Dometic Fridge RM 1350 SLM - Montana Owners Club

winter texan · 03-05-2015, 01:40 PM

Have a 2015, 3582 Montana that we've been in since November. Two days ago the temp gauge on fridge has gone from a consistent 34 degrees when we get up each morning to 38 to 40 degrees at bed time. Temp has climbed to 44 to 46 degrees over the past couple days n stayed consistent. I called Dometic n they gave me a mobile service company to call. Service Rep came, called Dometic and talked to someone who said the the temp reading is not an actual lower fridge temperature reading but an average or some other BS. Has anyone else had a problem with this model fridge. Freezer seems to be working okay.

1retired06 · 03-05-2015, 03:02 PM

Sitting here in Florida. Ours crapped out just like yours. None of the mobile folks want to do warranty work. We have a bar refrig in the storage area so getting by. Scheduled in to our dealer next month and they tell us they are seeing lots of failures with the 1350. Just another item in a long list of problems with our 2015 from leaking slide, to leaking toilet, to malfunctioning black tank valves, to broken dinette chairs, to broken entry door hinges, to plumbing leaks, to delaminating storage doors, etc etc etc. Our 2015 is a major disappointment. Put a temp gauge in the fresh food side, and the temp reflected on the outside of the fridge is accurate, and unsafe. Two other folks in the park are also dealing with fridge failures. Ours crept up slowly over days to 50 before we shut it down.

jlb27537 · 03-06-2015, 02:13 AM

Winter Texan, are you in the RGV? If you Google Dometic 1350 there is a post on a SOB Owners Forum that is 20 pages long. There are no shortages of posts about this frig having the exact issues you are having.

I will offer a couple of suggestions. Air flow is key across the top set of fins. Improper installation is a real possibility and the OEM fans may not be operational or just not moving air as they should. Next is door sealing, especially on the bottom of the left door.

Pull the top vent, see what the distance is between the back coils to the outer wall. Must be .75-1" or less. Is there a dead air space above the top of the frig, if so it needs to be sealed.

A easy cheep try it thing, get a small fan from W/M, plug it in where the frig plugs in, (you might have to get a 3 plug cube) and point the fan upwards. You are trying to remove heat from the back of the frig in the area of the top fins. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Optimus-F-...l-Fan/25209563

A good friend had this in a SOB that is now out of business 3 years ago. After messing with it for almost a year, having the cooling unit replaced, they ended up following the Mfg's instructions on how to install it. There was too much air gap behind the frig and the cooling air was not going over the top coils as it should. Installed baffles, insulated the cabinet, and installed larger fans. I believe Dometic uses the same cooling unit on the 12' frig and the 13' is larger plus the door design is leak prone.

Good Luck, Jim

**DQDick** · 03-06-2015, 02:27 AM

I'd put a thermometer in there and make sure. That's not a safe temp and as you say it sounds like BS to me, particularly if others are having similar problems.

winter texan · 03-06-2015, 05:49 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by DQDick

I'd put a thermometer in there and make sure. That's not a safe temp and as you say it sounds like BS to me, particularly if others are having similar problems.

Dick, Service Guy came out who I know here in the park. He had a lengthy conversation with Dometic. The engineer said put a glass of water in the fridge and drop a thermometer in it to get a true temp reading. Also said the temp readout on fridge is an average temp over time. I called Dometic technical this morning and heard pretty much the same story. Dometic is saying if temp stays under 50 there is no problem.
Strange as it seems, I got up this morning the coils have frost on them again n the temp gauge on fridge says 37.
I will also check clearance as suggested by others in addition to reading other forums. Still have a couple months before I go home. Be assured temp reading will be monitored closely

DarMar · 03-06-2015, 08:47 AM

Well Ed it's a long story but a 1350 fridge problem is the only serious problem we have had with our 2015 and it's been a long journey.

Firstly when we got our unit May 1/2014 the bank of cooling fans would come on frequently and noticeably. Our unit started large temperature swings such as yours that we probably wouldn't at first be aware of except for the digital temp. display we now have, good or bad not sure.

First trip out the service guy found the thermo switch that calls for those fans fried and hot wired them to run constant till parts arrived. Even with constant fans running our temps would constantly rise during the day and sometimes at night not recover from 49 or 50 degrees.

I firmly believe we had two problems #1 being a cooling unit perhaps crap floating in it and #2 not proper air movement.

After much time and discussion our unit was replaced. That solved the problem except for when we had really hot days our temp would again spike but only in to say 43 or 44. Shortly after in fall we returned our unit to our dealer and they put in some shields and installed an addition fan to push air directly out the vents and eliminated much of the dead airspace where it was pooling at the top of the fridge cavity. They decided that the air flow out the back was getting trapped in dead corners of the cavity which we certainly agreed with. They felt the lack of proper air flow was what may have caused the original unit to fail.

One other thing to consider is that these units go in to a defrost cycle every 48 hours and they go in to the first defrost cycle 60 hours after initial start up. So one should initially start their fridge up at around noon on any given day so the defrost cycles happen in the cooler night period.

That's what I know so far and I do believe it's a common problem with stuffing these larger fridges in to slide outs where the hot air has to be direct out the side rather than straight out the top. Good air flow means everything.

We are very fortunate to have a dealer that really looks after the after sale service part of owning an rv.

winter texan · 03-06-2015, 01:06 PM

Thanks, Darwin. I'm in FL for 2 more months and then home. I have an annual site with my truck in KY n my car in FL. Will come back to FL the end of June and take my unit in for other warranty issues. You can bet this fridge will be at the top of my list.

jlb27537 · 03-06-2015, 02:15 PM

Winter Texas, I would suggest you read and understand pages 4,5,6 of the linked PDF. Air flow is the key to these things working.

http://www2.dometic.com/d2b969f8-552...dabd885e.fodoc

Using the thought that a refrig does not make things cold, it removes heat from the interior, transfers it to the outside. In school we learned that the absence of hot is what? COLD.

