I'm sorry you had such a bad experience--it's obvious you are very upset & frustrated, but you can't really judge all Monogram products based on your refrigerator experience. It is well known on these forums that GE refrigerators tend to be unreliable and the overwhelming advice is to go with another brand. Your refrigerator experience including dealing with the service tech (are they employees of GE or a local appliance repair place?) has nothing to do with how Monogram performs when it comes to other appliances/other appliance repair companies & techs. I hope your refrigerator issues are repaired soon :-)

They also don't pay federal taxes.

But I've had good luck with my GE appliances, both entry level and Monogram. Sounds like the service department is pretty bad, though!

These were actual employees of GE, and I agree can't rate all GE appliances, it is more the customer service experience that I am totally irritated at.

They don't pay Federal taxes?????
That's good nuff for me, I gonna fill my whole kitchen with GE appliances, now what do I do with my Elux, Jenn-air and Miele appliances??? which, by the way, have been trouble free over 5 years now.

Gary

Several of us on GW have had deplorable experiences with GE monogram ovens. We will not by anything GE makes because they do not stand behind their products.

I will not buy Ge because Of a Profile washer I bought in 1998 from monkey wards. the washer went out after about 5 years. repair tech told me it is very common for transmission issues with GE and it should be covered for ten years. I called GE sure was under warranty, parts only and they would not send it my repair guy they had to have their man put it in. the cost $350 labor for a washer that was $360 on sale deal. to me that was over charging to repair poor product which is not standing behind what you sell, its stiffing the customer.

It's too late for you but I also soured on GE after our 5-year old fridge bit the dust; the repair (independent) man said there was nothing else he could do. So sorry for your problems and I hear your frustration!

Finally my refrigerator is repaired. What a mess, had to have an appliance moving company come out to remove the built-in so they could get to a part.

ANYWAY, the repairman told me that they have been told that appliances are no longer considered a large profit center for GE so they would rather make money servicing poor quality. He also said that when lower end GE appliances fail, they quote high repair prices in hopes that the consumer will just buy another.

They see the lower end of the market as disposable.

Glad to hear they got you fixed up. GE is a company a few independent dealers in my area will not sell and prefer not to fix. One told me that has been open for generations that his Dad claimed they were built of parts sourced all from the cheapest places and put together. I also believe what you were told timwalker69.

GE maybe should stick to jet engines, turbines, and medical equipment.

FWIW - they have been trying to sell their appliance operation for years now.

No one really wants it , especially at the asking price.

My immediate family has had good luck with the few piece of theirs that they have. Rangetop and a 36" built in fridge + single oven. They are sort of a trial run/guinea pig for me. The fridge is serviceable but the freezer stores less than a comparable SubZero or Miele . The overall quality of it has gone down in the last decade. They used to be a good value compared to the comp. It is still pretty good, but no where near that of the two mentioned above, or Thermador for that matter.

The rangetop has been just fine, though the burners are not as controlable in the midranges. It's great at full blast or low low simmer.

Just a piece of advice - SCHEDULE THE FIRST CALL OF THE DAY ! That way you don't get bumped because things took longer than anticipated.

I've have very good luck with GE appliances. Most recently installed were profile and cafe appliances at a summer condo two years ago, no issues to date. So, we are now remodeling our main home and are thinking Monogram, Thermador, or JA. I like the sales person that I've been working with. He's been good not to push me one way or the other (I've been watching for that). So, I mentioned to him about my concerns with Monogram fridge reliability and he wasn't buying it. I cook with mostly veggies, when I asked him which fridge (Monogram, Thermador, JA) would be best for storing my veggies, he said Monogram. Now, this is one person's opinion. There are also quite a few opposing opinions on this forum. It makes my head spin trying to decide.

If I recall correctly, Consumer Reports seems to rate GE highly.

I seen on ranges at home Depot the sales materials claim GE in the lowest in repairs. that was on ranges I did not see the same junk stuck on Fridges

Friends don't let friends buy GE.

Tim might not be able to judge based on his experience with a single appliance, so I'll be more than happy to do it for him.

