Customer Reviews

Bosch : B22CS50SNS 22 cu. ft. Linea Series Side by Side Refrigerator - Stainless Steel

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm vacillating between 3 and 4 stars, but we certainly like our Bosch better than others who have written about it. The first point I'd like to make is that most reviews of larger appliances are really comparisons between what we had and what we just chose.

We moved down from a 25 cu ft GE Profile (counter-depth) that was 15 years old, and the only reason we did was that it was white (and a little noisy) and didn't go with our new kitchen decor. This wasn't exactly my idea, but I got dragged from appliance store to appliance store, and when I saw this one, I gave it my "seal of approval." The handles were less obtrusive than all the rest, and that for a galley kitchen was the clincher.

Pros: We've had it over a week, and time will tell, but so far it's extremely quiet, and it's good looking. It holds all our food because my wife got very efficient and economized the space, and we're only two people. We've measured temps on both sides, and each was right on the mark to the degree, 0° and 39°. It makes ice cubes very well and quickly.

Other things took a few days to get used to, and have gone from "Cons" to "doesn't matter." This includes the poorly designed ice and water dispenser. The water dispenser is well toward the front and for those used to putting a glass to the back of the dispenser compartment, you'll be cleaning the floor as often as we did in the first 3 days. On the other hand, our floor had never been so clean. As for ice, you should place the glass up against the to of the dispenser, push the button, and you won;'t get any shavings on the floor. To be fair, when it came to crushed ice, our GE used to spit out ice on the floor as well.

Cons: The shelf sizes are badly designed. The bottom shelf on the refrigerator door is almost useless. Maybe some sliced cheese and that's about it. I think it's just 2" deep and that's because, with the door closed, it abuts the vegetable compartment.

The refrigerator door has to be completely open to open some of the drawers all the way. The top shelf is okay for large bottles once you toss the completely useless and space consuming wine rack. There is one door shelf that will hold a gallon jug of milk, but right now we're wondering where we're going to put a Thanksgiving turkey. 22 cu ft either ain't what it used to be, or the extra 3 cu ft our GE had was space we never really appreciated.

If you just want a few ice cubes ADDED to a drink, and you don't want to splash water or soda by adding cubes through the dispenser, you have to pull out the ice cube bucket to get to the cubes. On the GE, there was a door that you could open to the ice bucket and just stick your hand in to get a few cubes out. We miss that door. Well, I miss that door. It's always been too high for my wife to see what she's doing. Is this really a "Con?" If you do this more than two or three times a week, yes. If not, then forget about it and move on to the real pros and cons.

We couldn't figure how to stop the alarm from going off and keep the panel lights on, but I suggest that, if you read the manual CAREFULLY, you'll get the answer. You can lock them out or on as the case may be. And so I'll add the manual as a CON. It must have been translated from the German because there are a few things that take some "interpretation" to understand.

The water filter is outrageously expensive ($70 retail, $50 through Amazon companies) and is supposed to be changed every 6 months. Our water is hard, but of good quality, and I won't be changing the filter but once a year if that. This is ridiculous. Our GE filters had to be changed every 6 months and cost $34 for two! I changed those every 8-12 months, and the water tasted fine.

Bosch gives you all of one sample cleaning cloth, and it does a fantastic job. No fingerprints show, but after application, use a T-shirt to clean off the oil residue. And note that the application of any cleaner makes the front of the appliance appear or actually be darker. Still, we will be buying the wipes and even after the two grandkids come to visit, we'll be able to simply wipe off whatever smudges they leave behind. (Our 2.5 year old grandson was born with 12 hands, so we're also looking for a good glass cleaner. P.S. A house cannot be kidproofed against a 2 year old little boy.)

Last, I'll be calling Bosch for an explanation as to whether this is stainless steel or clean steel (google, don't wiki this). A magnet will stick to the doors and that means clean steel. Clean steel will rust if scratched through, and I shouldn't be paying $2,400 for clean steel! IF manufacturers are using the terms interchangeably, then the practice should be stopped. And since our salesman knew the difference. but conveniently couldn't find his magnet, he should be stopped as well. We were assured that this was stainless.

