Back in May I bought a brand new Frigidaire, for what I thought was a really great price. It has 26 cubic feet of storage, and filtered water and ice (crushed and cubed.. well, more on that later). I got one new, in box, not even the floor model or anything, although it was on clearance.
And now I know why.
Within two days of being set up in the new house, it suddenly stopped making ice, dispensing water, and, most importantly, making things cold. So it was failing in every way a refrigerator could. It turns out that it was so failing because one exrtemely crucial part had stopped functioning altogether: the fan that moves the cold air around in the refrigerator. So there was one really cold place in the freezer, freezing solid the water line, and hardly any cold anywhere else. The contents of a water bottle stored in the refrigerator came in at a balmy 59 degrees--warmer than if I had left said bottle outside overnight. Evidently the motor that's supposed to drive said fan had just decided to stop working--not that it couldn't work, since it was possible for the repairman to restart it by opening the back panel in the freezer, twirling it a little, then plugging the fridge back in. One just couldn't be sure for how long it would decide to keep working. The repairman ordered some parts, among them a new motor.
I did not, however, immediately have him install the new motor, since the existing one seemed to be working ok, which, in fact, it was, for a couple of weeks. And then it stopped again. Great. I got the existing one restarted again, by myself, with water dripping on the top of my head from the melting ice in the ice compartment, until the repairman could come out and install the new motor. I had to restart it two or three times in the day or so in between when I first noticed the new failure and when the guy could come. Well, fine. He replaced the motor, and the new motor is a different type, possibly the kind that keeps working for a really long time, like it's supposed to. It has been so far.
Oh, one other thing--this whole time, the refrigerator has been making kind of a weird noise when the freezer door is opened and closed, because there is some air in a little pipe that's only supposed to have water in it. Although this is not a functional issue, it is a bit irritating, especially to Reuben. I was willing to live with this, and there's really nothing that can be done about it, since the part in question is not replaceable--Frigidaire doesn't make that part, evidently, and it is, in fact, doing its job, just noisily.
So one would think that I now have a reasonably functional, if quirkily noisy, refrigerator. This is not the case. It now only dispenses crushed ice. Not cubed, crushed. I tried pressing the crushed button, to see if they somehow got reversed. No dice. I tried emptying all the ice out of the bin, which, admittedly, had frozen into several solid lumps. No dice. I tried kicking it. No... well, you get the picture. So now if I want cubes of ice, which I always do, I have to open the refrigerator and reach in, rendering the door ice dispenser entirely useless.
So I'm getting the refrigerator replaced. I'm hoping that since mine was on clearance when I bought it, I'll get a similar but slightly newer model--maybe the model that doesn't break every couple weeks. If Frigidaire sells such a model. Here's hoping.
The process of getting my damned refrigerator replaced has not been wonderful, either. The Irvine Lowes manager (I bought the refrigerator in Irvine, at Lowes) claims that he is having the Moreno Valley sales manager handle it, and has given him all the information he needs. This is evidently false, at least in part, according to the Moreno Valley guy, who says he doesn't have any of the information he needs (ie, the model, serial, and return authorization from Frigidaire). So I guess I need to call Mr. Irvine back and make him fax everything (or fax everything again, as the case may be) to Mr. Moreno Valley, so I can get this evil bastard of a refrigerator replaced with a (hopefully) less evil and bastard-y one, that will keep cold consistently circulating and dispense both crushed and cubed ice. If I get one that does not, however, I will raise holy hell until they get me a Maytag :)
1 comment
wes davis
8/21/2005 at 11:36 AM (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hi, My Maytag which is 3yrs old has the same cube sipensing problem as your frig did. wish i knew how to fix it.