Appliance brand recomendation?

I am looking to update my kitchen appliances.  Fridge/stove/above stove microwave and dishwasher.  What does the hive recommend? Anyone bought any package deals lately?  Are all above the stove microwaves the same dimensions? 

Thank you!

Rule of thumb:  If the company is best know for their TVs for your living room, don't get appliances from them.  LG, Samsung, etc.

Take a dive into who owns whom these days.  Many of the GE, Whirlpool, Kenmore, etc are all in bed together.  My personal preference is the model with the fewest gadgets.  There are nightmare stories of DOA computers, displays, and other things.  I really don't need my fridge to have wifi and bluetooth to remind me to get milk.  I like my fridge to turn on and get cold.  Preferably a light inside.

My sister got a Samsung fridge 4 years ago.  It took all of 3 months for the ice dispenser to break, and 1 year for the circuit board to fry causing the entire contents of the fridge to spoil.  Mom and Dad have an LG stove that has already died twice under warranty and they finally got a new one because LG stopped making parts for it.  The new one already has a display that you have to sometimes whack to get it to light up.

CNET does excellent unbiased reviews of appliances.

I personally like to wait and buy a gently used appliances.  It's not always a slam dunk, but you can at least google "kenmore [insert model number] common failures" and get an idea if it's a good bet.  Look up parts cost and availability.  All of my appliances came from one house.  The house was a flip job with all new (inexpensive) appliances.  The couple who bought it lived with it for a year before doing a remodel.  I gave them something ridiculous like $750 for a range, fridge, microwave, dishwasher, and it looked brand new.  I don't think the oven ever had anything in it.

24 years ago we did our whole house with GE mid-grade stuff, Profile series I believe. They served us well with no break-downs for 13 years. In 2013 we did our new house with the same mid-grade Profile stuff and with the exception of a fan in the refrigerator and a belt on the dryer, knock on wood, they work just fine. Now it's just 2 of us in the house, no kids and we're gone most of the day, so I would say our usage is light compared to other families.
 

Just our experience.

I bought my Maytag Commercial Washing Machine through AJMadison.  It was delivered right to the house and the two guys even took it into the the laundry area and took the old one to the garage.  I thought that was good service for an internet retailer.  So, not a brand recommendation but a retailer recommendation.  

I also bought an induction cooktop from there.  

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

"Rule of thumb:  If the company is best know for their TVs for your living room, don't get appliances from them.  LG, Samsung

That is unfortunate.  I have a good set up on Samsung all new appliances from Costco.  Hmm maybe I'll do some more looking around.

In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :

Good to know, as I actually just purchased a profile refrigerator today for delivery next week. Hopefully money well spent. 

I was a huge skeptic, but must now confess that our GE appliances have been very trouble free. 

For washing machines, Fisher & Paykel. I've had to fix ours twice, but parts are available and not horrible, and it's easy to diagnose and repair with the interwebs.

We redid our kitchen during the plague.

Bosch washer/dryer & Dishwasher.
Kitchen Aid stove
Whirlpool slim Microwave vent.
And we didn't replace the fridge.

We've been happy with all of them. My wife is a stay at home, homeschool mom and zealously researches these things before we buy them. She found the Bosch was pretty reliable across most lines for washing stuff. Kitchen Aid and Whirlpool were excellent, and terrible, completely specific to models. LG and Samsung were across the board not very good in the kitchen. And the biggest failure on fridges is the ice maker, water dispenser. If you can live without those, your selection will go way down, and your reliability goes way up.

We just renovated our house and needed new appliances. After much research/shopping, we ended up settling on LG. They seemed to have the best reviews and the lowest service calls out of just about every brand we looked at. Got a dual ice maker fridge, gas stove, microwave, and dishwasher. So far, so good. We also got 5yr warranties on everything, just in case. One thing I liked about the fridge particularly was how the icemakers are set up. The door one looks easily serviceable and the whole bucket comes out easily, and the one inside the freezer uses a similar mechanism. The other stuff has been great so far. We kept our older GE washer and dryer. It was made right before the Haier buyout, and they have been great. 

Speaking of GE, after Haier bought the GE appliance division, the quality went straight into the toilet. The apartment we rented last year had brand new GE stuff, and it was awful. Particularly egregious was the dishwasher. The door lock is made of plastic, and has a sensor on it. It will only lock when the sensor feels like it, and since the door was flimsy and floppy and the hinges were loose and not serviceable, you had to basically go through a song-and-dance with the door and the lock sensor every time you want to use it. These door lock sensors are common on many machines, but the way it engages is asinine. Hopefully their higher end stuff isn't as bad, but the stuff we had in the apartment... woof. 

And as others have said (and will say), steer clear of Samsung. None of the local appliance places around here stock them anymore due to the high repair frequency. My parents also had one of their fridges that had to get replaced after 5 major repairs in 3 years. Absolute nightmare to own. 

I buy a lot of appliances, more than I care to count. At this point none are as good as they used to be. Between electronic controls in ovens that can't take heat and what ever the newest refrigerant they are mandated to use, it seems like they are learning how to build things that work just long enough for you to not want to burn the headquarters to the ground when things crap out too soon. I say headquarters because the factories are all in Mexico.

Pick what you like the look of and pay for the extended service plans. The plans cost about what one service call runs you when things are out of warranty. You won't have any better luck by spending the money the plan costs on little bit better appliance.

In reply to chief8one :

Google "Samsung appliances" with "site:grassrootsmotorsports.com/off-topic/" after it.

You will find nothing but horror stories.

We have 15-year-old KitchenAid appliances and they are all still working fine.  We did have to replace the microwave this spring because the fan, light, and turntable wouldn't turn off unless you opened the door (the magnetron did).

Our Fridgedaire appliances are 17 years old, bought from Sears, built by Electrolux.  I've learned to ignore the brand names and look at who actually manufactures the stuff. Many years ago, an appliance vendor stood me in front of four fridges with the doors all open. They were identical. He closed the doors and pointed out the differing handles and trim on the outside and the differing prices. I bought the cheapest of the four.

We have Frigidaire and Whirlpool, and they've been very good. We buy all our appliances from a small town appliance dealer. I think the stuff they sell is higher quality than your box/lowes/depot stores, and the prices are not substantially different. I've heard quite a few complaints about Home depot appliance purchases

The used ones I mentioned I bought for my house are all GE except the fridge which is Whirlpool.

They've all been bulletproof.  The dishwasher did need a water level sensor which was $18 and 30 seconds to replace, but the rest has been great for the 7 years I've had them.  I don't remember how old they were when I bought them, but I don't think it was more than a year or two because they looked new.

I think I've found my selection of matching Whirlpool appliances.... I had no idea how many choices/options there are.  Only reason I'm replacing is that over time the very outdated appliances that came with my house are all dying in one way or another.  First the glass stove top broke when i dropped a can on it.  A few years later my very basic one knob dishwasher took a dirt nap.  The recent death was the other day had small grease fire and melted the front of the above range microwave door.  I figured now is the time to upgrade/update.   All appliances at one point in time were white, but now have yellowed.