Are Kenmore Appliances Still Worth Buying? Here's What Experts Think

Determining whether Kenmore, once America's leading appliance brand, still matters is a far more philosophical question than you might expect. No, it's not because determinism tells us that certain shirts will stay dirty no matter what your Kenmore washing machine does. It's more about understanding what a brand is in the first place. And what it is, mostly, is a relationship (and resulting familiarity) that lets consumers predict how good or bad a product will be, based on the name. Yes, a brand is something you define, however much that irritates the brand's owners. 

Following the precipitous decline and bankruptcy of Sears, Kenmore was bought by a subsidiary of former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert's hedge fund. Kenmore appliances, long sold exclusively at Sears, were never actually made by Kenmore, but by around 50 companies, including some of the best appliance brands for every home utility. This strategy that left Kenmore with the biggest share of the appliance market. But some of that success was probably (with apologies to "The Simpsons") due to Kenmore basking in Sears' warm, glowing, warming glow as the house brand of the country's largest retailer. They made great appliances, sure, but so did nearly everyone back then.

Today, Kenmore is mostly perceived now as a name slapped on products, not as a cohesive manufacturer. But if a brand is really a relationship and not a guy in Boise machining widgets, what difference do all the changes really make? According to experts, the quality has held... at least in some of Kenmore's products. Let's take a deeper look.

Since Kenmore basically operates the same as it always has, one would expect its new products to be comparable, or even superior, to the beloved brand of old. Until 2023, Kenmore's predictive reliability rankings from Consumer Reports held steady in a middle-of-the-pack position around #11. From 2023 and 2024, this ranking dropped precipitously to #20, based on around 111,000 fewer data points (about a 21 percent drop). Since Kenmore stayed mid-range overall and no appliance category declined dramatically in rating, you'd expect that the nine brands newly surpassing Kenmore in 2024 performed particularly poorly in 2012 or spectacularly in 2024. 

It's far more likely that some unknown peculiarity of CR's algorithm is at work in the new results. Over the past few years, professional reviewers (who mostly do hands-on testing) have agreed with the older CR rankings, generally rating Kenmore appliances average or above, and often selecting Kenmore products as "best-of" picks. All of that adds up to this: On average, Kenmore appliances are reasonably reliable and work well.

2024 Surveys from Lifestory Research show that around 8,000 consumers of cooktops, dishwashers, and refrigerators ranked Kenmore as the 8th or 9th most trusted maker in the industry. And it's not just blind trust. Consumers agree with the experts, rating Kenmore appliances 3.9 on average, with brighter spots highlighting vacuums, coffee makers, toasters, and microwaves. As a point of comparison, Amazon reviewers give Kenmore refrigerators 3.7 stars, while Amazon's top 18 rated LG refrigerators sport an average of 2.8.

A desirable appliance has the right price tag, features, and reliability. While Kenmore mostly inhabits the lower-priced corners of the appliance market, they do offer a number of higher-end luxury appliances as well. Their products are as up-to-date and feature-rich as any in their price range, and can be quite reliable. Maybe you're looking for the most reliable brands of washing machines. Maybe your goal is to look through the fastest residential dishwashers, instead. Either way, the key is to carefully read everything you can about a model before you invest in it, because quality can be uneven among even the best brands. Reviews will teach you, for example, that the Kenmore Elite 95052 and Kenmore 94142 electric ranges are excellent all around, but that the Kenmore Pro 72583 and Kenmore 32363 gas ranges are best left on the showroom floor.

The category in which Kenmore seems to be the most consistent is not among large appliance at all, but vacuums. When you read about vacuums, you discover there are more categories of these suckers than you thought possible, and Kenmore tends to win over reviewers in all of them. That's a topic for another day, but don't stop your research at either appliances or vacuums. Consider a Kenmore and do your homework. You might find the Kenmore you're considering doesn't stack up to the LG... or you might also discover that it is, actually, just an LG (with a Kenmore name on it).