Which type of seal on a French door refrigerator is more reliable?

Question

I'm going to buy a French door refrigerator and have seen 2 types of seals for the seam between the two doors. One is the usual rubber+magnetic seal, but of course each door has the magnetic rubber gasket facing the other door. The other type of seal is a long strip of plastic and metal that flips 90 degrees when you open and close the door. On this one, each door's magnetic rubber gasket seals against the long strip. To me it seems like the one with the flipping strip might be more durable over time and it seems like the seal would be less hassle to repair.

Has anyone had much experience with either of these types of seal? When it goes bad, how expensive and how difficult is it to repair?

Answer 1

I have only had experience with the rotating strip on two different brands of French-door refrigerator. On both, the flipping mechanism works well the vast majority of the time. However, it occasionally will get bumped to the "closed" position while open, preventing the refrigerator from actually closing correctly. It simply must be flipped back to the "open" position and reclosed. The seal works well.

On the first refrigerator, we had it for several years and never had a repair issue. On the second, after about two years, one of the plastic hinges that hold the flipper to its door has cracked. Despite this the mechanism still works but is a bit more prone to the mis-flip issue. Has not been replaced yet, and the service says the whole flipper mechanism needs to be replaced. Cannot speak to whether this is a fluke or a common problem.

Overall I like this type of mechanism, despite the problem, but have nothing to compare it to.