Brand new 3901RK refrigerator poorly installed by Montana, has destroyed our kitchen

[boilerbilly28]

I believe the problem is its a cheap Residential Refrigerator. The reason I say this is our montana H/C 345RL had a Samsung Residential refrigerator and we had not a single issue with it, no it wasn’t mounted facing the front towards the tow vehicle or in the rear of the camper, however the trays on doors and shelving trays were made of a better quality that you can tell it had a bit more weight to them. The funny thing is keystone claims the Montana is there flagship but the alpine has the quality Samsung Refrigerator in and cannot be put into the Montana! ??? Really ?

[Kevin G]

If you have a gas absorption refrigerator made by Norcold you would be better off making them take that back and choose something else. My new Norcold would not work in summer and neither Norcold nor Camping World could make it work. Camping World did replace the lower panel they dented in service, but the piece has an inferior paint surface.

[boilerbilly28]

Originally Posted by Kevin G

If you have a gas absorption refrigerator made by Norcold you would be better off making them take that back and choose something else. My new Norcold would not work in summer and neither Norcold nor Camping World could make it work. Camping World did replace the lower panel they dented in service, but the piece has an inferior paint surface.

Ours is a cheap, cheap GE Residential refrigerator. Boy do I miss my Samsung That was in my 345RL and my 345RL with all its issues was still better then the 3901RK that’s destroyed from the super poor install of our $166,000 legacy Junk unit

[Dzboater]

We too have issues with our 3091 RK refrigerator. No way to travel with any food of substance on the shelves. On our first trip, all the shelves fell off with all the food and broke most of the door shelves on the way down.

I’ve used a couple hacks to try to help. The one I thought would work best involved pressure curtain rods across the front and back of the shelves to hold them into their mounts and then more rods across the front if each shelf to secure the food. Even adjusted very tightly, they didn’t hold against some lightweight test foods while traveling through Tennessee and Kentucky.

Based on the original post here I pulled my refrigerator out yesterday and found we were minutes away from the same problem of losing the refrigerator in flight. There is a 1x4 against the back wall that secures the steel band that goes around the refrigerator. In our case, the left top corner of that board was cracked off by 1 of 3 of the steel band screws. The 1x4 was anchored to the back wall by 2 cabinet screws, neither of which was into anything structural, only the paneling. I grabbed the band on the left side and pulled the whole thing off the wall.

I replaced the 1x4 with an oak 1x6 secured with 6 lags into the only 2 structural supports I could find. With all the moving around the left front screw down leg had just about ground all the way through the subfloor, needless to say the tile was ripped through at both of the front legs. I attached a 1x4 on the floor across the front now that both the rollers and the legs rest in.

The band was about 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch too large in circumference for the refrigerator so even when fully tightened the unit still shook around. I was able to drill in a couple large headed lags into the rear portions of the steel band that directly touches both rear corners of the refrigerator and that took up the slack. It’s all tight now.

I also ordered a buckle strap similar to the ones used to secure the TV, only heavier, and plan to secure that around the upper portion of the refrigerator for travel.

This install was a complete fail from the factory. I’m glad I found this post. I think it saved me a lot of trouble.

[MandK]

The floor strip that the feet fit into and the extra strap up high is probably a good idea.
The fridge bracket is securely fastened to the wall in our trailer, so it failed at the next weakest link. Our fridge never moved more than what is shown in the photo but I can only imagine what May have happened if our fridge was in the back of the rig instead of in the center right over the axles. I removed the bracket and had it welded and beefed up in that area a little bit and now I check it every time I remove the door securing knob when setting up. We love our residential fridge, way better than any 2 way or three way fridge we ever had but obviously they aren’t built with being fastened into a rolling earthquake in mind. The securing method for these rigs might need to be revisited. Keep an eye on them, these rigs take a beating on our wonderful roads.

[Dzboater]

After posting this morning I went back and read the new posts since I was last here. Our previous unit was a High Country 375FL with the Samsung residential refrigerator. That one was designed for the application, an RV that gets pulled down the road.

