Enter your Kenmore appliance's model AND serial number to find its manufacture date — free, instant, no sign-up required.
Works for Kenmore refrigerators, washers, dryers, dishwashers, ranges & ovens — any model built by Whirlpool, LG, Frigidaire, Electrolux, Bosch, or Samsung.
Kenmore doesn't manufacture its own appliances — every Kenmore is actually built by a partner manufacturer. We use the model number to identify who really built yours, then decode the serial using that manufacturer's own formula. Both fields are required.
Not sure where to look? See where the tag is on your appliance ↓
The model/serial tag is usually a printed sticker or metal plate, and normally lists both numbers together. Common locations by appliance type:
Inside the fridge compartment, along the side wall, or behind the crisper/produce drawer.
Inside the door frame, on the front-facing edge, or on the back of the top panel.
Inside the door frame, or on the inside of the lint filter housing.
On the edge of the door, visible when the door is open.
Inside the storage drawer at the bottom, or along the door frame.
Inside the door frame, along the edge visible when the door is open.
Kenmore is a Sears house brand — it doesn't run its own factories. Every Kenmore appliance is actually built by a real manufacturer (Whirlpool, LG, Frigidaire, Electrolux, Bosch, Samsung, and others), and that manufacturer's own serial-number format is what's actually encoded on the tag. The serial number alone can't tell you the age; you first need to know who built it.
Why some prefixes don't auto-route: a handful of model prefixes are genuinely disputed across independent sources — different references assign the same prefix to different manufacturers, apparently from historical reassignment over the decades. Rather than guess and risk showing a confidently wrong date, our tool flags these and asks you to check the data plate itself for a manufacturer name, or call us. A separate group of prefixes route to a real, identified manufacturer (Sanyo, Panasonic, Daewoo, Haier, and others) whose own serial format we haven't yet verified — those show an honest "identified but not yet decodable" message instead of a guess.
This tool is based on publicly documented Kenmore model-prefix routing and the respective manufacturers' publicly documented serial number formats. It is not an official Kenmore, Sears, or Transform SR Brands lookup service, and results should be treated as a best estimate rather than a certainty.
Kenmore doesn't manufacture its own appliances — it's a Sears house brand, and every Kenmore appliance is actually built by a real manufacturer like Whirlpool, LG, Frigidaire, Bosch, or Samsung. The first 3 digits of the model number tell us which one, and then we apply that manufacturer's own serial-number formula to find the date. Without the model number, we have no way to know which manufacturer's format to use on the serial.
A small number of Kenmore model prefixes were reassigned to different manufacturers over the decades, and independent sources disagree on which one applies to that specific prefix today. Rather than guess and risk a confidently wrong date, we ask you to check the data plate for a manufacturer name or logo, or call us so a technician can help identify it.
For a few prefixes, we know exactly who built the appliance (Sanyo, Panasonic, Daewoo, Haier, and a handful of others) but haven't yet independently verified that manufacturer's own date-decode formula, so we intentionally don't guess. Give us a call and our technicians can often estimate the age from the model number and general condition.
Once you know roughly how old your Kenmore appliance is, our technicians can help you decide whether a repair still makes sense — try our Repair or Replace tool or call us for a same-day estimate.
Same-day service available. $75 service call applied toward repair.
