27 November 2025

6 fridges that can’t keep their cool

Fridges keep food chilled and frozen, but our testing shows not all models are good at this and can risk the safety of your food.

By Erin Bennett

Product Test Writer | Kaituhi Whakamātau Hautaonga

Fridges have one job: to keep the fridge and freezer cool. But our testing has revealed some fridges that fail in this critical task.

There are two key temperature tests where we occasionally see subpar scores.

Fluctuations: In this test, we measure how much the temperature inside the fridge fluctuates (or swings), including as the compressor starts and stops. The higher the score, the less the temperature changes. The lower the score, the more the temperature changes. Food that’s been exposed to changing temperatures could develop an unpleasant texture or spoil quicker, becoming unsafe to eat. For example, your ice cream might melt and refreeze in a puddle in a fridge with a low fluctuations score.
Seasonal change effect: This test looks at how well the fridge deals with changing temperatures outside. We test fridges in a temperature-controlled room and adjust the external temperature to simulate winter and summer conditions while monitoring the temperature inside the fridge. The higher the score, the better the fridge deals with temperature changes, meaning it will need less manual adjustments throughout the seasons.

0 doesn’t mean it doesn’t work at all

We’ve seen some fridge models that perform so poorly they’ve earned a score of 0 out of 100 in these tests. 0 doesn’t mean the fridge didn’t cool at all, but it was so bad in comparison with other fridges that it was deemed to be terrible at that test. Anything below 10% can be considered a terrible score.

These aren’t the only temperature tests we do. This means that a fridge that gets a poor score in one temperature test might redeem itself a bit in another test.

We also test:

temperature uniformity, to see how consistent the temperature is throughout each compartment in the fridge and freezer.
heat-loading, to test the fridge’s power for cooling hot food
default settings, to see how well the fridge performs on the manufacturer's recommended settings.

You can read more about our tests in How we test fridges.

6 not-so-cool fridges

Haier HRF680YZC French door

Price: $3,799
Temperature fluctuations: 0%

This French-door fridge scored 0 for fluctuations. We observed temperatures changing by up to 9°C in the freezer and 7°C in the fridge. Such fluctuations can severely impact food safety in your fridge, so this fridge only earned a food safety score of 50%.

Hisense HRTF325 top-mount

Price: $879
Seasonal change effect: 0%

This fridge’s freezer can get too warm when the outside temperature is low and can get too cold when the outside temperature is warm. This means it is overcompensating for external temperature difference, leading to inconsistent temperatures inside the fridge.