- Raise or lower shelves without having to unload them first
- Spend less with energy-saving economy and vacation modes
- Extra bright halogen lighting illuminates interior brilliantly so you can find what you need
- External controls wih LCD display let you manage inside temps without opening the fridge
- Dual evaporators maintain perfect humidity and protects against odor transfer
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.
Buy Bosch B22CS50SNS 500 21.7 Cu. Ft. Stainless Steel Counter Depth Side-By-Side Refrigerator - Energy Now
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.
Read Best Reviews of Bosch B22CS50SNS 500 21.7 Cu. Ft. Stainless Steel Counter Depth Side-By-Side Refrigerator - Energy Here
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.
Want Bosch B22CS50SNS 500 21.7 Cu. Ft. Stainless Steel Counter Depth Side-By-Side Refrigerator - Energy Discount?
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.
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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.
