drawers, unfortunately we couldn't wait since we needed it in April. I absolutely love our Samsung FD refrigerator. And I love the crushed ice option.

I have had my 29 cu ft Samsung with dual icemakers for over a year. It has been flawless. It has exceeded my expectations.

I just bought my Samsung french door 29' with duel icemaker and HATE IT. Lowes is coming back to get it(great customer service) but now I am looking again and have no idea of what to get. I thought the led lights were really cool at the store..until you put food in. Yuo can't see anything, they are just too dim. The exterior ice/water dispenser works great unless you have kids that cant reach up all the way so it defeats the pupose and it always has water marks there.Drives me crazy.Oh and the handles are curved out so it sticks out ALOT more than the other models which we never noticed in the showroom. Any other brands that are decent? My food will be homeless by the end of the wknd!

We have had an Amana FD SS fridge for almost 4 years. Got it because we were having a party with 100 guests and the old one's compressor went out a few days before. I had to take what was available for almost immediate delivery. If I had over-thought the purchase, I probably would not have gone with the Amana because I would have thought "cheap". It has been a great refrigerator. It holds large amounts of food, trays etc and has not been a problem at all. We opted not to go with ice and water in the door because we had nothing but problems with past icemakers in several different refrigerators over the past 30 years. It does have a filtered water dispenser but you have to open the door to access. The ice is not difficult to get to because the freezer is on the bottom and all you need to do is pull the door open and scoop. I do admit we do not have young children at home anymore.

Lenores, you took the words right out of my mouth! I've been researching fridges like crazy too, and am willing to shell out $2500.00 for one, but not when I read the reviews I'm reading! Was just telling my dh last night, "There doesn't seem to be a decent fridge out there right now. Ranges, yes, no problem, but all the fridges seem to be junk!"

I may wait a year to buy the fridge as I am hoping this is a passing phase in the industry. I'd hate to miss out on things being on the upswing in 2011.

The reviews of Electrolux & Frigidaire (same co.) are really, really bad. The best reviews I've seen are for Samsung and Kitchen Aid Architect II.

I want the least deep counter-depth French door I can find. Fridgidaire makes the least deep (most shallow?) fridge & it has a brushed stainless finish (much better for fingerprint prevention). These are attractive features to me, but it's a lousy machine, so I'm going to pass.

Samsung's counter-depth is wider, & it has the shiny surface. It's a very pretty fridge & a decent machine. If I had to buy one today because mine was on the fritz, I'd probably get the Samsung.

Lowes has a 20% off sale now on Samsung. We've had the dual ice maker refrigerator for almost a year now and we think it's great.

I'm also happy with my Samsung #238. I would say the SS finish looks good, and is relatively seldom messed up with fingerprints. Maybe just because its easy to touch just the handles when opening/closing/using the fridge.

As I mentioned in a separate thread, Samsung's "Energy Saver" feature has not worked for me, the two times I tried it (once a few days after the fridge was installed, and a second time just before leaving town for a few days -- so unused). Both times, condensation appeared in the vertical crack between the two main doors after a few days; it cleared up after Energy Saver was turned off.

Not sure if this is affected by seasonal variation in humidity, or what. It may be a concern to others, but I'm OK with it not working. Even with that feature turned off, this fridge is certainly more efficient than the 30+ year old Amana it replaced.

New Kitchenaid fridges are nice. The Jenn Air and Viking freestanding refrigerators are actually the exact same internals. Only the doors are changed.

I have a KitchenAid french door with ice/water in the door. I've had it for a little over a year and we love it.

Unlike the Samsung reported above, mine has been on the energy saver mode the whole time with no condensation at all.

This may not be very helpful to you, but we have an Electrolux French door standard depth 28 cu ft model with no ice/water in the door (we thought that was just more that could go wrong, so we opted not to get those features)we love it. i'ts fully wrapped stainless, and a lighter more silvery stainless color (201 stainless) model # EI28BS36IS1. we got it at lowes, during a 10% off sale, and Electrolux was running a 10% off promo where they send you a gift card for that amount. Lowes has a nice warranty that is a 4 yr after the manufacturers one expires, and it was only and extra $149. so far we are very happy, had it since april. good luck with your choice!

My Jennaire FD counter depth model with the Euro-style handles is nice. Under 19 cu ft of storage though. Got mine on Craig's list for less than half the cost new (6mos old). I would be disappointed if I had spent $2,500, since the drawers seem just as basic as any my last $400 Whirlpool. Black on the sides. IKEA appliances are made by Whirlpool Gold and they have some very affordable FD and counterdepth refridgerators, although I'm sure not as nice as the above mentioned models. Also, Consumer Reports had a kitchen issue in September.

