Should You Repair or Replace Your Broken Refrigerator?
CR's interactive tool leverages product costs, depreciation rates, and survey data to help you decide. Plus, we offer expert advice on what to do next.
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If your refrigerator is giving you trouble—your water dispenser has slowed to a trickle, your icemaker keeps jamming, or worse, you open the door and get hit by a warm breeze—you’re probably wondering whether it makes more sense to repair it or to replace it.
We can help you figure that out.
We surveyed 95,711 CR members about their experiences with 108,573 refrigerators purchased between 2012 and 2022 to find out how often they broke down (and what went wrong with them) as well as how much it cost to fix them. In our most recent survey, we asked whether our members purchased extended warranties for their refrigerators, whether they ended up using those warranties, and whether the warranty helped them save money in the end.
As you may find when using the tool, it often makes economic sense to repair a refrigerator, even as far as 10 years into ownership. The only exceptions are budget top-freezers and side-by-sides. If your $400 top-freezer is closing in on 10 years, you’ll want to consider replacing it, even though the repair cost may be fairly low. But you’re probably better off repairing the $1,200 French-door you bought nine years ago.
Repairing your new-ish refrigerator may be not only less costly for you but also better for the planet. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that in 2018, the most recent data available, 5.3 million tons of waste was generated from large appliances, with 2.1 million tons ending up in a landfills. According to past surveys, only 10 percent of CR members had their old refrigerator recycled. Many CR members (50 percent) had their old fridge hauled away, while about a third discarded theirs in a somewhat sustainable way by trading it in, giving it away, selling it, or donating it.
As they rot in landfills, refrigerators can release harmful gases and materials that damage the ozone layer and contribute to climate change. The EPA says refrigerators manufactured before 1995 contain chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerant, which, when released, contributes to the depletion of the ozone layer. Refrigerators manufactured after 1995 use an ozone-friendly refrigerant, but it’s still a greenhouse gas that can contribute to climate change. Refrigerators can also contain ozone-depleting foam insulation and harmful materials like mercury, so proper recycling of them is still key.
When the time comes to toss your old refrigerator, make sure you do it responsibly. The EPA has a Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) Program, which you can use to make sure your fridge is properly recycled. The RAD program disposed of over 8.2 million refrigerators from 2006 to 2020. For additional help finding appliance recycling programs, check out the Earth911 Recycling Search database or call 800-CLEANUP (800-253-2687).
But if your refrigerator truly isn’t worth fixing and you decide to replace it, you can find replacement advice, as well as some top-performing models from our tests, below.
Factors to Consider
Before you completely commit to a repair or replacement, there are some additional considerations you should weigh.
- Your refrigerator’s problem might be covered by a recall. Check the appliance brand’s website to see if this is the case. Check social media as well. Even if it’s not part of an official recall, a problem that’s brought up in online forums repeatedly might be significant enough that the company will fix it or replace the refrigerator free of charge.
- Check your refrigerator’s warranty. It’s important to read the fine print because there are problems the manufacturer might not cover. In our most recent survey, we found that nearly half (48 percent) of consumers who purchased extended warranties for refrigerators did not use them. We also found that the typical extended warranty costs $6 less than the typical out-of-pocket cost of a repair. ($197). Keep in mind that if your problem is covered by the warranty, you’ll need to go through the manufacturer or retailer to arrange the repair service.
- Determine whether the problem is something that is easily and cheaply fixed. There are some repairs that are easy and low-priced to do yourself. For example, if your refrigerator isn’t keeping cool because of a ripped door gasket, you can fix it cheaply yourself if you’re comfortable doing so. But if it’s not cooling because of a faulty compressor, you’re facing an expensive repair that will require professional help.
Making Greener Choices
• Check out these Simple Ways to Save Money and the Planet.
• Repair vs. Replace: Ranges, Dishwashers, Washers, Dryers.
• See our fifth-annual Appliance Brand Reliability Rankings.
For more earth-friendly ideas, see CR’s Guide to Sustainable Living.
Should You Fix It Yourself or Call a Pro?
If you’ve decided to go the repair route, you’ll need to decide whether you want to attempt the repair on your own or hire a professional. As we mentioned above, replacing a door gasket is a relatively straightforward DIY job, as is replacing door shelves, handles, bins, and the optional icemakers found on many top- and bottom-freezers. For things like a faulty compressor, a broken through-the-door icemaker, or an unresponsive control panel, you’ll likely want to hire a pro.
If you’re unsure what the exact problem is with your refrigerator and you’d like to find out before you commit to hiring a professional, call your manufacturer’s customer service. Many refrigerators now feature technology that allows them to run remote diagnostics that can identify your problem. This will either take the form of connecting your refrigerator to your home’s WiFi so that customer service can access it, or transmitting a series of diagnostic codes over the phone that customer service can translate into data on the issue.
In our most recent surveys, the two most common refrigerator problems involved ice/water dispensers (with a brand median problem rate of 15 percent) and icemakers (with a brand median rate of 14 percent). But these are not necessarily the most serious issues or the most costly to repair. More serious (and costly) problems involve compressor malfunctions (brand median rate of 3 percent), refrigerators not cooling (6 percent) and freezers not cooling (4 percent).
In a previous CR member survey, we found that the median refrigerator repair costs for seven specific problems —including icemakers not making ice, fridges not cooling, and dispensers not working—ranged from about $150 to $240. The median repair cost for broken or faulty compressors is much higher, at $562.
Of course, those costs reflect completed repairs. Our data doesn’t factor in the estimated cost of repairs that CR members passed on for being too expensive. In that survey, 27 percent of CR members who discarded their refrigerator instead of repairing it cited expensive repair costs as their reason for doing so.
Keep in mind that some professionals will charge a fee for the initial visit to diagnose the problem and give you an estimate for a repair. If you decide to use them for the job, they’ll typically put the fee toward the total repair cost. This means, however, that it can be costly to shop around for repairs.
If You Decide to Replace Your Refrigerator
For starters, you’ll want to get a new refrigerator that’s reliable and less likely to break down than the old one. That’s why we use our annual member surveys to create predicted reliability ratings for refrigerators. We then factor these ratings into each model’s lab test results when we create its Overall Score. Here are five top-rated refrigerators from our ratings that received solid ratings for predicted reliability based on our latest member survey.
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