Back in March we had our 3091 at our dealer for a list of things including replacing the broken refrigerator shelves and to address the poor selection of this GE model for the 3091. They told us Montana’s reply is that they don’t equip their RVs with refrigerators that can travel with food in them. You all can think about that yourselves.

They also told us that replacing the refrigerator would require removing either a window or a slide. I think that’s more the reason for the hesitancy. This is also a smaller, counter depth unit. It’s possible there aren’t any better choices in that more limited selection of options.

This model RV is an obvious challenge from a physics perspective. The refrigerator is located against the back wall of the unit. Any time you stop, anything inside it will naturally want to move forward as will the heavy refrigerator itself. If it was me I would have gone out of my way to reinforce the back wall and the mounting system and then made sure the installer hit the marks.

You also have a refrigerator that has shelves that only hook over their adjustment rails, they don’t lock into them. Plus, there’s a space between the end of each shelf and the shelves in the door. By all measurements this is a horrible choice of refrigerator.

The location at the absolute back of the unit means that it also moves up and down more than something located say right over the wheels. We bought it because we like the rear kitchen design and It can definitely be engineered to travel well, it just wasn’t.

In our High Country the design for a rolling home was much more logical. The refrigerator was on a side wall over the axles. Food would want to move sideways not toward the door when braking. The shelves locked into their rails and the shelves extended all the way to the doors. Sometimes contents shifted when in flight but you were prepared for that when you opened the doors.

The Product Manager back in 2017 probably knew a lot about RVing and picked a logical refrigerator for the application. I’ll add, a more expensive choice as well.

I don’t know about all of you but one of the reasons we travel by RV is so that when we get there we have food at the ready and perhaps an adult beverage or 2, cold and also at the ready. Those used to be one of the benefits of RVing.

If you’re not supposed to travel with food, why is the inverter sized to power it while you’re driving? I’m just saying.

[MandK]

Travel with no food in the fridge? That’s nuts. We actually will remove stuff from one shelf and intentionally over load another shelf so that everything is packed in on one or two shelves so it doesn’t move around. Haven’t had any issues, at least not yet.

[Dzboater]

In case anyone else will be looking to reinforce their refrigerator support on a 3091 I added another set of attachment points to mine.

The cabinet sides both have some structure in them. The broom closed to the left has the attachment points for its back wall and the panel to the right was some structure top, center and bottom.

I attached a 1x4 to each of those points with several screws and then blocks to fill that gap to the steel band. Since those side supports are anchored 90 degrees around from the back wall and held tightly to the wall by the refrigerator itself, movement of all of this becomes much more difficult.

I don’t think a lot of dealers would be addressing this issue with this kind of overkill approach, but over time I think it will be worth the extra work.

[jmcafee008]

Same issue. Bracket snapped, then pulled totally away from the wall, smashed the inside of fridge so it’s unusable, floor dented under fridge, ripped out plug, and gouged the fridge slide trim. Other than that it’s great..

[boilerbilly28]

Please send pictures, if you’re looking for montana to do something? Here’s what you’re gonna here “ poor workmanship, we’ll repair the damages, no you won’t get a new refrigerator, yes they’ll cut and patch your floor, in other words you worked hard to buy a new piece of heaven to enjoy for a long time, give keystone $130,000 and they are thieves in the wide open! Handed over a non-researched, non-developed, non-tested piece of crap. This is the last keystone we’ll ever buy. It’s a shame because this was to be our retirement coach! Now more headaches and battles to get something repaired that didn’t have to be.

[Paul M]

Just finished a 4k road trip,and my residential frig can loose also. They only put 3 sheet metal screws on each bracket. For some reason they don’t leave the feet on. So it rides on the rollers and can slide. The interstate system is terrible for traveling. I replace the screws with rivet nuts,1/4-20 bolts with lock tote and orders feet, drilled holes thru the feet, to secure it to floor. They are definitely not secure from factory.

