Samsung Refrigerator

[DutchmenSport]

I've touted the praises for my Samsung Refrigerator for the last 5 years, because it apparently never had any issues, while others have indicated all sorts of issues.

Well, my turn finally happened. After 5 years, the freezer quit freezing.

Mine is a French Door model with the sliding freezer door on the bottom and ice maker in the bottom.

We started noticing water pooling in the crisper drawers. Then the ice maker wasn't spitting out ice at all, and then the freezer was above 32 degrees.

We are still at Pilot Mountain State Park in North Carolina, near Mount Airy and will be here until August 31. Moving is not an option until then, but time was also short once we figured out we had a real problem with the refrigerator.

I did some surfing on the Internet for refrigerator repair places near here, and found out Samsung doesn't play very well with everyone. One refrigerator repair place (in Mount Airy), the guy walked me through some diagnostics and told me what to look for. He was dead spot on, but could not actually work on the Samsung.

I then went to the Samsung web site for appliance repairs and punched in the zip code. The closes Samsung repair was near Winston Salem. After multiple, multiple attempts to call, I finally got through, just to find out, yes.... they serviced Samsung refrigerators... BUT NOT IN RV's. I was really at my ends wits at that. Evidently, their reasoning is, it's too hard for them to pull the refrigerator from an RV. I told them I had it in the middle of the floor. Then she said, it would be at least 6 weeks before they could come out. It's quite obvious, they did not want the job.

I then went back to the web site and punched in my home zip code and found out there was a repair shop only about 15 miles from my home. I finally contacted them, and yes,... they would come out to work on the refrigerator, even in an RV. I told my my predicament, being in North Carolina, but at least, if we had to wait, I knew I could get it fixed once home after September 1.

By now, I'm really fuming at the first place in Winston Salem and I decided to call Samsung directly. And I did. Now they were great. They hooked me up with a service and about 2 days later they showed up. Diagnosed the problem and had to make another appointment for them to return. 5 days later (and the refrigerator was completely turned off), he came back out again, did his "magic" on the refrigerator and about $240 later was out the door and gone.

It turned out to be the fan in the freezer. It died. The reason for the water dripping in the refrigerator crisper drawers was because a metal clip was not installed correctly from the factory, causing the water to drain a different direction. I guess, it was actually doing this from the first day. We just though it kind of normal.

So, the problem was resolved. It's now been 4 days and freezer is a nice comfortable -4 degrees, with an external thermometer inside it, and the refrigerator is a nice 34 degrees.

Meanwhile, to get us through, we purchased a small apartment size refrigerator/freezer from Lowes, in Mount Airy and keep all our bottled condiments and soft drinks on ice in a cooler.

Now we have yet, another cooler to add to the collection in the garage once we get home, left overs from all those old tent-camping days, some 30 years ago. I asked my wife about bringing one of those coolers along with us on this trip back in June, and she said we didn't need it. Well .... live and learn. From now on, we're keeping a cooler for ice with us, even if we don't use it.

I'm not sure how I'm going to secure that new refrigerator down when we travel back home, but something will work, I'm sure. Once home, we're giving the new little refrigerator to our son, he can use it in the study along with his water cooler machine.

So, for anyone with a Samsung refrigerator, for future reference, if you have issues and need a repair, call Samsung directly and don't fart around with those places that pop up on their internet site based on Zip Code. Samsung did us good, and we're happy.

I'm so glad we did not have purchase a new refrigerator. Getting the old one out and a new one in is not something I'd like to do. Then figuring out how to anchor a new one to the wall is not something I wanted to figure out either. The Samsung has all the add on parts for anchoring with bolts and the knob to keep the doors shut when traveling. I'm so glad we did not have to change all that over.

Well, that's my suggestion.... contact Samsung directly. They will take care of you.

[mlh]

We had a Samsung refrigerator. A crew came out to install a new range in our home and was amazed the refrigerator had lasted three years.
I’m glad you are happy with yours. We didn’t have much luck with ours.
Lynwood

[77cruiser]

Mine just had water in the drawers after some investigation I found out the drain was froze. Bought a drain heater, hope it does the trick.

[Mikendebbie]

DutchmenSport said "It turned out to be the fan in the freezer. It died. The reason for the water dripping in the refrigerator crisper drawers was because a metal clip was not installed correctly from the factory, causing the water to drain a different direction. I guess, it was actually doing this from the first day. We just though it kind of normal."

Dutch - you get 4 out of 5 gold stars for this good post. I will give you the 5th gold star when you post a pic of the "metal clip". You DID take pictures didn't you?? Even if the repairman's rear-end and sagging blue jeans are in part of the photo.

[DutchmenSport]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

... You DID take pictures didn't you?? Even if the repairman's rear-end and sagging blue jeans are in part of the photo.

Unfortunately, no I did not get photos.

However, I did find this video. Go to 11:35 in this video. It shows what was not connected right. In this video, the guy is replacing the entire clip. On mine, it simply was not connected.


Click here

[Mikendebbie]

OK thanks for the video - but you well know the rules of this forum! You are hereby docked 2 gold stars for no photos!

[Byron B]

Originally Posted by Mikendebbie

OK thanks for the video - but you well know the rules of this forum! You are hereby docked 2 gold stars for no photos!

Mike, aren’t you being a bit harsh or our friend? I thought the normal deduction for such an infraction is only 1 gold star…. After all he did provide a video. Sans butt crack!

[DebNJim B]

Well, I can live without the repairman's butt crack! But that image in my mind is hard to shake.

Anyway, thanks for a great post, Dutch. We have been enjoying our Samsung for 6 years now (knock on wood). Now, if we have trouble, I will go to Samsung first.
I did have one problem last year. A plastic hinge on the door separator thingy broke, and after much chasing around and no one having it a nice lady at one parts place gave me the part number though she couldn't get me the part. I found it on Amazon for $8. I bought two so now I know that part will never break again.
It all just shows how resourceful RV'ers have to be.

[John and Barbara]

This club is the best thing about The RV. I learn so much from the members, thanks for the info. we also like our Samsung frig and happy to hear the manufacture backs it up,

[DutchmenSport]

It's been 2 weeks since the repair and the refrigerator has been running just fine all this time. The ice maker is working great again, spitting out 8 cubes about every 30 minutes and the freezer is a nice -4 degrees and the refrigerator is a nice 34 degrees, holding steady.

We moved back home (to Indiana) from North Carolina on Aug 31, Sep 1, travels some 550 miles, was home over Labor Day week end as all campgrounds were booked 100% solid, so we stayed home. Monday (Labor Day, after being home 3 nights) we settled in at another Indiana State Park.

The refrigerator traveled just fine, ran off the inverter just fine as we traveled, everything stayed nice and cold or nice and frozen, and when we reach all of our destinations, plugged electricity back in and the refrigerator continued to run great!

I say, that repair was a success! And oh, that little refrigerator is now sitting in the living room in the house. We're still not sure where we're going to put it yet.

And oh, by the way, that new little refrigerator rode just fine sitting right in the middle of the trailer floor. It never moved. I did not strap it down. I did tape the doors shut though.

[DebNJim B]

Glad all is going well with that repair. We had to replace our S&B refrigerator this summer. It started going on again, off again, so we decided to just replace it. We did get 18 good years out of it.
We have a small collage refrigerator about 3' high that we bought as a stop gap during a repair session some years ago. I put it in the garage for a "man fridge" and keep beer and soda in it. comes in real handy with cookouts.
That ice maker is doing fantastic. That's about how our Samsung in the RV works, though now I should time it to compare. Never run out of ice.