Refrigerators: how to read one before you pay for it

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Seven refrigerator badges in one American aisle are owned by three companies, and a seventh is a name that hires a factory. A full-size refrigerator is not something we can honestly link you to, so this page does not try: it gives you the model-number codes, the ownership map and the three questions to ask in the shop, which is what actually decides whether the machine lasts.

Who owns the badge

Seven names in one aisle, three owners and one builder. None of this is printed on the door, and all of it is in the sources below.

• Whirlpool — KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, JennAir — Four badges, one owner in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Maytag arrived in 2006, carrying Amana (2001) and JennAir (1982) with it.
• Electrolux — Frigidaire, Frigidaire Gallery, Frigidaire Professional — Gallery and Professional are tiers of the same brand, not rivals. Electrolux also owns Tappan, Kelvinator and Gibson.
• Haier — GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Hotpoint — General Electric completed the sale of GE Appliances to Qingdao Haier on 6 June 2016 for $5.6 billion. The name, the badges and the Louisville headquarters all stayed.
• LG — LG, and the Kenmore Elite machines with a 795 prefix — LG does not own Kenmore. It is the plant behind those units, which is a different relationship — and it decided who was covered when a compressor settlement came.
• Sub-Zero — the exception we can prove — Built in Madison, Wisconsin, by a company in the same family since 1945, around two separate compressors, one per compartment. We found no document saying it makes the compressor itself, so we do not say it.

What to check before you pay

Three questions, in this order. They cost nothing and they are the whole difference between a ten-year machine and a five-year one.

• 1. Read the model number, not the badge — On the serial plate: inside the door or behind the kick panel. The first three digits name the company that built the machine.
• 2. Ask whether the compressor is a catalogue part, and who services it locally — Ask it out loud, in the shop, before you pay. A local repair shop answers it in about thirty seconds.
• 3. Read the warranty on the sealed system, not the headline years — The compressor is the expensive failure, and on most machines the labour costs more than the part.

Read the model number: the first three digits

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