How about over 1 million of them? Or the 304 _different models_ cited in multiple lawsuits (and at least one class action I'm aware of) against GE due to their poorly-designed and unreliable refrigerators.

Or how about personal experience? I have 2 different friends with GE kitchens. Both have had more than 1 appliance needing repair.

The first: ~2005 vintage all-GE kitchen, all GE Profile.
Fridge:
2010
- Replaced Defrost Heater ($50)
- Replaced ice dispenser auger motor ($30)
2011
- Icemaker jams. Found plastic guide of icemaker had broken. This part not sold separately, needs a new icemaker ($148). Did not repair - decided to put money towards replacing fridge.
- Crushed / Cubed solenoid non-functional. Needs new solenoid. ($56) Didn't bother to repair.
2012
- Wide variation in temperature + evaporator fan howling + frost all over the inside of the freezer (but evaporator defrosts fine). Needs a new motherboard. ($100) Scrapped fridge.

So... a $800 fridge needs nearly $400 in parts to keep it going?? Add in labor for each service call it would have been and the repairs easily exceed the cost of a new fridge.

Dishwasher: Pump died. ($160). Scrapped dishwasher.

The second: ~2004 vintage all GE Monogram appliances.
Fridge: Compressor motor is loose inside the hermetically sealed housing. Loud clunk whenever it kicks on/off. Also has a slow refrigerant leak somewhere. ($600). Decided not to repair, will buy a non-GE fridge when it dies.

Cooktop: Fully functional

Downdraft exhaust: Lifter arm broken. Part in and of itself is almost as much as a new downdraft vent. ($221)

Dishwasher: Pump & door seals leak. (~$250)

Advantium Oven: Halogen/Quartz bulbs not working. New bulbs tried but the sockets are burnt. Microwave works for now, but they'll be replacing this with a non-GE appliance at some point.

I had one appliance salesman try to sell me GE again... Didn't go well. He tried to convince me that the problems were with "builder grade" appliances. Monogram's builder-grade? They certainly don't charge builder-grade prices for GE Monogram products. Then again, maybe he was right -- the only people I've seen push Monogram as a quality product are builders.

First of all, when my GE Monogram is working it is great, but when you pay almost $7000 for a product you would expect it to last longer than 3 1/2 years before requiring service.

Second, it now scares the bejeeves out of me to think they also make jet engines. Maybe the profit margin is higer for that product line.

Consumer Reports does not rate GE highly, just to refute prior statement. GE is at the bottom of the list for reliability for fridges and on the bar chart, it is significantly out there compared to other brands. There are also no check marks to recommend any of the models.
I have a GE fridge with freezer on the bottom. I've had to take the floor off a couple of times to unfreeze the fan that froze in the water that froze due to a draining problem caused by crumbs falling into the vent (one mustn't ever, ever spill anything...). I am pretty much a vegetarian and so have lots of veggies. They always freeze in the vegetable compartments. I am just waiting for the next time the fridge section seizes up and stops working so that I can replace this thing.
I would never buy another GE appliance. A repairman I had for my oven told me to stay away from them and stick to Whirlpool products.

antss -- good suggestion! I know to do this with MD appts; never occurred to me to request it for appliance repairmen. !

FWIW - the Monogram built-ins are made by an entirely different division from the "regular" GE fridges.

Mantiwoc is the firm that makes those built-ins and they were purchased by GE's Monogram division 7-8 years ago. Those units are better than the vanilla GE fridges you get at the Depot on Sears, but have still been value engineered downwards by the suits in order to pay for the acquisition.

It seems to me that most appliance brands these days are unreliable, especially refrigerators. This is why we keep a Sears Master Protection Agreement in force on the GE appliances in our rental house and a service agreement with the local appliance store on those in our own home. Unfortunately, the appliances industry has gone to h3ll in the last 10-15 years. Notable exception being Speed Queen for W/Ds, they still have a 3 year warranty. We consider a service agreement to just be part of owning modern appliances, it's a real shame.

