Sub-Zero Refrigerators

We replaced our built-in Sub-Zero in 2015 with what we thought was going to be a newer version of the BI 36U/O RH model. This NEW VERSION IS TOTALLY DISGUSTING AND DOES NOT WORK!!!! The very worst thing about it is that there is no self-closing mechanism on the freezer drawer as there was on the older version. In other words: how many times has my husband gone to get ice for his cocktail and pushed the freezer drawer to close BUT it does not slide in all the way? SO the freezer and refrigerator heat up. The older version stated this on page 20 of its instructions: "Your freezer drawer has a self-closing mechanism. The incline, built into roller assemblies on the drawer uses gravity to assist in closing the drawer."

I have a $13,000.00 dollar SubZero fridge that is constantly creating mold due to excessive moisture. I have had a SubZero repairman out 3 different times for this issue. While I was hoping to find a fixable solution, I was told all 3 times that this is normal for the SubZero appliance since it is made to retain moisture to keep food longer. I DO NOT RECOMMEND buying this appliance unless you like to deconstruct the interior of your fridge, every 6 weeks with bleach water and dish soap, as recommended by the service techs. I have NEVER had mold in any of my fridges in my 56 years of life UNTIL I got a SubZero.

Asko is owned by Sub-Zero, and that is who we had to deal with. They were horrible. We purchased a very expensive Asko washer and dryer. Almost from day one we had problems with the washer. Sometimes it would just not spin all the water out of the clothes. This was random, and it didn't matter how big or small the load was or what the cycle was. This has now gone on for over 2 years. We called the store we bought it from and they sent their repairman. The man has now been out more than 10 times. Some parts on the washer were replaced although no one could seen to figure out what the issue was. NOTHING has worked and we continue to have the problem. In addition to this at times when washing suds and water would pour out of the front of the washer onto our wood floors. Of course the repair service couldn't figure out why that was happening randomly either.

Just awful. Spent 12K on a brand new 48 inch side by side Sub Zero Refrigerator. Took five weeks to get a service call for initial problems of excessive noise. Despite promised contact, no one called to schedule appointment. Was on hold for 24 minutes trying to find out why. When service finally appeared, they resolved noise problem but next attempt to use the external water dispenser resulted in a flood of water down the front of the refrigerator and all over the floor, with water spraying everywhere but in the glass directly under the dispenser, and creating a huge mess. Called again Friday morning to hear after 12 minutes on hold that the office is "closed". Not sure why anyone thinks this is a good product or a customer oriented company, except for the hype and advertising, all of which are lies.

My side by side built in Sub-Zero ice maker gets stuck so sometimes I don’t get ice, and sometimes it spits it out wildly. Ice dispenser is horrible as it normally spits out ice on the floor as it is poorly designed. The freezer drawer doesn’t pull out all the way, and I couldn’t find any useful information online to pull the drawer out. I called them, first woman didn’t know, and the second woman pretended she knew what to do and I told her it wasn’t working. And asked to speak to another person and she said that the next person would just tell me the same thing? This was after being on hold for 20 min and talking to them for 5. I’m not impressed for the price I paid.

Purchased this Sub-Zero 1 1/2 yrs ago. The compressor makes a bongo drum sound when it comes on. This lasts for about 1-2 minutes. The freezer does not keep food as frozen as the supermarket even at a temp setting of zero. The fridge box temp tends to measure 40-45 degrees even though temp is set at 38.

Considering the outrageously high price there should be a fridge thermostats like the ones in your home where you can set the temp for day and night. There should also be an actual temp gauge inside the fridge and the freezer!

Although we have had these models for over 18 years, they have needed many repairs to keep them working. First, the good. The compressors have lasted without failures. Bad: the evaporators in both units failed within 5-7 years, the electronic modules use substandard relays for switching the compressors on and off (contacts welding due to excess starting current), defrost heater failed on the freezer when the evaporator failed. It is very inconvenient when a refrigerator or a freezer fails so I would hope that these VERY expensive units would be built for a lifetime like the GEs built 70-80 years ago.

We bought this fridge in 2016 because the previous fridge lasted about 20 years. The newer model was a joke, lacking any innovation, with most of the material seemingly inferior to their 90s counterpart – all of which made me feel very stupid for not checking out the physical unit prior to forking out $10,000. We've had to contact Sub-Zero three times for issues/repair since. They dropped the ball on our last service request. As other reviewers noted, calling their falsely advertised "Call Us Anytime" line was a waste of time as no one ever picks up. I'm still waiting with the hold music and it's been over 20 minutes — writing them an email instead. By the way, the hidden email for customer service is customerservice@subzero.com. Good luck, people. I would go for a Miele, Thermador, or honestly, anything else.

