General Electric ESS25LSRSS/ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Refrigerator Eterna Series Review

General Electric ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Refrigerator Major Features:

Ice Maker
Filtered Water Dispenser
Side By Side style
Frost Free

My experience:
I bought the General Electric ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Eterna Series Refrigerator back in 2005 from Brandsmart. The first unit had scratches on the front door so I made them give me another. The second unit had scratches on the ice/water dispenser so I got another. The third unit came without issues and I got it one day before hurricane Wilma came here. The unit had about 20 hours to operate on regular electric. When the hurricane came through I had to use a generator for about a week. I ran the generator 3 times a day for around 1.5 hours each run. It actually made some ice cubes during this period. Changing the filter is easy though the filters cost around $34.00 each and requires removal of some food off the top shelf. The top enclosure in the refrigerator door has a tendency to lift up easily and fall off.

Behind the refrigerator is a fan that cools the condenser coil. The condenser coil had a tendency to build up dust and needs to be cleaned yearly. The refrigerator makes a fair bit of noise from the multiple fans and creaking. I do not recommend placing this refrig/freezer near where you would want quiet. 5 years later, there is an additional annoying whirring/howling sound from a fan in the freezer. I am currently in process of replacing the evaporator fan to attempt to remove the howling ghost sound. Click here to hear the howling noise in mp3 format - this has been about a year now. I replaced only the evaporator motor and fan blade and the ghost noise is gone. Click How to change GE evaporator Fan for the procedure to change it. This has corrected the howling noise for me.
01/31/2012 - Water and Ice Dispenser stopped working - green light goes out when trying to dispense either one. No clicking and the light does not come on either. Luckily it still cools OK so far.
02/02/2012 - Lights are all out on front now, but water blinks when first plugged in.
Here is how I fixed mine.

Unplug refrigerator
Remove front kick panel at bottom front of refrigerator.
Locate small connector with 3 wires on left side - blue, black and red. (In my case the red was corroded off)
Cut off connectors and strip all wires. Clean bare ends with sand paper.
Put heat shrink tubing on the inner 3 wires.
Connect Blue to Blue, Black to Black and Red to White and solder.
Slip heat shrink over solder joints.
Heat up tubing with a match
Re-install guard panel
Plug back in and all works again.

Note: It's possible your wire colors may be different than mine so check it first.

General Electric ESS25LSRSS/ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Refrigerator Pros:

Freezes and cools well
Easy change out of water filter

General Electric ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Refrigerator Cons:

Noisy
Quality control issues
Questionable lifespan

Spot Rating: 3 spots
The General Electric ESS25LSRC SS Side By Side Refrigerator works fine but it does make quite a bit of noise and gets noisier with age. I would not buy this again.