We also had problems with our GE products at our previous house. I believe those were of the Profile line. However in our new to us house the cooking products are Wolf and the fridge and dishwasher are Monogram and WE LOVE THE MONOGRAM DISHWASHER!!! It is our favorite thing in the kitchen. The refrigerator is beautiful to look at but not what we would have bought had it not already been there.

musings:

In the 70's my parents bought an Amana side x side for temp. use. If I recall correctly, it was around $1500 which was a fair amount of money back then.

People generally regarded them (and their fridges) during that period to be high quality and made "like they used to make em" .

Fast forward to today. SxSides can still be had for about $1500. Factoring for inflation they should cost many times that. Yet, people still wonder why/how these things are made so poorly.

My sister's suite of GE Profile appliances are a mixed bag. Her 30" cooktop performs well enough but is difficult to keep clean. Baked on stuff that adheres to the burner bodies is pretty much there for life, I think. The "pan" of the unit must be scrubbed but if you get ANY water on the ignitors they quit working for one day. All of the burners are different BTU rated, with one smaller simmer burner, two that are mid-range, and one bigger burner in the right front that gets the most use. It cooks fine but is nowhere near as solid or capable as my Bluestar. Yes, I am spoiled.

Her refrigerator is a Profile SXS with water and ice through the door. The dispenser is too small for large tumblers, and you have to push a membrane switch to toggle between ice and water, meaning it takes two hands to operate. (Our LG has a far superior dispensing system.) No complaints about her fridge performance though. It is almost 5 years old and is going strong.

Her GE Profile dishwasher is crap. Period. While it looks like a well-built unit with a stainless interior, it simply does not have it where it counts.

The thing does NOT have adequate spray pressure to knock out heavy soiling and baked-on remains. I thought at first, after seeing the poor performance of the unit, that one of the spray arms might be blocked, so I pulled the bottom and upper rack arms off to clean them. I found out that you need a quarter-inch nut driver to pull the top rack arm, and it is a real pain to remove. Once you get them apart, you find that the nice big bottom arm is totally PHONY. It looks big from the top, but pull it off and you find that the actual water channel is formed by a shallow trough molded down the center of the underside of the arm. This trough is sealed by a strip of tin hot-glued in place. You don't have to worry about stuff blocking the arm. It is so shallow and low-volume that you probably couldn't fit anything in to it to block it if you tried. The wash arms on the GE Profile are incapable of pumping large amounts of water at high pressure. They are cheap and obviously designed to suit the capabilities of an inferior pump.

My mid-range Bosch will literally clean circles around the piece of junk GE. I am going to try to find her a nice Bosch or Miele and we will take that POS GE out in the desert and use it for target practice.

Mojavean,

Thanks for the explanation for the underperforming wash on the GE. I also have a Monogram, and I find it adequate, except for the heavy baked on stuff and little bits of clinging leaves, i.e., things that need some power. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of those quiet before function design choices. I did some tests with different detergents. Give your sister the Finish Quantum Powerball tablets recommended on this forum. They don't have it where I shop, and Method or 7th G. works fine if I'm not too demanding, but the Finish does seem to make up for some of the inadequacies of my machine.

With your sister's ignitors, try lighting the burners manually and run them for a few minutes on high - that should dry them off quicker than waiting a day.

From your lips to God's ears, plllog. She was using Cascade liquid when we invaded (my wife and I are on a contract a few miles from where she lives and are renting space from her for the duration -- we are down there around 3 days a week.) Anyway, at her urging and with her blessing, I took over dishwashing chores and do much of the cooking. One of the first things I did was buy her some Finish Quantum tabs. While they have helped somewhat, the cooked-on leavings and miscellaneous chunks left over after a cycle simply are not satisfactory to me.

Her machine is quiet, I'll give it that. If they would put a stronger pump and capable spray arms in the thing it would probably be a decent performer. The heater and water temp in the machine are great. The controls are straight-forward, the racks and stowage are fair to middlin', but the spray won't pry baked-on debris off. Too bad.

I hope your Monogram works better. But if not, at least we all know what to do about it here at the appliances forum.

I tried it, weissman. No workie. The ignitors, if you get them wet, allow water down to the underside of the pan. Once it gets down there, you can either have to cook something for a long time or let it sit overnight. It is not really a big deal for me, I just keep the water away from the ignitors when I clean it.