We inherited the Sub-Zero 650 when purchasing our home. The unit is less than 20 years old. It seems as though it's one issue after the next. The unit is built in, so replacing it would be expensive. We're stuck with fixing it time after time. Think twice before purchasing Sub-Zero. You'll be happy you did.

Not worth the money. For its large size, it doesn't hold much. Freezer is too small and it makes very little ice. Had to get an extra refrigerator for the garage.

Do no waste your money on Sub-Zero water and ice maker. We inherited a Sub-Zero when we bought our house and it was 30 years old. About 3 years ago it started to have issues so we decided to replace with another Sub-Zero since our previous one lasted so long and "upgrade" to the water and ice maker. We just assumed that Sub-Zero would be top of the line for everything. WE WERE VERY WRONG.

This refrigerator keeps food perfectly and longer but is very expensive, almost three times the cost of another refrigerator, and has no bells and whistles for all that money. No ice or water in the door.

Have had this built-in SubZero since 1994 and it has been an exceptional refrigerator/freezer. Last year it finally needed a new compressor and of course there was no more R-12 refrigerant to be had so had to pay for not only a new compressor but R-22 refrigerant too. Still an outstanding refrigerator/freezer.

One of my best purchases while piecing together a new house, great craftsmanship, well-made. Good price for it all. Needs better air filtering though.

I have so many problems with my Sub-Zero (700tf) I have lost count. I had to replace the compressor last March and now it's April a year later and I think I have to replace it again! The new compressor has a warranty of one year and I'm just a month past that! I feel I'm at a loss because the freezer is built into a wall and I don't know how to replace it with a different brand that would fit. I called the closest repair shop that works on these and since they are an hour away they charge $125 upfront to come and see what the problem is. Very disappointed for the money to buy one of these. Oh, and we were the first owners of it and have only had it since December 22, 2009!

New Subzero side by side - Very good looking and apparently well made. It was installed Saturday. The instructions say it takes 24 hours for ice to be made. The next day I tried to get the ice container out to see how much ice was made. The door does not open wide enough to pull out the container. I had to maneuver it a few different ways to finally get it out and then to get it back in. I called the service department for the selling company. He said there is no adjustment and it is a common complaint. Extremely stupid.

I am submitting this review because so many others have been negative. We bought our side by side Sub-Zero 690 late in 1999 and it is still going strong. we have had repairs under $500 in that time frame. We are looking to replace it only because we are redoing our kitchen. The service person who was out a couple of years ago said that they often see Sub-Zeros work well at age 30! We bought a double wolf oven a couple of years ago just because we have had such a good experience with Sub-Zero, Having said that many people have also suggested that the newer appliances are not as reliable as older models.

We have had constant problems with our 2 Sub-Zero Refrigerators and 2 freezers. I have lost track how many times the Sub-Zeros have been serviced and parts replaced. We maintain it and clean out vents etc so we take good care of them. It’s just a poorly made product. When I tried to call the corporate headquarters, I could not get anyone on the phone. Avoid at all costs or you will be paying for repairs on a yearly basis.

Joe the refrigerator repairman was excellent in guiding me through and teaching me how to connect the water hose to my refrigerator. He even showed me how to turn on the water valve for the refrigerator to work the water and ice dispenser. I not only recommend him for his excellent job, I will order the Sub-Zero refrigerator again and continue to contact Sub-Zero for upcoming repair.

We purchased all Sub-Zero/Wolf/Asko kitchen appliances several months ago through Ferguson, both supposedly reputable American companies. The Sub-Zero promotion gives the customer the choice of several free smaller appliances (i.e. toaster) and a $1,000 gift certificate in return for buying all Sub-Zero products. In order to redeem from Sub-Zero we had to submit a redemption form, proof of purchase, serial and model numbers. We submitted everything requested online, as requested by Sub-Zero. We waited several weeks and followed up. We were informed a claim was never made. We resubmitted everything again and again we informed the claim was not received by Sub-Zero.

I called the Sub Zero Customer Care 800 line today for they said "Ask us Anything Anytime". Unfortunately that is not the case. After hearing the repeated message "someone will be with you" I got a person that basically knew nothing. In fact she told me to call on Monday to the same phone number and ask for a "product specialist". I think they need to change their website and state that no one is available on Saturdays that is knowledgeable. Fortunately the problem is only one of not making ice, so it can hold but if I had an extremely pressing problem, I would expect far better. This Sub-Zero is 7 years old and was $10K.