Would we buy this again? Probably. Our favorite brand became LG, but there are people who hate LG. Others hate GE, and other love KitchenAide. We can't buy one of each and see who's wrong. Sometimes I think that reviews - even one like this - only tend to confuse. And some make you wonder how people could think that a refrigerator-freezer was going to play Beethoven's 5th every time you open the door.

All and all, we're getting happier about the purchase, but there are still some things that would need improvement and absolute correction for us to be "delighted." Let me put it this way: we're not unhappy with the purchase. That's 4 stars max. On a scale of 1-10, it would be a 7.5 or an 8, and those are pretty high marks, but we haven't had any of the problems the other reviewers have had. Maybe buying through "the mail" isn't such a great idea. If anything goes wrong, not only do we have the seller 5 miles away, we have the service center just 20 miles away in San Francisco.

I replaced my 14 year old dead quiet white Maytag with a stainless steel Bosch. It has a nice, sleek look, but problems and more problems. The first Bosch refrigerator was different from the showroom model in Lowes (stay away!). The showroom model did NOT have two large vent holes on the top surface of the unit, and the refrigerator I received did--covered with stainless steel tape. I was told by the deliveryperson to keep on---a real pretty site, right? That was the first thing. Second is the constant-- I repeat, constant--and penetrating alarm sound/shrill beep that goes on 15-20 seconds (not one minute) after the door is open, and there is NO way to permanently shut it off. It can drive you CRAZY. Next is when you get water from the dispenser. No matter how careful you are, it leaks and drips onto the surface of the door, then drips AFTER you take away the drinking glass. In addition, the freezer shelves fill with frost VERY quickly. However, I noticed a crack in the interior of this unit, so back it went to Lowe's, and I received the same model as a replacement. Why I just didn't select another/different brand, well, I was naive. I have a space problem and need a counter depth refrigerator.

Anyway, the second Bosch refrigerator arrived, complete with the holes on top and all its other sundry faults I mentioned above. Now, the difference is that this second unit was so noisy, so loud, that I heard the noise from my bedroom, which is quite far away fron the kitchen. The noise was that loud and constant. Let me repeat: constant. I absolutely could not and cannot take it. I could not get a restful night's sleep. Mind you, the first refrigerator was quiet. This second replacement, as loud as can be, and extremely intolerable and unrelenting. Obviously, there was something wrong with it. I called Lowe's and they are picking it up tomorrow, and that is the end of my buying a Bosch refrigerator. I will have my money refunded. I am thinking about an LG. I hear that brand is the quietest. Any suggestions? Bottom line: please stay away, far, far away, from Bosch refrigerators. The absolute worst. Oh, one more thing: I have a Dacor range and microwave. The stainless steel on Dacor appliances seems superior in shine and durability to the much more duller Bosch finish. Don't buy Bosch. Ever.

Update: I finally found a refrigerator--a KitchenAid. See my review of this.

I so want to love this refrigerator. It is beautiful and the space inside is incredibly usable...seems like more room than my last full depth refrigerator. We did notice in the first few days that the interior temp was not accurate (different than the display temperature). But, we simply turned down the temp a few degrees. Two weeks later, a very, very loud squeeking/chirping noise started coming from the rear of the refrigerator. We could hear it from outside. We called Sears who were happy to send a repair person or exchange the frige since we had it such a short time. Bosch was not helpful in the slightest. Remarkably, the noise stopped. I really hoped some sort of kink had worked itself out. Today, the repair man came to take a look and apparently the fan blades had fallen off. Apparently, the squeaking was when the fan was in trouble. It quieted when the blades had fallen entirely off. I'm just glad it happened during the 90 day return period.

During my shopping process for a whole kitchen full of appliances, I noticed reviews are either penned by haters or lovers. That makes it hard for people trying to balance cost, function and reliability, because no appliance will ever be perfect. I was just now shopping on Amazon for a new filter for our fridge and noticed this product did not get very good reviews, I mean not at all. So I have to chime in and tell everyone this refrigerator is fine!