You guys are lucky, over hear in the London Uk you would be lucky to find someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to ge refrigerators because ge have pulled out of the uk market. For the last few years i have had nothing but trouble with our fridge different engineers telling me all kinds of crap favourite one is gas was at my wits end before ge put us on to a service company agsrefrigeration.co.uk who came and fix the problem. Have to say nice fridges to look at but crap when it comes to service

We bought a house on the Big Island in Hawaii that had a full suite of built-in Monogram appliances in place (huge side-by-side fridge, convection wall oven, Advantium oven/microwave, dishwasher and ceramic cooktop). Every one of the above listed items has broken down at least once and the fridge has conked out THREE times. Each breakdown has taken at least three weeks lag time to resolve the problem. The latest is the cooktop that decided to stop working a mere week before a trans-oceanic and trans-continental relocation. Thank goodness our real estate agent has offered to deal with it for us.

We've been living in paradise and Monogram has taken the joy out of living here. It's hard to relax when you're thinking "What next" all the time.

Do yourself a favor and avoid Monogram products like the plague.

Just a follow-up re: Monogram side-by-side built-in fridge.

While waiting for the repairman, (who didn't show) the freezer side went to a dangerous -10 degrees with the fresh food side hovering at about +50 degrees. On his last visit, the techie mentioned ice build-up in the little tunnel between the freezer and the fresh food sides. In desperation, I went out and bought an $11.00 Con-Air hair dryer. I removed the ice bin and setting the hair dryer on low heat, sent warm air through both the grilled port on the back wall of the freezer and through another opening at the top of the wall between the freezer and the fresh food compartment for about 5 minutes. Now, about 7 hours later, the freezer is at +2 degrees and the fresh food side is at a perfect +37 degrees - settings at 0 degrees and +37 degrees.

If you have a similar problem, I suggest you try the above before paying over $500.00 for repair service that may or may not work (in our case, it did not). Who knows, you could get lucky.

We will be here for about another week. If the fridge goes south again, I'll let you all know, if not, no news is good news.

We have had GE appliances in every house since our marriage in 1963. We moved into our present home back in 1996 and we bought all GE profile. Yes, our microwave died after a respectable number of years…the same happened to our dishwasher. Their replacements did not survive as long as the originals did. Our 18 year old GE Profile fridge gets a huge hug and an "I love you" from me each day. In truth…her ice maker was replaced twice and we finally gave up and started buying bagged ice at the grocery.

Our 18 year old GE profile slide in electric range was removed to make way for a brand new Viking D3 series electric range…there is no gas in our area…last week our Viking range was removed after a short three month stay with us…it arrived with several damages. I never used it. The Viking OTC microwave…made by Sharp…was a horrible piece of junk…it arrived damaged too. The Viking dishwasher…made by Blomberg…was so beautiful but we never used it either…it needed special salt and at a cost of anywhere from $14.40 to $20 per one pound bag we felt that in our extremely hard water area…the cost of running this appliance might be ridiculous. Plus the fact that we were concerned about the condensation and the problems with getting the dishes properly dried. We are old and we are creatures of habit…we are not stupid but we felt in this case modern technology might be too complicated for us.

Now because we need both a counter depth and a fully stainless wrapped free-standing refrigerator, we are purchasing a GE Monogram which is the only fully stainless freestanding wrapped fridge available. Viking discontinued the one we originally purchased and they have yet to replace it. This is why we sent back all of the Viking appliances. We heard that their new refrigerator will be made by Electrolux…the one we bought was made by KitchenAid…Jenn Air also made their freestanding fridges. All were rated equally pretty good…not great. A solid good.

We are not doing a full kitchen remodel…so we do not have the option of a built in fridge or a wall oven. We do plan to purchase the 240 Advantium OTC speed-cooker and the top of the line dishwasher. We are considering the Dacor induction range or perhaps just their electric slide in or freestanding. Once again, we need a range with at least some stainless on the sides and the Dacor has a choice of handles. Their fully integrated handle will be our best option to go under the GE Advantium. I like my appliances to match. Sort of.

