Air Conditioner Manufacturers Ranked

In the continuing saga of choosing the best, most reliable central air conditioner brand, after looking at what appeared to be nonrepesentative reviews (every brand I looked at was rated one star out of five), I decided to find some overall rankings.

And now it's time for some more cautions.

1. If you search on "best central air conditioners," you'll get lists and reviews of the fanciest, most feature laden, and expensive units made. "Best" here doesn't necessarily mean "most reliable" or even "highest quality."

Here's a list of "best" air conditioning systems.
1. Lennox
2. Frigidaire
3. Trane
4. American Standard
5. Carrier
6. Bryant
7. Coleman
8. Another Carrier
9. Amana
10. Goodman

Now, here are the rankings by an air conditioning contractor, who has field experience with all these brands:
1. Day and Night
2. Goodman
3. Carrier
4. Mitsubishi ductless split
5. Bryant
6. Amana (lowered simply because it is the higher priced Goodman, which makes Amana)
7. York
8. Trane
9. Rheem (not recommended)
10. Lennox (not recommended

And here the top three and bottom three from a famous consumer magazine:
1. American Standard
2. Rheem
3. Trane
. . /
8. Amana
9. Goodman
10. York

And here from an anonymous YouTube posting (that repeatedly spells "category" as "catagory"):
Best
1.Carrier
2. Byant
3. Payne
4. ICP
. . .
7. Day and Night
. . .
9. Goodman
10. Rheem
11. Ruud
12. Trane
13. American Standard
14. Amana

Worst
. . .
3. Lennox

Since no reasons are given for the rankings and since we don't know who has posted this or why, such a list is essentially useless, except for me to point out that anonymous ranking lists are useless.

Bottom line: There are dozens of brands made by a handful of manufacturers all using parts made by the same suppliers. It's just like automobile manufacturing. Of course, there are differences. If you are in the market, see the next entry for what to look for when you shop. Oh, I almost forgot. The bottom line is to choose an honest, reliable, knowledgeable installer. Watch a few YouTube videos about A/C installations, good and bad. Reliability of your air conditioning system is directly connected to the how properly it was installed.