We've had this fridge installed for 6 months now. Two weeks after we put it in the ice maker went out. I immediately predicted gloom and doom and cited all the negative reviews we'd read here. But the warranty repair company sent someone out immediately. He told me this unit uses the exact same model as most other brands out there (like Jenn-Air, Thermador, Kitchenaid and GE, and all the icemaker units come from same manufacturer in China) and we just got a lemon ice maker and a gear was stripped out, which meant it wouldn't turn out the ice cubes. That whole unit got switched out at no cost, no problem. Since then we have had no issues.

Some pros, as I see them: the lighting inside is good, even being "not LED." Seriously, it's a fridge not an operating room. I really like the shelf that rotates up or down easily. I can do that to make room for something tall below without unloading the shelf. The doors do need to open almost all the way (like almost all side by sides) but the drawers slide in and out very smoothly. It is consistently very cold, and I love being able to adjust the temp on the lower drawer independently. Some weeks it holds meat at a lower temp, sometimes it's just regular stuff that's overflowed into the drawer. Also, we had an "oops" where my young son pulled the milk carton out of the door shelf too fast, and knocked that whole shelf out onto our tile floor. It hit pretty hard, and the silver rim came off, but it did not break or crack. (and the silver rim popped right back on.) Thank you, Bosch, for plastic strong enough to survive young families!

Now for some minor, picky cons: The very bottom refrigerator door shelf is useless. I think I currently have a baggie of pine nuts shoved in there, and that's really all it will hold. And the shelves on the freezer door are a little small too. This is a pretty compact unit! The control panel on the outside really takes some practice. If we ever have to do anything tricky it requires a trip to the manual drawer. I would never, ever use that panel for the timer function. Heaven help you if you set that thing. It's not intuitive. Most people who come to our house and try to use the water/ice function without a warning get their feet wet. The water dispenser is pretty far forward. This is a minor complaint, because you only make that mistake once, but I can see how people keep mentioning it in reviews because it is a little startling at first. I've never met an ice dispenser that behaved all the time, and ours does just what they all do occasionally. Crush when you've asked for cubed, spit a piece out spontaneously, etc. Very rare but it happens.

All in all, I'm really happy with this purchase. For a mid-price, sleek, stainless refrigerator, it's performing exactly as I'd hoped, which is to say that it does its job so well I usually don't even notice.

Pacific Sales has been out two times now to replace the loud fans and they are still unbearably loud. The wake me up in the morning as they did today. Pacific Sales claims that Bosch has a lemon law, which requires this fridge to break 3 times before they will replace it. This alone, in my mind is absurd. Also, good luck trying to schedule the repair visit if you are a working person. Bosch was less than helpful, and Pacific Sales just keeps postponing the problem. They refused to exchange it as of yet.

You would think that with the name Bosch, you are buying something that has been expertly designed and engineered. I have to warn those of you who are considering the purchase of a Bosch refrigerator - DONT. Stick with a Bosch dishwasher or washer/dryer set if you must.

The drawer "hardware" is plastic and can easily break off when re-installing.

It is a LOUD appliance - what they call normal is not! I can hear it from two rooms away.

we had to have ours repaired less than 6 months after installation.

The shelves are also cheaply constructed and can only be adjusted minimally. Same with the door shelves. Not a very flexible arrangement.

So disappointed that we could not have moved our GE Profile counter-depth from our old house. It was a far superior appliance.

And by the way, the Bosch DW we have is also not the best. I'm not sure what everyone raves about. It may be quiet, but it does not clean very well, even with the recommended detergent.

As part of our kitchen remodel, we selected all Bosch appliances - dishwasher, stove and refrigerator. The dishwasher is so quiet that we sometimes wonder if it's really on (but the spotless dishes let us know that it really was). The stove is beautiful. Ah, but the refrigerator. It's a good thing we held onto our old Kenmore side by side, because we haven't been able to use our new Bosch refrigerator at all. Why?, you might ask - it's because the refrigerator side requires a full 18.25" swing clearance to open the door to 160 degrees so that you can open the drawers. When we first started spec'ing appliances, we saw nothing about this swing door clearance requirement, and only found it buried deep in the specs after trying to figure out why we couldn't open the doors, and after the unit had been delivered and installed.

