4 Of The Biggest Complaints About LG Refrigerators

If you're going to spend thousands of dollars on a new refrigerator, you want to make sure it functions well and lasts a long time. LG is a well-established electronics brand, and its fridges offer sleek designs and smart features. However, some customer reviews and social media posts paint a rather negative picture of this brand's refrigerators. So much so, there is a Facebook group called "LG Sucks" for frustrated customers to rant.

Not every LG fridge develops issues, and according to some customer reviews, it's considered a top-rated refrigerator brand. Yet issues do pop up often enough that buyers regularly discuss them online, particularly to warn others, with customers relaying their stress when refrigerators break down, leading to spoiled food, expensive repairs, and weeks without a working appliance.

The biggest complaints usually involve core components of the fridge, like compressor failures and ice maker malfunctions, which are paired with poor customer service and long repair wait times. So before buying an LG fridge, you might want to consider these four biggest complaints. If it feels too risky to go with LG, know customers consider Bosch to be one of the most reliable refrigerator brands.

One of the most widely reported and concerning issues with LG refrigerators involves compressor failure. The compressor is the central component of the refrigerator: It moves the liquid refrigerant and connects to all other components of the fridge to keep a cool environment. When it stops working, the fridge can no longer maintain a safe temperature for keeping food edible.

On one Reddit post, a customer complained their refrigerator's compressor failed three times. In another post, a customer shared their fridge stopped cooling after only three years, and even after getting the compressor fixed, it failed again just five months later. The issue goes beyond the repair itself — the replacements, if not covered, can be expensive, and sometimes leave households without refrigeration for weeks while waiting for parts and appointments.

These are not one-off issues; there is currently a class action lawsuit against LG arguing the company was well aware the compressors were dysfunctional. According to the lawsuit, LG advertises its fridges will last 20 years, but customers were experiencing appliance failure far sooner than that. The company already experienced two previous class action lawsuits for the same issue, and the current lawsuit is for those who have purchased an LG fridge after 2018.

Another major complaint is LG's customer service after a refrigerator breaks down. To paint how bad a picture this is, LG receives a shocking 1.1-star rating out of 5 on Consumer Affairs, with customer service being a top-mentioned topic. Out of the 4,424 reviews, 2,901 are 1-star ratings, summarized with the general sentiment of terrible customer service.

Many customers claim getting repairs approved or scheduled through LG can become a long and frustrating process. It often involves multiple phone calls, waits, being transferred, and long response times. Once you are speaking with someone, expect a struggle to get clear updates about repair timelines.

It may take weeks for a new part for the fridge to arrive, and the delivery window may be vague. Customers also reported it was an arduous process because LG often couldn't find technicians in their area who were able to fix the fridge. There's also often a disconnect between when LG says the technician will arrive and when they actually do show up. For those whose appliances were eventually repaired, many found the same issue occurred shortly after. Those who couldn't wait any longer to get their fridge repaired by LG or for a part to arrive reported they bit the bullet and paid out of pocket for a third-party technician to fix the fridge.

Ice maker failures are another frequent complaint among LG refrigerator owners. On the LG Smart InstaView Door-in-Door Counter-Depth Refrigerator with Craft Ice product page, some customers say their ice makers stopped producing ice entirely, suffered from slow production, leaked water, or made unusual noises. These issues popped up rather quickly, as soon as six months to a year after purchasing the fridge.

In one scenario about the ice maker, a customer explained, "[It] was working fine and heard a loud cracking noise when the ice maker had snapped itself and cut the electrical wire." Owners said the problem repeatedly returned even after repairs, and if the repair occurred outside the warranty time frame, they had to pay out of pocket.

In one customer review, they explained how common this was, "Spoke to an LG tech and he says he replaces these every week. He says so does the other 30 techs he works with." This is particularly frustrating for this LG fridge model, as it advertises having "Craft Ice," which means it has a round ice maker that makes batches of ice spheres automatically. However, the special design seems to be part of the problem, as one customer complained, "The ice spheres freeze in the maker; it tries to refill and freezes shut."

LG refrigerators seem to have issues with the freezer building up excessive frost, then having problems with the defrost system intended to prevent this. A refrigerator's defrost system helps prevent frost from building up around the evaporator coils, but when something goes wrong, the accumulation of ice can interfere with airflow and cooling abilities.

Customers on Consumer Affairs have noticed thick frost inside the freezer, water leaking, inconsistent temperatures, or complete dysfunction of the freezer. The LG customer service solution? Do a manual defrost. Customers who dealt with freezer buildup and malfunctions are often told to take all the food out, store in a cooler or extra fridge (bold assumption!), and unplug the appliance for a full 8-hour defrost. This does not seem to have been a long-term solution for most customers, based on their reviews.

One customer described a particularly nightmare-ish situation, "After contacting LG, they told us to defrost the fridge. We did that every four months as needed. Now after just four years we woke up to the refrigerator at 40 degrees [Fahrenheit] and everything melted in the freezer and now all the food has gone bad." Manual defrosting is a part of keeping your freezer in tip-top shape, but ideally, you should only have to do this once a year.