Kitchenaid (Made by Whirlpool) KTRA22ELSS01 Stainless Steel Refrigerator (Terrible Product)!

by Richard H.
(Livonia, MI)

This Kitchenaid refrigerator (which is made by Whirlpool) replaced a one year old Kitchenaid stainless steel refrigerator (not inexpensive), for which the liner cracked inside (not replaceable).

While working reasonably well for the first five years, on the day after Thanksgiving, November 26, 2010, the refrigerator completely stopped cooling; however, service was unable to come out until the next week.

Once there, they discovered that the compressor line. where it now routes through the drip pan to evaporate the condensate (evidently a poor cost reduced design, replacing the former condensate heater and fan on your prior models), corroded through where the anti-vibration bushings support this line in the condensate bath (causing a caustic and/or electrolysis reaction that ate right through the line).

While this part is covered by their warranty, there were none available locally; which had to be ordered out of state.

After the line finally arrived, we had been without refrigeration for some eleven days (before they were able to install it); for which virtually all of the contents of our Refrigerator and Freezer (estimated at $425.00) had to be disposed.

As you can imagine, this was a miserable time in the household, with significantly increased costs (as we ate out much more frequently due to this dilemma). The sad irony here is (in addition to the substandard design) is that in order to demonstrate this defect to the servicemen, the 6 year full coverage (both parts & labor) on these components just elapsed; in that we could not demonstrate this defect to them previously (e.g. August 2010, when it started malfunctioning, but would then seem to be working OK when we were going to call them).

We wrote to Jeff M. Fettig, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, who had a college kid call us and tell us we were lucky the warranty covered the ten dollar part.

We, nor our children, will never buy a Whirlpool product again (POS)!!!


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