New freezer advice- what brand?

rosegold74 wrote:HI,

So other than Liebherr, is there anything recommended?
What about Electrolux or Beko- are these any good?

I would appreciate any advice!

Nothing comes anywhere near to Liebherr. Take a look at Miele as well whose products are produced by Liebherr.

Beko are okay, systems work well but the plastics are a bit on the thin side. Bosch is okay, a lot of there’s are made by Daewoo IIRC. Hotpoint are the biggest seller as they produce the largest range, on the whole not bad at all.

Don

There have been no issues with refrigeration just their washers and dryers.

Don

“I’ve had a Liebherr for 11 years, sadly its packed up and needs to be replaced.” Nothing comes anywhere near to Liebherr”. Hardly a glowing endorsement at 11 years old is it given their cost? My second hand, cost me nothing, LEC freezer is about 26 years old, known to have had 2 thermostats costing less than 12 quid each in my ownership. Dad`s freezer is a 42 year old second hand Indesit – I used to work for Indesit ( though that is certainly nothing to boast about! ) – on its 3rd generic el cheapo Ranco freezer thermostat until I found a better generic make to fit instead and so that makes 5 stats in total to date from memory.
Tip. In my view with refigeration products always avoid anything fitted with microproccessors and electronic sensors they all seem to be a pain in the arse and very expensive to repair for frankly very little gain or put it this way would you rather like a 1) 200 pcboard to fail on you or and 1 out of 3 sensors – Ahh but which one is it? or 2) a less than 20 quid electromechanical stat to fail. Even my brother can change 2) and even he`ll be the first to admit, as a pracatical fellow he`s fairly hopeless. You can also afford to keep a spare stat in stock ( as I do ), tying up 20 quid is more appealing than a 200 quid part isn`t it?

And I sympathize with her too! Simple answer is God only knows. Most if not all cheaper refigeration is chinese made and as far as I can tell so is the more expensive stuff too or if it isn`t the parent company could well be. I was going to say why not depending upon what is wrong with her current freezer is to get it fixed but we do not know any information because she does not say. It could be a disasterous compressor problem or a very expensive t/stat failure, a refrigerant leak, might not even know herself and so does not want to fall foul of a 60 quid rip off callout to find out for nothing….so I can`t blame her there! Who knows?
She could of course say sod it and buy a Bush,or a Fridgemaster ( the latter is def Chinese made part of Hisense Industries ) and in anycase so what if it is Chinese but you might hate their present politics or dodgy recent history** but that is none of her or my business in this context as we are only interested in 1) does it work well, 2) is the internal design ok, 3) can you get spare parts if you need them 4) is there any real back-up there at all should it turn to tears 5) are the spares going to do the usual Chinese thing and go obsolete just after the warranty expires OR indeed even before that and 6) who is in charge and calls the shots.
My conclusion would be to go for an Indesit but mostly based on a freebee 10 year parts warranty but she will HAVE TO CHECK that this is in fact the case as per the washing machines. That at least covers the compressor and presumably the wretched regassing plus they are fairly good, at least presently, as not making parts that suddenly disappear from the face of the earth the added advantage being if the stat did fail the local repair bod could change it if she did not have the confidence to attempt it herself for a reasonable fair fee so should work out cheaper than Indesits circ 115 labour charge for a “free” part.. She needs to check this, I haven`t. So to keep things as simple as possible she should buy a model that is as simple as possible with a fast freeze button and a straight forward t/stat – so not a frost free freezer with all the tech hassle they can cause and therefore without a pcb in site. ** and you can still say that of Germany from 80 years ago too something that I can never ever forgive them for which is why I never buy German goods in particular Bosch products – slave labour camp – but that does not stop me from making German friends in 2021.
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