Oh dear, Liebherr, what have you done?
19 November 2025
Three failures in 2½ years. That's the record for Liebherr Mediline equipment in our laboratory. Yesterday, our Liebherr Mediline underbench refrigerator became the latest casualty, bringing the total to three units that have failed in exactly the same manner: complete electrical failure, no warning, the unit simply appearing switched off despite intact fuses. Thus, over the past three or so years Liebherr has flushed close to £5000 of lab funds down the drain.
The same failure, again and again
This refrigerator was approximately three years old. Like its predecessors – two Mediline freezers that failed within similar timeframes (see blog posts here and here) – it showed no signs of gradual decline, no alerts, no indication that anything was amiss. Of course it passed the PAT testing a month ago with flying colours. The unit simply stopped working. The compressor, I'm quite confident, remains perfectly functional. What appears to have failed, yet again, is the electronics.
This pattern is becoming impossible to ignore. Our SLS representative reports that failures of this nature are becoming more frequent. The common denominator appears to be the increased integration of electronic control systems. These systems should, in theory, enhance reliability and performance but in practice seem to represent a critical vulnerability.
A question of perspective
I have a domestic refrigerator in my kitchen that has operated flawlessly for twelve years. It cost considerably less than any single piece of our Liebherr laboratory equipment. This raises an uncomfortable question: how is it that premium laboratory equipment, marketed as top-of-the-range and designed for critical applications, fails catastrophically within 2–3 years, while a standard household appliance continues to perform reliably more than a decade after purchase?
The answer, I suspect, lies in over-engineering. The compressor technology that has served the refrigeration industry reliably for generations remains sound. What has changed is the addition of increasingly complex electronic control systems. When these systems fail, the entire unit becomes inoperable, regardless of the condition of the core mechanical components.
The unasked question
I have another Liebherr freezer in the laboratory, purchased as a replacement for the very first unit that failed. Given the pattern we've observed, a rhetorical question presents itself: what does Liebherr recommend we do with this piece of junk? I expect it to fail at any moment. If I had the necessary funds I would replace it preemptively, as continuing to rely on it feels like waiting for an inevitable disaster. The problem is that currently we lack the money, especially as we have to replace yet another refridgeration unit.
This is not a position any laboratory should find itself in with equipment that is barely three years old and costs over a thousand pounds per unit.
A recommendation that is becoming more and more clear
Based on our empirical experience with multiple Liebherr Mediline units, I have to recommend to any laboratory to stay a mile away from Liebherr equipment in general and the Mediline range in particular. When critical cold storage equipment fails silently and repeatedly within such short operational lifespans, it becomes unsuitable for serious research applications where sample integrity is paramount.
There are other manufacturers in the market. At this point, almost any alternative appears preferable to continuing with a product line that has demonstrated such consistent unreliability in our hands.
I was quite fond of Liebherr equipment, as in the past the units have performed well and lasted a long time. How times have changed. Liebherr once had a reputation for quality engineering. If these failures represent a systemic issue with their Mediline range – and our experience suggests they do – then the company needs to acknowledge this problem and take corrective action. It will be interesting to see whether Liebherr responds to our queries, and what this response looks like.