Aug 11, 2005 06:36 PM
29326 Views
(Updated Aug 11, 2005 06:36 PM)
I recently bought a Whirlpool Ice Magic 400L double door fridge from Viveks (Indiranagar, Bangalore). I did a decent amount of price-hunting on that day and found that Viveks offered the best price (Rs. 27100). Other folks were at least Rs. 300-400 above Viveks.
First lesson I learned while price hunting was that 400L models of any manufacturer is not popular. Normal capacity seems to mean <=350L. Anyone who buys a higher capacity seems to go for >=450L. As a result, no one had a 400L fridge on display.
None of the dealers had this model in stock, either, in their warehouses. However, Viveks was able to deliver the frigde by the end of the day, though they had committed to deliver only in 3 days!
Second lesson I learned is about the delivery process. The 230kg fridge needed to be lifted to my 5th floor house, and the lift was a good 100m away from the entrance to the apartment. The fridge just about fits into a small lift (a typical small 6-person lift).
While taking the fridge out of the lift, the delivery boys tilted it almost horizontal. Convention wisdom is that fridges cannot be tilted >45 degree. The delivery boys confidently told me that this is not a problem (''just wait for an hour before you switch the fridge on''). So, I waited for a couple of hours, switched on the fridge - which worked for 1 day and promptly died the next evening.
Third lesson I learned is not to give away the old fridge for at least 2-3 days. Once my new fridge came, I promptly gifted my old one to someone. So when the new fridge died on me late in the night, I had to run to my neighbors apartment and store essentials in his fridge.
Fourth lesson I learned is that service centers (at least the Whirlpool service center) does not work on Sundays or work late. I waited patiently with a non-working fridge - and the Whirlpool technician walked in late in the afternoon the next day. He promptly diagonised that the compressor had died due to freezing agent getting into it.
It took another day for Whirlpool to bring a replacement fridge - this time they sent two small ''kids'' to bring the fridge to the 5th floor (in spite of being told about the complexity of the task!). After getting some local help, they managed to install the fridge and the new one now works well.
Summary:
Being a vegetarian, I like the proportion of freezer space vs. fridge space offered by Whirlpool. This one has the smallest freezer (97L freezer vs. 303L rest of the fridge)
Good performance (after the initial hiccups), though the observation period is only a couple of days now
Punctual sales (Viveks) and service (Whirlpool): they commit very conservative, but keep their commit
Decent amount of storage space in the doors
Slow in responsiveness: Time is measured only in 24-hour increments. ''Tomorrow'' means late evening tomorrow - saving grace is that they tell this to you clearly upfront that it IS late evening tomorrow. They don't tell you ''first thing tomorrow'' and turn up ''last thing tomorrow''
Compressor failure due to freezing agent seeping into it (for some unexplained reason): Not clear if the compressor failure in the first 24 hours itself was due to transportation mistakes. The two-hour waiting period before I switched the fridge on, is supposed to have been adequate precaution against transportation mistakes, so I'm suspecting there might have been a quality problem with my fridge too
glass racks - none of the higher capacity models offer the classical wire rack, which seems to be the intuitively stronger thing (since I typically tore food in steel vessels, like South indians usually do)
No door lock!! I didn't notice this in the showroom, realized only after the fridge was delivered. Apparently, this can be fitted later at additional charge, but I haven't ventured into that yet.