For those of you who point out just how many of these GE appliances need repairs each year…remember that no appliance is perfect. They all need repairs. For people like us who have specific needs, we can't go with a Sub Zero or Wolf. It isn't always about money or who has the most to spend on what. If we could pick anything and there were no restrictions…I would probably still go with GE because for us their products have aways performed admirably. I know that they are now or soon to be owned by Electrolux…GE selected a very reputable well known company rather than selling out to some lesser known foreign one…our Viking dishwasher was from Blomberg…I have yet to find anyone who has ever heard of them.

I realize that GE Monogram is considered by many of you as a Profile in disguise…as the men were removing our new Viking appliances they walked past our old Profile and they told us that it looked brand new. And it does look and perform as if it were new…perhaps it is because I hug it each day…I tell it that it must hang on until it's replacement arrives. Middleby, who purchased Viking or perhaps Viking, decided that they were no longer going to sell the freestanding stainless wrapped fridge that we purchased. We had no choice but to go with Monogram. Time will tell if it performs as well as its predecessor.

In the meantime…please do not scare off people by saying that GE Monogram and their other products are inferior to Sub Zero and Wolf. I too would love to have my kitchen full of their products but that would mean a complete remodel. After just redoing two bathrooms and putting brand new Fabrica carpeting throughout our home…and doing a few other things around the house…our budget would not allow us to renovate the kitchen. Besides…our cabinets and tile floors look as good now as the day we moved in here. We are from another generation…we learned to value what we had and take care of it…that said some things last and others are replaced…but in this reuse recycle world…we decided that our money could be spent elsewhere. And so no Wolf or Sub Zero…they are admirable brands…but for those of us who simply can't afford them or can't use them…no matter the reason…there is nothing wrong with the GE brand…they have a few bad apples just like anyone else. My cousin has Sub Zero…she just had her fridge worked on…so they are not 100% perfect.

Sorry for the long read but I am tired of seeing GE badmouthed…they are an admirable company…yes they have been sued…I know all about it…but in comparison to their satisfied customers…those of us who purchased extended warranties…we have always received great service from GE. Always ask who does the warranty work…and when we had our NON- GE HE washer and dryer repaired a few months ago…twice…we were told by both techs that ALL appliances now are made with planned obsolescence as a "built in" feature. Depending on the appliance and of course the manufacturer ever appliance made today is made to last only a short while. We all know that automobile manufacturers do this…but now our kitchen appliances are programmed to fail…some faster than others. Everything is made that way.

For months I have been researching kitchen appliances…reading reviews…and I have yet to find anything that is 100% perfect. I did however discover that my OTC Viking microwave…made by Sharp…cost me twice as much simply because it had the Viking logo on it. I refuse to buy a Dacor OTC for the same reason…it costs $700 MORE than the same Sharp version.

We all have our own unique needs…so for you to badmouth one brand while urging someone to buy another brand is unfair. Yes voice your opinion…but remember that what is right for you and your home might not work for me. Do not say I should buy a KitchenAid fridge…I did…disguised as a Viking…but along the way not only did the KA fridge morph into an Electrolux…but it lost its pretty stainless sides.

Life is a gamble…we all take risks each day…just because a tech was late arriving at your house or because you had an appliance that was a lemon…we got stuck with an experimental model clothes dryer…had no parts available…we have all had bad experiences with appliances, cars, etc. I just can't believe that GE Monogram has been around for as long as it has without some degree of success.

Remember…we all love to complain about everything…appliances included…but we rarely get online to leave compliments about products we love.

Before I sign another contract…aren't there any people reading this who own and love the newer GE Monogram appliances? You can't blame the entire company because one tech arrived late at your house…or did a lousy job…and that goes for a few appliances that didn't work properly…hasn't anyone read or heard anything good about GE Monogram…something recent…the internet is filled with stories dating back to 2005 and earlier…they must sell a lot of this brand for it to still be around.

Thanks to all of you who read all the way to the end…next week I MUST decide what to buy…the people who sell this stuff always love it of course…I would like to hear from some of you who are happy with your Monogram appliances. Surely there must be some of you who are glad you bought it. Right? Right?