New fridges are consistently terrible because they share so many shitty parts across brands.

Improvements in efficiency were initially a good things but combining them with going cheap on manufacturing has made everything trash. They chase a .01% improvement while aiming for the thinnest possible materials and skimp on skilled welding so everything falls apart. If any company makes something solid and reliable it gets bought out and the label used for trash.

Depending on the repair, it can be cheaper to buy a new fridge. Most modern refrigerators aren’t designed to have their compressor easily replaced for example.

I mean, it’s possible, if you really fuck it up in some way, but not from regular use.

Replacing the compressor once is still going to be cheaper than replacing a fridge every 5 years.

In my basement I have a freezer from the 60s. It needs to be defrosted every year or two, but aside from that it’s never needed servicing, not once. I’m telling you, the older it is, the longer it will last.

In my kitchen I have a replacement fridge because when I got three estimates to fix my 10 year old LG, they were all more expensive than simply buying a new one. I really tried to get it repaired because I liked my old fridge, and finding a new one that fit the space properly was going to be difficult. But the repair estimates were all more expensive than buying a new one. And the new fridge came with another 10’year compressor warranty. 🤷‍♂️

I won’t be surprised if after ten years this one fails too.

Also, shopping for kitchen appliances sucks because all of the brands are owned by just a handful of manufacturers now. For example, Whirlpool, Kitchen Aid, and Maytag are all the same company.