Just like our home a/c units, feel the air coming out the top of the central air outside unit, it is hot. So the same thing with our absorption frigs. The fins inside the frig absorb the heat, transfer it to the rear. You must have proper air flow over the back of the frig for it to dissipate the heat it is absorbing from the inside of the box.

I will guess when you look in the top outside opening you will see a square corner on the roof and possibly a dead air space on top of the frig. Causing the heat to rise and just stay there. Possibly too large of air gap between the back of the frig and the exterior wall.

Good Luck, Jim

Bigboomer · 03-06-2015, 03:22 PM

We have had similar issues with temp swings. I put a small battery operated fan inside that blows air on the fins and circulates the air off them. Also the swings do not happen all the much now. When we were boondocking in the desert the afternoon sun faced the back of the unit and we saw the temps on the monitor go to 44 or better. We always have used a cup of water with a floating thermometer and the temps stay between 34 and 36 when set at the number 4 setting on either gas or electric.
Problem is none of these gas absorbtion fridges are all that great...is this thing craps out after warranty passes we are going residential.

winter texan · 03-07-2015, 03:15 AM

Thanks Jim & Les. I'm learning about this fridge. We defrosted and turned the fridge back on At 2pm Wed. If the 60 hour cycle is working, then @ 2am this morning, it should have went into the 120 minute defrost cycle. At 10pm last night the temp gauge showed 38, at 330am it was 41 . Currently 35 now at 10am. That now seems to be working. I will check for the dead air space. The problem appeared when the outside temp was 80+ and humid for a few days. We have been living in our unit for 3 months so when I saw a spike in temps, up went the red flag

DarMar · 03-07-2015, 03:45 AM

Sounds like you have got the defrost cycling part down pat but if you have an air flow problem it will again rear it's head when you get to that 85 - 95 degree mark.

I believe this additional fan that our dealer installed will work for those hotter days, as it's mounted right behind the upper vent cover and facing directly out. It only takes a simple glance at the upper outside fridge cavity to see the air space off to the right of the fridge where air could pocket, cause some turbulence, and reduce the flow of air.

Perhaps if we didn't have that digital temperature read out we would be none the wiser. We now keep a thermometer in the fridge as well and we will now keep it in a cup of water.

tomd · 03-07-2015, 11:43 AM

Darmar, can you hear the second fan when it's on?

DarMar · 03-07-2015, 03:24 PM

Tom, that was the first thing we noticed with this new rig. All the fans are a lot more noisy but it is something you get used to after a while. These new fans they are using have more of a growling sound to them and that is new to us.

CORattler · 03-07-2015, 03:32 PM

I don't know how big these fans are but there are computer "muffin fans" that you can't even hear. If I had this problem and it was practical, I'd replace them.
Example: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/14...tl=c15s1167b87

tomd · 03-08-2015, 02:37 PM

Our Dometic 1350 mirrors the problem of the OP.
During our pdi with the owner of the dealership, we were told that an additional fan was installed and it would make some noise.
We have never heard any kind of sound from fan or cooling unit.

jlb27537 · 03-08-2015, 03:18 PM

When I had my SOB I installed a couple extra 4" computer fans. I connected them thru a snap thermostat. I believe the OEM's are set to come on @ 130 degrees. But by the time they come on, it is too late and the frig will not recover if it is already hot outside.

That plus the fact the manufactures of the RV's do not follow the intent of the frig installation instructions the end consumer has to suffer the poor performance of a poorly installed frig.

My present 3150RL has 2 4" fans on a thermostat plus a 4" 120vac fan from W/M that is on 100% of the time. I can keep it at 34 degrees in the hottest of weather. I keep it full. I keep 6 12 oz cans on the top door shelf and at least 12 12 oz drinks on the second shelf. I feel they do 2 things, keep the temp swings to a minimum and my beer cold. I re-load it every night before going to bed, the frig has time to asorb the heat during the night time hours and in the morning all is cold.

Snap thermo here. On at 90 degrees, off at 80 degrees. Attached to the top set of fins on the back of the frig.

http://www.grainger.com/product/GRAI...AS01?$smthumb$

jlb27537 · 03-08-2015, 03:41 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by tomd

Our Dometic 1350 mirrors the problem of the OP.
During our pdi with the owner of the dealership, we were told that an additional fan was installed and it would make some noise.
We have never heard any kind of sound from fan or cooling unit.

Tom, find the snap thermostat and jump it. Bypass it. The fans will run all the time. See what that does for your cooling when hot.

Look at the PDF I refereed to earlier. You might need to slip the frig out of the cabinet to see the thermostat, once you understand you have to have cooling air, and how to get it, the frig will work.

To pull a frig, once you unhook the back connections and have it slid out about a foot or so, put a rope, strap or something under it with a guy on both sides. Lift up and slide it out, no big deal.

Once out inspect the fans, install a lower temp fan thermostat, baffle the top properly, insulate the cabinet, especially the outer wall and eliminate the deal air space on top of the frig is there is one. Check clearance on frig back to outer wall.

Or take it to the dealer and let them jack with it for a couple of weeks to do something you can do in 2 hours for less than $15. It will cost that in diesel to haul it to them plus you will learn how to remove a frig.

In the install pdf it should show how to remove the front facia of the frig to remove the inside screws. There are also a couple in the back inside the lower grill opening.

Jim

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