21.9 cu. ft. French Door Refrigerator in Panel Ready, Counter Depth

(This review was collected as part of a promotion.) Does not work as a panel fridge door hinges are in the wrong place. Water hose came off in the middle of the night lots of damage new kitchen floor and basement ceiling. Plumber replaced plastic tube with a Braided hose the one that came with the fridge was substandard

Rating provided by a verified purchaser

I completely agree about the comments of the fridge sticking out. I realized it is counter depth not built-in and expected the panel doors Not to be flush with the counter. What they don’t mention is that it sticks out an additional 4 inches to accommodate the width of the doors. Doesn’t this make the idea of a counter depth panel ready fridge completely misleading? I would never have spent the extra money to make it look like have a tree if it was just going to stick out like a sore thumb

This fridge was in my budget for a panel ready fridge. I read all the reviews and many people were upset about how the fridge sticks out and so on. I have been in the kitchen design industry as a designer for 20 years and I wanted to share how I was able to achieve a flush look. Bascially, you will need a minimum gap at the sides and top of 1-1/2" in order to open the doors at slightly past 90 degrees. Becuase the hinges want to open further you will end up having to put clear bumpers on the inside to provide a little cushion when the doors open. fridge. I have 3/4" panels on this fridge. If I could change anything I would recommend 5/8" thich panels and an opening on the sides of 2", this way the doors will open much wider and it'll be a bit improved. Anyway, I am very happy with the results.I hope the images I posted help you. Get a good reputable kitchen company to help you and also a good appliance installer, this unit only has front leveling legs and in my case I need shims at the rear. The unit has to be perfect level!

I am extremely heartbroken. I wish I would have read all these reviews BEFORE buying this awful thing! My husband and I have recently built a brand new home. I was so excited to have this beautiful custom kitchen until now! If I would have known this door issue, I would have never bought it. You can’t push it in because then the doors won’t open. Since the cabinets are complete, you cannot redo the cabinets but even if you could, I don’t think it would help. I guess I am stupid because I thought buying a Kitchenaid product, I was buying quality. Boy was I wrong!

Unlike some of the other reviewers I purchased this fridge with full knowledge of the external dimensions... This is just a terrible fridge. If I could give a negative star I would. The hinges are not strong enough to hold the weight of the door and bend easily. Even without panels/handles installed. I'm waiting on my 3rd set to be installed. The hinges do not have adjusters so your cabinet installer need to get the panel mounting perfect on the first try. Which is all for not because once the hinges start bending there is no way to get the doors back in-line. The center divider folds via a cam/striker setup... There is no adjusting this piece either and even with new hinges it barely works. As the hinges bend, the striker tabs go UNDER the cam and will not flip the divider. The shelves have huge gaps at the back. Large enough for a standard soda or even jelly/pickle containers to drop down the back. Finally, it's noisier then the 10 year old LG it replaced.

The contractors on this review thread are correct. This is a counter depth frig. Not a built in frig. However when you look at the images of the refrigerator on kitchenaid’s website it shows it as built in,meaning the doors are flush to the cabinets. However it is not built like so. This is just a terrible way to mislead customers

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I just installed this model in my totally remodeled kitchen so I am going to focus on the install to provide some warnings for next buyer. My kitchen contractor (who does a lot of work with Kitchenaid appliances) created a cabinet for the normal counter depth. The problem is that there are water lines run along the back of the refrigerator. These are strong, stiff lines and instead of having a elbow to enter frig, they are bowed outward (see picture). The end result is that the frig cannot be moved closer to the back wall than 1.5 to 1.75 inches. You do not want to force these lines as they will not bend. Another depth eater is the electrical plug (second picture). It is right angle plug but it is at least 0.5 in high. There are flatter plugs that could have been added to the electrical line to save space. While not related to Kitchenaid, I would recommend that the open end of the water valve be directed to the left. In my case the water valve was slightly to the right and that made it difficult to coil the line. Just something to be aware of when you have the connections placed. The two Kitchenaid problems will require that we add wood strips to the current cabinet enclosure to build it out (fortunately it will work with the rest of the cabinets). We may even do a cut-out in the wall board so the water line can go bit into the wall. These are things you might not catch from the specs, so be sure to consider them in your install. Given we have only operated for 4 days, the frig is very quiet, ice making looks to be plentiful and the cold water feature is great. I highly recommend this non-through the door setup for ice as when I was reviewing the refrigerators the common complaint was the small size of the ice capacity and failures with the ice maker/delivery system. This configuration should provide the most reliability and is great for us since we have only two of us in the home. I'll report more on it when I've had it in operation for awhile.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I bought this for my new kitchen to be panel ready. It works great and we like the icemaker and water dispenser but it's black and I have an all white kitchen. You might think that it should not matter because I put white panels on the front but it sticks out a few inches from the counter in order for the doors to open and the exposed section is black. It just looks ugly. Don't know why they don't offer it in other colors, they should if you ask me!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Love everything about my refrigerator. Counter-depth is perfect - I also had the studs turned to gain another 2-1/2" to recess the refrigerator further to align with the counters. Love the storage capacity, love the interior water dispenser, there is more than enough space for everything, and for keeping items easily accessible and organized. Food stays fresher, longer. Storage bins keep produce fresh, shelves are plentiful and I'm able to keep foods organized. Freezer drawers are perfect for organizing various shapes/sizes and find items easily.