Purchased our Sub-Zero and Wolf. Freezer gasket would create vacuum seal making it hard to open which is good, our fridge side never did that upon opening. He replaced the freezer side gasket with a bigger one to line up the two doors because the fridge door stuck out more than the freezer side, the problem is now neither side creates vacuum when you close it and try to open it again, which tells me that neither door is sealing properly, also ice and frost is building up in my freezer. Plus I conducted three other tests and the seals on both doors failed all three tests. So I had a professional come out to fix the problem and he made it worse, now my compressor runs a lot more and I noticed the vent above is hot and it never was before. We had problems with our oven shutting off on us. After three different servicemen the problem is finally fixed, but now one of the stoves igniter keeps on clicking even when the stove is off.

My first Sub-Zero was a model 690. After numerous problems And having to threaten the manufacturer they finally replaced the refrigerator/freezer. The problem with the first one was with the icemaker and they couldn’t repair it. Now we have a model 695. The compressor has given us many problems. Finally A month ago we had a new compressor put in. Even with the warranty we still had to pay $765. Now it’s been a month and a half since the new compressor and on Christmas morning we discover that the refrigerator is back up to 60°. What a nightmare. All our food is wasted. I really don’t know what to say. Other than the Sub-Zero’s are good looking but very unreliable. I called up the company who is an authorized representative repair facility for Sub-Zero to get this taken care of. Time will tell!

The ice makers are the worst in the industry. We paid extra for the door mounted ice delivery system and quickly learned not to use it due to overfilling and with its location you cannot visually observe it or water filling without bending down to a height of 4 feet or less. Ice maker clogs regularly requiring removal of icebox to clear. Buy a less expensive refrigerator and be much more pleased. It is overpriced by a minimum of 2x.

Don't bother to purchase this unit - after 13K and 3 years the ice maker freezes up and the compressor is gone - terrible customer service - when you spend this type of money on a product you would think that it would last more than 3years. Repairs are outrageous and it is still not fixed. Stay away.

My fridge (BI36U) cost nearly $10,000 and is falling apart after just three years. I feel so ripped off. What the heck happened to this brand? My in-laws have had their Sub-Zero for decades and have only had repairmen come out recently. This company is coasting on an old reputation that is just not true anymore. In the time I've had it, again less than three years, repairmen have had to come twice. One is here right now which is what has inspired this lovely rant! And like others on this forum, I've needed to do various things myself, like emptying my entire fridge and sitting there with a hair dryer to get the ice inside to melt.

I purchased both Sub-Zero refrigerator and Wolf 48 inch oven in 2008. For past few months the Wolf oven wasn't working right and would take longer than usual to warm up and I didn't have time to call for service until my Side by side refrigerators stop working and everything melted. I panic and didn't know what to do and how expensive would be to fix it.

When we decided to renovate our home in 2003, we had limited space for a kitchen in our small urban home. With space being at a premium, we decided a big boxy-style fridge would just not work, so we looked into buying a Sub-Zero. We cook a lot, and buy lots of produce at our local farmer's market, along with many condiments for making lots of styles of food. We needed a fridge that was not big, but not small either. We ended up buying a used 550 off of a refrigerator repairman for $2,000. He had refurbished it and the price included a 1 year warranty. My husband built a cabinet especially for it, custom door panels, side panels, and matching cabinet above. It looked great, just what we needed. We loved the shelves, the two egg trays on the door, the deli drawer and the ice maker.

We've only had our wine cooler for 3-1/2 years. It was not inexpensive... $7000 or so. I would have expected many years of good service. So, the bottom unit just failed... called in a local service company to repair. It's past the 2 year warranty, and it's not a covered 5 year warranty item. $275 to fix. Three weeks later, the top unit failed. Waiting to hear what this will cost me. Oh, and the only authorized Sub-Zero service company for South Florida is in Miami, over 80 miles away. Very disappointed. I have other Sub-Zero appliances, which I'm questioning now, expecting them to die soon. I will not consider Sub-Zero again, nor will I ever recommend to friends and colleagues.

This is the second time my Sub-Zero failed. The last time it was the compressor for over $800. I won't make that mistake again. I can buy a new fridge for much less. My ice maker has been frozen for two years. I am tired of using a hair dry to melt the ice blockage.