I am looking to replace our garage frig/freezer. We had our old indoor side by side in the garage. As I was talking to the sales guy, he brought up that we should get a “garage ready” frig/freezer due to the insulation working better in extremes of heat and cold.
We don’t generally need to worry about extremes of heat in the PNW, but we do have times in the winter when it is freezing.
How critical is it to buy the fully insulated one?
I don’t know how critical it is…but everyone I know just puts their old fridge in the garage. We are in the northeast and it gets plenty hot and cold. But we don’t keep our garage doors open so it very very seldom gets below freezing, and very very seldom gets really hot.
Are you in the PNW? I’d buy a regular freezer. We don’t get those extreme temps here.
Yep, PNW, when I research why garage frig/freezers, the Google experts say that if the garage gets too cold, then the freezer might not come on to chill as the ambient temp is cold, and then your contents would defrost. I have never noticed that with my current, dying, frig/freezer.
We have a garage freezer (HD cheapo), and it has never defrosted like that! 
Our garage is well insulated, so never gets below freezing.
I don’t pay attention to the temp and it’s not necessarily well-insulated, but I remember a few snow storm power outages, before the generator days, and I would put freezer items on the deck and frig items in the garage, so it must be warm enough out there.