Frost free Fridge/freezers

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Anyone bought a n Electra frost free fridge freezer in the sat few years?

(just had cataract replacement op so that’s why the text is larger and bolder - can’t read it otherwise.

 

Been looking (hard) for a replacement unit, our old Hotpoint  has given up, and I’m not convinced it was so good either. It was 160 cm high, but no modern replacements are that size, so the Electra is the lowest at 170 cm. Also cheap as chips - in comparison anyway. Most are 177 to 202 cm tall. My wife says flatly, “It’s still too tall”  - but you can never win with a wife. It’s a question of needs (and pocket). But I see the make - previously italian, its now owned by a Turkish company. - At least, it’s not made in China.

Any comments - likes and dislikes?

Model number is FF170WFF BTW.

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Gerry - I’ve just looked on the ‘AO’ website and it gets very good reviews and is A+ rated and a reasonable price. No personal knowledge on this brand so hopefully someone will come along soon who has. Looks pretty good to me though.

Andrew

 

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Unfortunately the ‘Electra’ name is meaningless. IIRC Electra used to be the ‘own brand’ name used by the pre-privatisation Electricity Boards - remember them?  The products were not necessarily Italian then - they came from a variety of suppliers.  Not seen it for years, so it’s presumably been re-established by someone, somewhere.   I’m sure I’ve heard recently that Turkey is now providing many domestic electrical goods, but heaven knows under what brand names.

After a very quick look I found Appliances Direct list a white frost free fridge freezer by Beko (CFG 1552W) which is 152 cm tall.

JS

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JS46. Well found! - could be the answer. Only drawback I can see is the Electra has four freezer drawers, so each drawer should be lighter, where the Beko only has three drawers. My wife has a habit of dropping drawers on her feet, so she wants stoppers on each drawer, but that seems most unlikely. I’ll see what the verdict is. And - it’s cheaper by £10! Delivery and disposal is slightly higher, but only about £1.50.

(No comments please about dropping drawers!)

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Got a Beko, won’t be buying any more of their stuff, only appliance I have ever considered it might actually be worth buying  a follow-on warranty…

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? Incomplete comment, would you care to elaborate?

 

?

 

 

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Here’s my thoughts on extended warranties. The cost of these is usually based on the price of the product. You will pay a certain price on items up to £200, a bit more for up to £400, a bit more… etc.

So if you buy the bottom of the range cheapy the warranty is also cheap. Buy expensive quality and the cost of the warranty rockets. I’ve bought quality in the past and thought the extended warranty too expensive so didn’t buy it. Guess what? The product failed soon after the one year manufacturer warranty.

So here’s my current usual procedure. Buy the cheapest that suits my need with a five year extended warranty. I assume it will only last five years and if I’m happy with the combined price on a cost per annum basis then all is good.

The company that makes the Elektra brand is indeed based in Turkey but has plants in many countries. The brands that they own include Beko, Grundig, Dawlance, Altus, Blomberg, Arctic, Defy, Leisure, Arstil, Elektra Bregenz and Flavel. I’ve found figures online saying they accounted for 46% of the global white goods market and that was five years ago.

Now before I give some further information on the company I want you to promise not to snigger, The company is called Arcelik. Stop sniggering at the back. As if that wasn’t bad enough the parent company is Koc Holding.

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We have a Beko, no problems at all with, got it from John Lewis with their free extended warranty

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Just make sure the back cover is not plastic, but a heavy foil.  The various freezer fires in recent years were partly because of the flammable plastic back over flammable insulation.

Then it should be OK.

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Here you go Gerry, the sound of our ‘quiet’ Beko frost-free fridge freezer. We had Beko out and apparently “they all do that sir…”

Can’t speak for any other brand, but this has put us off Beko: link

As it states in the description the sound clip is 20 seconds of no fan, 20 seconds with fan on.

Incidentally, this recording was made & uploaded on the request of Beko so they could hear it, it’s not something I’m into generally, recording the sound of white goods in operation.

Karl

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Late summer last year we bought a Beko [tall] fridge freezer for the garage for beer/wine and additional freezer capacity as it will stay working down to -15 [J Lewis with extended warranty]

Its seriously quiet, so much so that we had to check it was on a few times before loading it up so suggest noisy ones have an issue

 

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Thanks to all for the later replies, appreciated.
Individually I would make the following comments, Roadie, yes you are correct, ownership is now with a Turkish based company, but that doesn’t mean all these products are made in Turkey. Jaguar and Land rover as one example are now owned by the Tarta group (India) but the cars are made in the UK. Beko apparently used to be the proud ownership of an Italian Company (Merloni from memory) and I would assume that they are still made in the same plant, by the same workforce (Some of the best machines and products are made in Italy, so scoff not at that.

Karl, the Beko has now been installed and running since Thursday morning (despite a cock up by Curries, and an early phone call from me on Wednesday, when it failed to arrive) Noise level? Quieter than the previous Hotpoint, while a larger unit, that was noisier than this appears to be. In fact the last twelve months of usable life of the Hotpoint (costing over £100 more,) still failed in several ways including being 'frost free’ and the wife endlessly complaining about bailing out the water laying in the fridge.

Richard – Thanks for that reminder, though according to Curries website, the back of the Beko is by ‘metalized plastic’ whatever that means, they claim it’s fireproof, but I’m not going to try it with a blow lamp! It’s in a relatively safe position, with little risk of damage to anything nearby, and we have smoke alarms adjacent to the kitchen, thanks to the local fire brigade.

As to the incomplete comment by MartinPW, what can you expect for the price? We have a china tea set, but hardly ever use it, instead we use mugs. Horses for courses. We thought the Hotpoint was more substantial, but corrected that thought when the milk tray in the door collapsed one day. My wife is, or should have been a Quality Control Inspector (first class) as I once commented, and she actually agreed to that thought. She inspected this appliance with her eagle eye, and decided that the milk tray was unsuitable for holding the amount of milk we usually store, so it’s relegated to the fridge shelf instead. That, thanks to Beko, is adjustable as are all the shelves, so it’s a lot simpler to store milk and bottles of vino (sometimes) when we can afford it. Final test will be by my son, who is the actual bull in the china shop when it comes to delicasy, we’ll see - - - -. – He will be warned!

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We have a Beko fridge freezer here in black. Works perfectly  well and has a handy water dispenser in the fridge door. Sorry that your poor wife has to empty excess water by laying In your fridge, that can’t be very comfortable, no wonder she complains. There must be an easier way

15

We got a Beko frost free freezer for our garage. It is really basic - has no light and the only control is a wheel to set the temperature. That’s it. One of the main reasons we picked the Beko was that it is one of very few frost free freezers designed to work in ambient temperatures down to below freezing. We’ve had other freezers that claimed to be frost free, that had frost building up over time - particularly in winter.

The Beko freezer is now 5 years old, we’ve never had to defrost it and not had a single problem. Cheap to buy, cheap to run.

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We also have a Beko & again no problems (touch wood)