Bosch 800 Series, 36" FS CD FDBM, SS, 2DrwrFrzr

An average appliance with an ice maker of an incredibly poor design

Come September, 2022, it will be 6 years my wife and I will have the Bosch 800 Series French Door Bottom Mount Refrigerator. Its performance has been consistently good. That in itself lets us know that the workers at Bosch take pride in what they do.

I must say I have nothing to complain in the first 5 years of using this refrigerator. However, on its 6th year, freezer suddenly stopped working. All our food melted and rotted. We hired two different technicans and both of them said it was impossible to fix it as it was some leaking issue inside the body of refrigerator. And say even cooler won't work as the temperature is not what we expect inside. It is very disappointing to only have 5 year life for a high-end refrigerator. We certainly expect it can last for at least 10 years.

I had been having issues with the cooling in my fridge for quite some time. The door often doesn't shut all the way, even when pushed hard. This leads to warm air entering the fridge. The ice machine always tasted funny. I don't think the ice maker had a water filter. First, I started hearing a loud buzzing noise coming from the fan compartment. Then the freezer gave out and I had to throw everything away. I scheduled a maintenance appointment a couple weeks out and during that time, the fridge compartment gave out, as well. When the repairperson came to fix it, I thought it would be an easy fix, maybe a broken cooling fan or something. They told me that my fridge was toast and that I'd need to replace it. I was shocked! The fridge was less than 4 years old! A fridge is supposed to last at least 10 years before needing to be completely replaced. The technician told me that there was a leak in the coolant line that looked like it had been there since the fridge was installed. The strange smell coming from my fridge also wasn't from rotting food, like I thought it was, but from refrigerant leaking in my fridge and getting blown around by the fans! The fridge has a lifetime warranty for the SHELL (Super helpful, not!). The warranty on the inside of the fridge only lasts 1 year. What a joke. I'm never buying another Bosch appliance again.

After one year the condensate drain froze solid causing water to leak onto my floor. No drain obstruction besides the ice. Now it has occurred again. No diagnostic or repair information seems to be available for a do-it-yourself repair.