I just want to pass on this caution to fellow BB members. Many people go with different kitchen wine units but we decided to go with Danby, as they had the highest ratings from Consumer Reports. Maybe we just had a run of bad luck, but I figured people considering buying a unit should know. They have the distinct advantage of being a rare unit that vents out the front at the bottom which is nice. Plus, their shelving system was my favorite of all the units I have tried. But, we have had significant problems with quality.
Our first unit was damaged in shipping and had to be turned away (hardly Danby’s fault).
Our second unit had some small issues (I had to adjust the automatic off switch for the lights to get it too work properly- easy to do but annoying when you pay so much money for a unit). It worked well for a few months, then all of a sudden heated up all of my wine, and then ran so hard that it almost froze the wine cooling so much, then burned out the motor. After fixing, it ran OK for a few weeks, then the excat same thing happened. After a third fix, I no longer trusted my wine to it, and sure enough the same thing happened. Their repairman eventually stated they could not repair it. It was under warrenty, so I just got sent a new unit. Guess what? Some of the casing that protects the motor was broken, and there were pieces of it in our box. This obviously occured at the factory.
We are working with the company on a fix, and they have been helpful so far, so that is not an issue per se. But I have some serious concerns about their quality control and I thought I’d tell others before you trust good bottles of wine to one of their units.
Our unit arrived slightly damaged several years ago. It appeared to have occurred during shipping, so didn’t have too much suspicion of a problem with the manufacturer at the time.
That is interesting, Steve. Our first unit was clearly damaged with shipping, but this third unit was damaged, and packed that way, in the factory. No way could this have occured during shupping as the break is on an interior piece of the unit.
We bought a Vinotemp 58 bottle model from Costco about a year ago. It is also front vented, which we needed because it is an under counter built-in. We have been very pleased and it is currently $100 off on Costco’s website. Bummer about your unit heating your wine. I didn’t realize this could happen until a friends unit in their cellar malfunctioned about a year ago. They came home from a 2 day trip to find it near 90 to 100 degrees in their cellar, many corks protruding and several had popped, so they had a big pool of wine on floor of their cellar. Luckily, they are not big geeks like most of us, so no extremely precious bottles were ruined.
I have a Danby Designer 36 bottle wine cooler[Purchased at Costco] that we had built into our kitchen during a remodel back in October of '08.
It arrived in perfect shape and after a slight adjustment with the control, It has been running perfectly. I have Offsite storage where I keep all my valuable
and future drinking wines, and only keep the ones I want to drink over the course of a couple of months in the Danby. And for the most part it runs quiet.
Bob,
When I was researching the units I was buying I found all kinds of bad stories about Danby. Many, many, many, many, many, many, many (have I made my point) times the number of similar stories with other manufacturers. I still remember one I encountered, could have been on the eBob board. Long story short, the customer had his wine frozen by the unit, just out of warranty, and eventually got directed to some “fine” print either on the website or in the owner’s manual that states the units are not for long term storage of wine.