What about Kenmore Elite? And which brands other than Samsung have dual ice makers? We want to buy from American company, so no Samsung.

We've had a Kenmore Elite for 5 years. I think it's made by LG. Flawless performance. It has it's pecularities...like having to push the doors shut as they won't automatically close, temp control buttons are too easy to mess up because they're right next to the water/ice buttoms (fridge/freezer temps). The tray in the left door is pretty useless. About the only thing that fits is a bottle of beer. I like the ice bin, although small, because it's easy to dump into the cooler or another freezer container. I also like the ease of configuring the shelves. If something really big needs to go in the fridge, it's so easy to adjust the shelves. That being said, DH hates it. He doesn't like the "drawer" freezer. Says everything is always at the bottom, and you have to dig around to find anything. He was adamant about not having a FD in the new house, so I compromised and let him get the 29 cu ft GE. We'll see!

I just had a Kitchenaid KFIS27CW installed yesterday. American company, great warranty, and it has an option for an ice maker for the bottom freezer. So far, so good....it cooled down quickly, and we loaded it this afternoon. It is quiet, you do hear the ice drop....right now I have the old Kitchenaid sitting next to the new KA, both are plugged in and running, and it sounds the same as it did with only one running. The old one qualifies for our power company to pick up and recycle the parts, and pay us $50.00, but the old frig has to be plugged in and cooling at the time of pick up to be eligible.
Look at KA

Th LG LFC25776ST has excellent reviews on AJ Madison. It's well below your budget (and mine, I'm in search of a fridge too).

Anyone have experiences to share re: their LG?

I have the Bosch French Door, bottom fridge. B26FT70SNS . Was about 2K. I love it!

I too have the same one as Joyce. Yes, it is made by LG. I have the same comments as Joyce plus I love the LED lights. I love the size of the crispers. Some other frigs had too large for my needs. I put a small wire basket in the freezer to help organize the freezer. I put all my veggies in the wire basket. I made three freezer into three sections so I have less digging. I used that small shelf under the ice maker in the frig for a can of cat food. It would hold a can of crescent rolls. I love the FD better than the SxS we had to finds items in the frig. We got it at the Sears Outlet store for 50% off retail.

It did very well with the power outage of 24 hours from the Good Friday tornado. The only thing that got a failing grade was the ice maker. Most of the ice melted inside the door comparement and it is not water tight. So keep that in mind during power outages. All the ice I put in the freezer ice bucket did not melt in the bottom drawer. Some of the ice cream was a little soft. But all and all it did very good.

Just want to weigh in. I have the KA counter depth French Door and I am ecstatic with it. It's NOT noisy. It holds everything my old standard depth held....and maybe more. I can see and reach everything with such ease. Love the layout of the bottom freezer interior. Very well designed. I couldn't be happier. I chose this one because I do not like the look of a water dispenser on the ouside of the door. This one has a dispenser inside.

lenores,
I can get you some technical data if you email me.

Wow; this is a lot of all-over-the-place info. Not sure how you'll sort through it. FWIW I am liking our new Samsung FD fridge - old new I guess; it's the 3-door, not 4-door one.

I noticed some reference to the energy-saver not working for someone. I'm pretty sure that's highly dependent on things like the configuration of your fridge in your kitchen and air flow around the fridge, plus stuff like ambient weather conditions - i.e., humidity and temperature -- all that stuff. So time of year can matter, presumably what you've got cooling in the fridge as well.

Point is, if it doesn't work well for one person, that doesn't, I don't think, necessarily bode ill for you; might depend. Moreover, if it didn't work well for you in, say, June, it might be fine in, say, October - I think you can try it again profitably.

At least that was my take on reading about it in the manual. Someone may know otherwise more specifically; happy to be corrected. But I think there's a possibility that it not working for, say, one poster's Samsung might not mean that it's faulty on all Samsungs always. Or that Samsungs are worse than, say, LG's or whatever.

Anyway, I'm loving my fridge - it has a little less interior space than my old (a Kenmore), but it's more efficiently available, or something - anyway it feels like there's more. And I love the layout of the freezer with its compartments and drawers and shelf. I noticed someone explicitly *didn't* like this -- so again, not sure how you'll sort through all this competing opinion. Somehow you've just got to figure out how *you* use the space and whether it will work for you. That's a bit of a guessing game I think.