It's a beautiful unit, but all we could get from Bosch customer support was that the unit needed that full 18.25" swing clearance. We've thought of pulling out the bottom drawer and replacing it with a couple of Fridg Binz, but I'm concerned that this might have deleterious effects on the compressor. Any other ideas?

We've looked at other vendors' units since discovering this evident design flaw, and KitchenAid seems to address it well by having a cutout near the bottom of the door that allows the bottom drawer to open freely without opening the door past 90 degrees. Bosch could get me back as a customer if they did the same!

We purchased our Bosch about 1 year ago and have been very happy with the appliance. On looks alone it was the most stylish refrigerator we could find in this price range. Plus, the clever designers at Bosch made the only exterior water/ice dispenser that actually doesn't look ugly and adds to the aesthetic of the refrigerator by breaking up the expansive stainless steel front. It also is designed with a full front so the hinges are hidden, which makes it look really sharp in our enclosed cabinet.

It has functioned very well and we have had no issues since we purchased it. The unit uses much less electricity than my last fridge which was much smaller, and is very quiet. Plus the LED display makes a great night light when you are fumbling for glasses in the kitchen.

We have enjoyed the filtered water and had no issues like a previous poster, that being said, the ice dispenser is like a rocket and does spill ice if you don't have your glass exactly positioned. While I don't love the side by side configuration, the fridge is very well designed to maximize space. It features shelves that swing up and down on a wheel which make getting an odd sized item in the fridge a synch without having to move stuff around. Plus the LED backlighting allows you too see items in the back of the drawer very easily. The wine bottle holder also allows an easy place to store tall bottles and items.

We went ahead and bought our Bosch appliances after reading several reviews. We had a Bosch dishwasher which was outstanding in terms of how truly quiet it was. But it was at the end of its life and had to be replaced so we wanted to stick to a Bosch dishwasher and my wife insisted that all the appliances had to match in appearance, so we stayed with the brand including the Refrigerator.

As people had pointed out, it was loud after the 1st 24 hours of operation and we were wondering if we had made a mistake. I called that Appliance store and they said that all new high efficiency refrigerators are on the loud side. I took that with a grain of salt. However, after realizing that the temperature setting for the Crisper drawer was much lower than that of the Refrigerator, I bumped it up a bit (i.e. the Refrigerator is at 39, and the Crisper is at 37.) This dramatically brought the noise level highly infrequent and at a much lower level. I'm wondering if the temperature differential in the same side of the refrigerator was making the cooling system compensate frequently and perhaps decreasing the difference fixed the problem.

We're much happier with the purchase in the 3 months we've owned it. As others have noted, it depends on what people are used to but the water dispenser doesn't have a dispense latch that opens the valve. Instead it is activated by the button up in the front, which doesn't bother us, but guests that we have over appear to look for it.

We love the SuperCool feature. There were concerns initially on whether the refrigerator was cooling sufficiently, but as time has gone by, we are used to how the system works. We have not used the SuperCool feature in the last month and the cooling is very consistent with no worries.

Got our first Bosch, and it was great. Quiet and beautiful to look at. But a defect inside allowed the glass shelves to fall off their pegs, just as you put a gallon of milk on it. Bosch came out and condemned the unit. I was impressed. Out comes #2 refrig. Plugged it in and the compressor sounded awful. A metallic rubbing sound inside the compressor. Could hear it across the house. Ice maker did not work. Out came Bosch, who replaced the ice maker but said the compressor was fine. Well the compressor noise has gotten louder, and now the ice maker died again. Also the refrig has a door open alarm feature. Well, my kids left a fruit drawer out a little, which caused the door not to close all the way. I woke up the next morning to a refrigerator that was 50 degrees inside, and no alarm sounded. Out comes Bosch for the third time. He condemns the compressor, ice maker, and a computer board. I contact customer service and demand a new machine, as it is only 2 months old. "Sorry, our warranty says we fix it, so thats what you get" She also refuses to let me talk to anyone higher than her " I am as high as you can get" she says.

I purchased it from Fergusen Enterprises, a wholesaler to the construction market. Jeff at Fergusen in Downers Grove Illinois, stepped in and pressured Bosch to replace the unit. We are currently waiting for Unit #3 to arrive.