4 Ways to Find Out How Old Your Kenmore Refrigerator Is

In some circumstances, knowing how old your Kenmore refrigerator is can be helpful – this could be for maintenance, servicing, or if you’re considering whether to fix versus replace. 

In most cases, the best way is via the serial number. In the case of Kenmore products, this can be difficult as refrigerators are manufactured by third-party suppliers. 

Therefore, you’ll need to ascertain which manufacturer produced the fridge and then check their information using the serial number. 

Don’t worry though, here’s our comprehensive guide for finding out how old your Kenmore refrigerator is!  

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How to find a Kenmore Refrigerator Serial Number

The product’s manual should confirm where the serial number is located. 

However, common places include the fresh food compartment near the floor, inside the doors, and in the corner points (inside or out). 

It’s usually on a sticker or metal plate and will usually be a combination of 2 letters followed by 6 numbers.

What to Do If You Can’t Find the Serial Number?

If you can’t find the serial number, ask someone else to look for you. It may seem obvious, but a second pair of eyes might be able to find it hiding in plain sight.  

4 Methods for Finding Out How Old Your Kenmore Refrigerator Is

1. Use the Refrigerator’s Serial Number

With Kenmore fridges, General Electric is the most popular manufacturer of their appliances. Their most common system uses a system with two letters at the start of their serial numbers to indicate the year of manufacture. 

Where there are two letters, the first letter refers to the month and the second letter to the year. For single letter prefixes, it refers to only the year.

It does depend on the end manufacturer of your Kenmore refrigerator as to the serial number format they use, but here is an explanation of the most common methods. 

If your model isn’t explained here, skip to the bottom of the article, where there are more model numbers and manufacturers. 

NB: If you want more detail, there’s a handy tool here.

NB: If the above doesn’t look right, check the Whirlpool standards (Model No. 106**)

2. The Product Manual

The product manual may seem an unlikely place to discover when your Kenmore refrigerator was produced. 

However, since many serial number identifiers include several possible years of manufacture rather than nailing it down to just one – you’ll often need to correlate multiple reference points to be more certain.

Many printed or PDF versions of a product manual include the date that they produced the manual. It follows that they made the manual around the time that the product was first introduced in the marketplace. Usually, the same year or the year prior. 

This is less accurate when the same model has been available for multiple years. Nevertheless, few refrigerator models are on the market for more than 5-10 years; typically, they’re replaced with updated and more efficient models. 

3. Make and Model Look-Up

Performing a search for the model number on the manufacturer’s website often brings up a page about the product, including when the model was available, a link to the manual, and warranty information. 

Once you have the model number to hand, search here on Kenmore’s site.

4. Get in Touch With Kenmore

If you’re really stuck, the Kenmore website has various ways to reach out to get more information about your fridge appliance.

The customer Services department no doubt has this information at their fingertips. 

Typical Lifespan of a Kenmore Refrigerator

When considering the likely age of a Kenmore refrigerator and reference information derived from serial numbers and manufacturer data, the typical lifespan of refrigerators becomes relevant. 

For example, while GE often lists 5-6 possible manufacturing years based on the second letter from the prefix on a serial number, most are ignorable. 

Anecdotally, there are certainly Kenmore and other brands of refrigerators that have survived 30 years and even fifty years. Stories abound of a grandmother who had an old refrigerator that hadn’t been replaced for decades and was still in working order… 

Therefore, if you’re dealing with an inherited refrigerator that, by its design, appears ancient or antiquated, then do not discount that it could be older. 

This is rare though, because, at a certain stage, the repeated repair expenses related to old appliances of any kind accumulate to more than the replacement cost. 

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