The new fridge, a white Kenmore Elite 31.0 cu. ft. French-Door Bottom-Freezer Refrigerator ENERGY STAR, was delivered yesterday. The delivery went without a hitch. We replaced a Kenmore French door elite made by Whirlpool that was about 10 years old (the compressor was replaced in the old one by A&E under an extended warranty, and afterwards it ran 24/7). The new one is made by LG.

Impressions:

I dislike the smooth white door finish. It looks cheap. The white model was not displayed in the store. We returned to the store and noted that all the new models have a smooth door surface, even though the top and sides are the older pebbly surface that hides fingerprints.

The interior layout is good, better than our old one. The new one has the ice maker built into the door.

After 24 hours the height of the doors already needs to be readjusted so they are even. A special tool came with it to do this.

The left door that has the ice maker is much heavier that the right, and it has a clunky poor quality feel when you open and close it.

The doors do not open as far as the old one, I think a little less than 90 degrees. None of the new models we looked at opened as far as the old one. The salesman told us it's because people said the doors were knocking into kitchen cabinets and damaging them.

The compressor coils will be extremely difficult to clean. They are located in the back behind a panel. They are wrapped closely with something solid inside the wrap, so that a standard soft cleaning brush won't work. Maybe not an issue for some. With our 4 terriers this may be a big issue; time will tell.

It didn't come with the water filter plug shown in the owner's manual, so Sears is sending one.

The owner's manual says it needs 2 1/2" clearance behind it. Not an issue, but it may be for some people.

The manual isn't clear about whether the control panel lights are supposed to stay on when the doors are shut. I called Sears and they said they should come on for a few seconds when the doors are opened, or when you touch the panel.

The rollers it sits on have already damaged our vinyl floor.

We'll keep a piece of hardboard handy for moving it for cleaning behind it.

Overall, not thrilled so far.