Let me note that my kitchen is setup with a landing space *behind* me. That works very well for me. With the FD fridge, both side of the fridge are eclipsed in terms of finding a good landing zone - that can be problematic! Depends on your habits and likes of course, but I would be a lot less happy with things if I could not unload to the back of me. Also, my fridge is against a wall so if the right counter is stoppered up by the open right door there's no landing zone to the left as an alternative. If your fridge were in the middle of a run with two available landing pads on each side, this might mitigate the need for one in back of you.

I currently own a KitchenAid counter depth side-by-side (KSCS25FS) in Bisque that I purchased in 2006, and want to replace it with a Stainless French Door. I've researched on-line, and no one makes a large capacity french door that is also counter depth (why?), and that is 72" tall like my current unit. They are only 68-70" tall and only 20-21 cu/ft capacity. So if I go with a standard depth, it's still the same height, but would stick out about 6" more. So I'm not sure what to do.

Does anyone own one of these, and if so, how do you like it?

LG:
LFX31925ST (standard depth)
LMX25986ST (standard depth)
LSFS213ST (counter depth)

KitchenAid:
KFIS27CX (standard depth)
KFIS20XV (counter depth)

Samsung:
RF4289HARS -or- RF4287 (standard depth)
RFG297HD (standard depth)
RFG237AA (counter depth)

fauguy,
I can get you some technical data on the KFIS27 and 20 if you email me.

I have a RFG297AAPN -- does RFG297HD mean it's from Home Depot?

I like the fridge, as outlined above. It's deep. The specs are online.

aliris19,

All those model number are what's listed on the AJ Madison web site, which sells pretty much every brand.

I am trying to decide between an Electrolux ICON and a KitchenAid Architect II counter depth. I was amazed at the quality of the Electrolux I saw--the shelves felt much more solid, the glass was sturdy and the drawers slid on strong metal slides. The lighting was amazing. All of the other brands seem like cheap and flimsy plastic through and through. I know Electrolux had major icemaker problems which I was told have been fixed, so the models made in the past year should be fine. Anyone own a newer (1 year old or less) Electrolux? Is it too big of a risk given the previous problems? Although I love it's look and feel, I had a terrible GE for 8 years and don't want to repeat that experience. Thanks for any advice!

fauguy -- sorry. It's the Samsung. We're now, hmmm..., approx 12 months from installation and counting. No problems yet. I know that could change, but so far I continue to love this fridge (and I can be a fairly hard-to-please consumer). So high positives, and low negatives, as it were. Just my 0.02.

BTW, those are the model numbers I read off the inside of the Samsung door. They may also be listed at AJMadison, but they're not store-specific, they're fridge-specific. I think the letter sufix like "AAPN" or "HD" probably refers to the store doing the marketing -- I bought mine at Sears. I think the refrigerator is a "Samsung RFG297"

I have a Samsung RFG238 French Door CD refrigerator purchased in Sept 2010 from Lowes. It has been flawless until about a month ago that the bottom ice maker in the freezer stopped making ice. Tried to fix it myself but to no avail. Called Lowes to set up a repair tomorrow. Will let you know what happens.

We have owned our Samsung for about 2 years now and really like it. We got the model with the snack drawer in the middle. Purchased at Lowe's. No problems yet!

The Lowe's contracted repair guy just left (see my post above).

Results: the ice maker in the bottom freezer is not producing ice because the main circuit board and assemblies are broken, possibly due to power shortage.

$538! Ouch....

We have LG FD CD fridge, model LG LFC21776ST. Note that this does NOT have ice/water through the door, a specific requirement of mine. It has an icemaker in the bottom freezer which (touch wood) works perfectly.

We were limited to this size because of the cabinetry in our kitchen. I originally thought the fridge was way too small, but so far I'm very happy. It's superquiet and efficient, everything is in sight, the lighting, drawers and shelf arrangements work well for us.

When it was delivered DH was concerned that it was taking so long to get the temperature down so we called LG's customer service. They had a repairman at our house within a day. He told us everything was operating normally, and the fridge was slow because it's a high-efficiency appliance. Other than this, we have no complaints in about 10 months of use.

Cheryl

I have the Samsung French and love it ...Had it about eight months now with zero issues ...I cant understand those that are having issues with the amount of light ,,,Why I love it ...It so bright , literally makes me feel good looking inside it ...

i like my KA KFCP22EXM.plenty of fridge room, a bit small on freezer space, but with a overflow fridge/freezer in basement, it's a non issue.

I have an Electrolux FD SS ref. 5 yrs old. Water and ice thru door. Love the refrigerator, the ice maker has been nothing but trouble! We've had 6 service calls since March and they have finally agreed to replace the fridge . Thank goodness for the extended service agreement.