I purchased this for a Kenmore fridge, it’s the right part number and looks identical to the old filter as far as fitment. The old filter is clear, this one is opaque. I like clear better, I could see how dirty the old filter was.

The problem lies in the design of the filter housing on the Fridge so maybe it’s not fair to blame the filter, but either way, the mechanism that holds it in place is flimsy. After installing the filter I ran the water like the manual says to do and it popped out with so much force that it opened the fridge door and of course, sprayed water all over the place.

Ok, lets try again, maybe it didn’t lock in properly. I was very careful the second time to press it in firmly like the manual says and it clicked in just like before. Running the water produced the same results, it popped out.

Searching online reveals that this is a common problem. No mention of it on Amazon Canada but plenty of reviews about this problem on Amazon.com. Great. Turns out that the design is faulty and others have said that they had their filter housing (on the fridge) replaced under a recall. That sounded good, so…

I phoned Sears support and of course that’s a big waste of time with the phone tree and everything and they finally tell me that they can’t help me. All they can do is send a technician out to do a service call and that’s $85 dollars. There is no recall on this fridge and they don’t have any techs at phone support that can help me troubleshoot this. Ok, no thanks.

I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and bend the metal clips that hold the filter in place .. bend them so they are tighter when in the closed position. I did this and tried again .. now it works. This isn’t a solution though, this is a workaround. Those thin pieces of metal will fail again and they can only be bent so many times.

So, the filter is ok but the old filter did not pop out. That tells me that the clip on the filter side is slightly different than the original, requiring the workaround/modification. It should be « plug and play ».
Oh yeah, and it’s expensive.

Delivered as promised
However It appears these are not the same quality, the flow of the water through the filter is being restricted

I am not a great reviewer, but I figured I’d share my experience so someone else may benefit from it.

First the good stuff, the filter performs its duty of cleaning the water, I have no complains there. Water tastes great and the flow is even. In general is a good product.

Now the cons; ok, I may be a little picky, but bear with me.

- Price: this product is pricey. $15 cheaper in the US if you shop around and $10 cheaper at Amazon.com. The problem is that Amazon US charges $10 for shipping so it comes to the same total price. I’d rather boost our economy and not the one in the south, so I got it from Canada (very fast shipping too!)

- Presentation: the housing is white, I prefer the old model that was clear so you could see how clean (or disgusting, in my case) the filter was. Also, the front plate (the one facing you when the filter is installed) leaves a gap all around in its hole in the fridge. This plate comes off, which I tried to replace with the old filter’s plate, but the old one won’t come off. The old filter feels a lot sturdier.

- Performance: As I said, the filter does its job; my issue is with the little nozzles that connect to the water supply. If I press the release button to take the filter out water sprays all over the place as if under pressure. This never happened with the old filters. If you turn the new one with the nozzles pointing down, water will drip out. I suspect the old filter had some back-flow valve in it that this new one is missing.

Overall it is a good product and you don’t have to worry about its negatives for 6 to 12 months. I do not think it is worth the $39 I paid for it, but the $28 (or cheaper) that it goes for in the US is closer to the mark.

Thanks for reading