Brands · Viking
Viking appliances, and how they differ
Viking is the other name that turns up in the same Lexington kitchens, and it is worth knowing that a Viking built-in is not simply a Sub-Zero with a different badge — the architecture differs, so the diagnosis differs.
Scope, stated plainly
This bench takes Sub-Zero refrigeration. Viking work is not on the book, and pretending otherwise would waste your visit fee and our time. The comparison below is here because it genuinely helps people work out what they are looking at.
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Where the diagnosis parts company
The defining feature of a Sub-Zero built-in is that it carries two sealed systems, one for each compartment. That is why a Sub-Zero can lose its fresh-food side entirely while the freezer sits at zero, and why the first question on the phone is always which compartment is affected.
Most built-in refrigeration from other makers, Viking included on many models, runs a single system with air ducted between compartments. On that architecture a fresh-food fault and a freezer fault are far more likely to be the same fault, and the diagnosis begins at the damper and the air path rather than at two independent systems. Ask the wrong first question and you spend an hour in the wrong compartment.
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What owners report
The complaint list is broadly similar even where the causes are not.
- Both compartments drifting warm together rather than one at a time
- Frost building at one point on a rear panel
- A door that has dropped slightly and no longer seals along its lower edge
- An ice maker that produces intermittently and then stops
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What to do with a Viking
Find a bench that works on them regularly rather than one that will treat yours as a first. That is the same advice this workshop would give about a Sub-Zero, and it is the reason the book here is one manufacturer wide.
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Where else this is covered here
Reviews
From Sub-Zero calls in mixed kitchens
4.9 out of 5 from 1357 reviews
Water kept collecting under the crisper drawers every few days. He found the drain iced over where it passes behind the rear panel, cleared it, and fitted the little heater clip that stops it recurring.
Priya V. · Arlington Heights
Ice cream going soft although the display still read zero. The sensor had drifted several degrees. He recalibrated it, then stayed to watch a full cycle rather than take my word for what it had been doing.
Roland D. · Belmont
The ice maker inside our column stopped producing anything at all. Its fill tube had frozen solid because the flap heater was dead. Both replaced, and he showed me how to check the arm position myself.
Trudy W. · Belmont
Book it
Sub-Zero in the kitchen too? That one is ours, and the model plate is inside the fresh-food door.
Flat $95 call-out, credited against an approved repair.