A real pain in the Ice.

January 5, 2018 8:01 AM

Mrs. Pjern and I don't agree on some things, but on this one occasion... We have had our current side-by-side Frigidaire refrigerator for 14 years, and in all that time the icemaker has been a royal pain in the ass. We're thinking of switching brands, but we never want to screw around with a broken icemaker ever again. Your experiences with other brands or models would help provide some useful input.
posted by pjern to Home & Garden (17 answers total)

Have had many kinds of fridges, and ice maker has always been pretty reliable. Water/ice dispensers are where most modern models are likely to break down, though, so you may be on a fruitless quest.
posted by acm at 8:26 AM on January 5, 2018

I sympathize as our KitchenAid (apparently Frigidaire "guts") had a flaky icemaker that we replaced with mixed results. But I love the design with a bottom pull-out freezer and fridge above with double doors, so you might look into models with a similar design.
posted by exogenous at 8:26 AM on January 5, 2018

We had a Whirlpool fridge for 15 years, and it came with the house when we bought it 15 years ago, so Lord knows how old it actually was.

The icemaker worked like a dream, and when the fridge finally gave up the ghost last year we would have gladly gotten another Whirlpool, except that we have a vintage kitchen, and they don't make Whirlpool fridges in the dimensions that we would have needed in order to fit in the same space.
posted by Hanuman1960 at 8:27 AM on January 5, 2018

When we bought our house it had a pretty-recent Samsung fridge side-by-side with a built in ice maker and water through the door. The flap that allows the ice through broke within a month (after not closing properly and allowing cold air out), and in order to fix it the entire front assembly has to be taken out.

In other words, I wouldn't recommend a Samsung at all.
posted by hijinx at 8:49 AM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

We have a side by side LG (much older version of this) that has put up with some fairly serious abuse and the ice maker has been 100% fine except on super humid days when a lot of opening and closing the door got the ice stuck together (easily fixed). Highly recommended.
posted by jessamyn at 8:54 AM on January 5, 2018

I bought a refrigerator with an ice maker, not a through door one.

The ice maker took up too much space in the freezer so I removed it. It was held in with 3 screws.

I use one ice tray in the winter, four in the summer.
posted by bdc34 at 9:14 AM on January 5, 2018 [4 favorites]

Our first side-by-side in-door ice maker fridge was an Amana that lasted 17 years. We did replace parts in the ice maker once, but only after the fridge had been moved and put in storage for two years when we were overseas. Now we have a 3 year old Frigidaire. So far, so good, but it's just not the old Amana.
posted by BlueHorse at 9:22 AM on January 5, 2018

We just got rid of a 20 year old Kenmore fridge that still had a working ice maker on the front. It was the side by side type and switched to a GE with the fridge on the bottom and I could not be more thrilled with extra space in the fridge part.
posted by MadMadam at 9:41 AM on January 5, 2018

I love our Bosch refrigerator! No problems whatsoever. Fits so much stuff thanks to the French door and have not once had an issue with the ice maker. It's so, so good.
posted by ancient star at 9:59 AM on January 5, 2018

I'm seconding ice trays. Take stock of how much ice you actually use before going with an icemaker.
posted by beagle at 10:14 AM on January 5, 2018 [2 favorites]

I have a ge fridge with a built in icemaker- it crapped out after 5 years, and the build quality in general has been disappointing.

Fwiw, you can order a replacement icemaker for most refrigerators from amazon, and it’s a pretty easy installation- took me 30 minutes at most.
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:34 AM on January 5, 2018

We have an LG French door fridge with freezer on the bottom - about 10 years old now and no problems with the ice maker. However, we don't have an ice / water dispenser in the door. Not sure if that makes a difference.
posted by Mchelly at 10:55 AM on January 5, 2018

We bought a fancy Samsung fridge. The ice maker/dispenser has always worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, the rest of the fridge is junk. Don’t buy Samsung.
posted by OmieWise at 6:59 PM on January 5, 2018

Another no vote for Kitchenaid.
posted by raisingsand at 6:50 AM on January 6, 2018

More anecdata: our ten year old Frigidaire's ice maker is total dogshit. Our house came with all Frigidaire appliances and I'll never buy another one as long as I live, they've been universally awful.
posted by saladin at 10:00 AM on January 6, 2018

Our house had a Maytag when we bought it, and it’s still going strong 8 years later. The ice maker does take up a lot of space, though.

There’s a Kitchenaid in the break room at work, and it is a worthless piece of junk. The ice maker *always* drops a couple of cubes on the floor whenever it is used, and the water filter clogs up within days of a filter change.
posted by monotreme at 11:30 AM on January 6, 2018

Seconding the NEVER BUY SAMSUNG comment. Total POS. Icemaker broke 2 years in, control panel in a death spiral shortly after. Dishwasher worthless too. Good phones, bad appliances!
posted by SinAesthetic at 7:17 PM on January 7, 2018