Product review
I’ll live with my GE Profile appliances, but don’t recommend them
An open letter to GE about the low quality of their top-of-the-line appliances
Last year, we renovated our kitchen, which included replacing all of our 17-year-old (but still working) appliances — refrigerator, stove, microwave, and dishwasher.
A few months later, our dryer broke, so we replaced the washer and dryer.
We chose the GE Profile line for everything.
We’re living with them, but we wouldn’t recommend all of them. Here’s why:
GE Profile “Smart” Top Load Washer
It just doesn’t clean the clothes.
No matter what setting we use, clothes don’t come out clean. The service person told us to not use the washer’s standard settings and instead create a custom setting with deep wash and deep rinse, which defeats the so-called “smart” energy-efficient settings — and even that doesn’t always work.
The machine doesn’t have a finish alarm. With all the other useless bells and whistles it has, you’d think it would be able to beep or chime to let me know when it’s finished.
The countdown clock is a total mystery. When it says 1 or 2 minutes left, sometimes it’s almost finished — and sometimes it takes 5–10 minutes for the cycle to complete.
It gets out of balance easily — more so than our previous washer — and when it does, it rocks around the laundry room. After a brief time, it stops rocking, the washer fills with water, and then it goes through another spin cycle. It has done that several times with a single load. It would be much more efficient, not to mention faster, if I could just open the lid and redistribute the clothes, then let the washer continue the cycle. But I can’t.
The sensors and other electronic features fail for no apparent reason. We’d had the washer about six months when one day the pump just starting running — we weren’t using the washer at the time, nothing was going on to cause it. The person who took our support call says sometimes the detergent dispenser holds water and the machine “thinks” it needs to wash. Or something like that. To fix it, we had to turn the power off at the breaker for ten minutes to let it reset.
On another occasion, all of the presets we had programmed into the app disappeared. Just gone. We had to program everything again.
GE Profile Dryer
Every single one of the automatic settings leaves the clothes damp. Every. Single. One.
The service person recommended using the manual setting. So far, that’s worked the best — which raises the question: What’s the point of all those pricey sensors?
Unlike the washer, the dryer has a finish alarm, but the volume is so low, even when set to its loudest setting, that we can’t hear it outside of the laundry room.
The one plus for us of this dryer is that I like the steam setting for fluffing and dewrinkling clothes.
GE Profile Refrigerator
I wanted a French door refrigerator, and I liked the look and overall style of this one.
Our biggest problem was with the icemaker.
We bought an extra icemaker for the freezer because the in-door dispenser wouldn’t make enough ice for our needs.
The first one was defective. It didn’t produce much ice when it was working and regularly froze up and stopped working. We called the appliance store for service and they referred me to their warranty tech. The tech told me on the phone that they see this “all the time” and he would just come out and replace the icemaker. But when he arrived, he realized they had sent him the wrong part. He recommended going directly through GE, so we did.
We scheduled a service call, but the tech who came that time did not have the part and had to order it. After another couple of weeks, he came out and replaced the icemaker. This unit made more ice, but within two weeks it was freezing up just like the first one.
So we scheduled another service appointment, clearly stating that the unit they had just replaced wasn’t working. The tech arrived and (surprise!) didn’t have the part.
He ordered a new icemaker and an additional part and came back two weeks later to install them. They appear to be working. But why did it have to take five service calls and a couple of months to fix a problem the service technicians seem to be familiar with?
One other issue with this refrigerator is that it’s noisy — it vibrates loudly when the compressor comes on. I’m learning to live with that.
GE Profile Dishwasher
The wash cycles are annoyingly long.
If you use the two shorter cycles, the detergent pod doesn’t completely dissolve. Even on the regular cycle, it doesn’t always rinse the detergent off the dishes.
The racks
I really like the three pull-outs (especially the top one that’s great for long, flat utensils), but the racks are frustrating. My plates don’t stand up and it’s hard to efficiently organize the dishes.
The racks occasionally slip off the tracks and have to be reset, which is frustrating especially when they’re loaded with dishes.
On the plus side:
It’s super quiet. You can barely hear it running.
GE Profile Range
We like the range, especially the induction stove top. Lots of nice features and it has so far worked as expected.
GE Profile Microwave/Convection Oven
This is a feature-rich microwave/convection oven. The manual is a little confusing (it took three phone calls and three different answers to figure out that we didn’t have to take the turntable out when we were using the bake function), but once you figure it out, it’s a good appliance.
We also like that the microwave and the stovetop “talk” to each other — when we turn a burner on, the light on the bottom of the microwave comes on automatically.
The technicians
The technicians who have come to our house and the ones we have talked with on the phone have been friendly, professional, and seem genuinely to want to help.
Check back for updates
I’m posting this after we’ve had the kitchen appliances for about a year and the washer and dryer about eight months. I’ll update it with additional information as we continue to live with these appliances.
Thanks for reading! Here’s a little more about me:
