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[deeva]

My manual defrost chest freezer was kept in our garage in Chicago for 19 years without any problems. That freezer lasted 28 years.

[J Town Girl]

We have both a smaller upright freezer and a small chest freezer in our garage and have had them for years without any issues.

We did try to put an extra refrigerator in our garage and it did not work well at all.   We could not get the temperature to 38 degrees.   It stayed very warm.   It was a new refrigerator that we had bought for extra beverages and extra food. 

After trying it for a few weeks and even having Sears take it back and bring a new replacement it still didn't work.  We finally gave up and just had Sears pick it up and return it to the store.   

We were told by several people that had it been an older refrigerator it probably would have worked in our unheated garage but the newer ones just need to be kept in a heated environment.   

For some reason, the freezers seem to work okay in an unheated garage.

[deeva]

I was told by a refrigerator repair man that frost free freezers don’t last long in a garage. 

Something about the fan used for defrosting runs constantly in a garage and burns out.

[AuntG]

We had a 10 cubic foot freezer in our garage for 15 years. Live in a colder climate than you. Never had a problem. I've been told cold garages are harder on refrigerators because they keep things above freezing whereas a freezer is below zero. Oh, and ours was a manual defrost which only had to be done once a year.

[jannabelle1]

DH had an upright freezer when we got married and moved to our town home. We don't have a basement, so it went in the garage. That was 12 years ago and it's still working. I'm not sure if the extreme hot/cold in the midwest is good for it, but we'll keep it until it decides to shut down!

[ID2]

My (2) garages are heated so no problem here with my frigs/freezers out there.

[novamc1]

Before moving down South to a cheaply built new home with no insulation in garage doors or walls, we lived much further north in a house where the garage was often warmer in winter than elsewhere in the house and cooler in the summer..........all because of good insulation and quality of construction, including insulated garage doors that we eventually installed.

I'm now  trying to figure out how some of my nearby neighbors  in this relatively new community are keeping fridge-freezers in their garages.  I wouldn't dare try.   No insulation worth mentioning is anywhere here.

Our garage is freezing cold  in winter and warm or warmer than outdoors in summer.

So I guess it all boils down to quality of insulation in a garage and what the appliance factory says about the issue.  I've seen small-appliance manuals advising against storing the gadget in a garage, because electrical cords can deteriorate from freezing and overheating.

Compressors and refrigerants supposedly don't  work well for long under exreme temperatures, either.