[Dzboater]

I’ve recently sent a message to Keystone through the owners app about my refrigerator experience including photos and narrative of the initial damage to the refrigerator mounting “system” and then photos and explanation of my repair. I would have thought there would be some response. At least an At-a-boy on the repair job. But just Crickets.

I had previously recounted to Montana some other difficulties I had with my unit and dealer on days 1-3 of ownership. After the dealer had it over a month for a list of issues, none of them were repaired.

I have a Schwintek slide that still throws a wiring short circuit error code that I’ve deduced to be in the harness itself because it moves to the other motor when you switch plugs on the controller. Fortunately a reset of the controller allows it to operate in or out as needed. I moved the controller to make it more accessible and that’s the fix until I get the time to replace the harness.

I’ve figured out that once you reset the controller, if you keep running the slide in and out, the controller will remain in override mode long enough to run the slide 6 or 7 times. Once it exits override the slide no longer works. Want to guess what the tech who worked on it did to test it? Then he claimed victory.

I had a leaky faucet that I replaced at my own cost and a leaky water pump I also replaced (upgraded) after my dealer allowed the unit to freeze while they had it, even though I called twice to remind them to drain and/or winterize the system because they were having unusually frigid temps in March. Both times they told me not to worry, “it’s a Montana with good insulation”.

Once we determined both had frozen and broke, it became my fault for not returning a winterized unit.

Two days after delivery, before ever reaching home, I backtracked 500 miles to bring it back because my list of defects had grown too long. The day I returned it to them the temp was 80 degrees. Not being a meteorologist, at the time I didn’t anticipate temps in the low to mid teens were still to come to Eastern Tennessee in mid to late March.

In my initial note to Keystone they apologized for my dealer experience and recommended I try another dealer. They did provide a couple names to me. That was before I provided the details of the refrigerator issue which they haven’t responded to.

So I know now not to expect much from Keystone or my dealer. I have an extended warranty I’m going to bet won’t be much better once the Keystone warranty expires.

Where we winter, there is a very well regarded dealer with mobile service who Montana will not reimburse for manufacturer warranty repairs. They will hopefully be able to honor my extended warranty though. I’m waiting for then to engage them on some other items that aren’t fixed yet. Hopefully the extended will cover them.

All through Covid, manufacturers / dealers sold and sold and sold RVs. I pass a lot of dealers and none of them have appeared to add service bays and like so many industries, they’re suffering from not being able to attract and retain qualified help. The result? Months wait time for repairs that produce no or poor results. They’re glad to accept inflated purchase prices and all the add-on fees they can invent though.

There is no way poor quality parts, workmanship and service should be this difficult to get rectified. So far I’ve gotten far more help from my camping neighbors, YouTube and forums like this one.

[harleyguy302]

What size lags are you using? I'm a little nervous about screwing into exterior wall. I leave for a trip in two days and just discovered mine is pulling away from the wall as well.

[Paul M]

I used rivit nuts in stead of lags, 1/4-20 into the stud
I put them in the same holes the screws came out, and put one about 2 inches above and below the existing one,and put a metal strap over the bracket

[Paul M]

Mine also did not have feet,so it sat on the rollers, The brackets was there so I ordered some 5/16 feet off Amazon , reversed the brackets to fit under frig and cut them down to fit under refrigerator. Also order the brackets for washing machine and hooked around the legs so it doesn’t move any. Joust got off a 1k trip and it didn’t move.

[Dzboater]

I’m sorry to hear you’re having the same problem. Apparently we are far from alone on this one. Across different blogs I’ve found several others. Unfortunately I’m traveling this week, but without my RV. I have the extra screws on the RV. As near as I can remember I used 6 of the screws described below. Not technically lags, instead self drilling screws with a hex head. . They are 1 1/2 inches long only because I too was concerned about driving them all the way through the frame member. The #14 size though was significantly wider than what they had used but not so large that I was worried about damaging the frame member.

Teks® #14 Zinc Hex Head Self-Drilling Screws at Menards

As I explained, I replaced my cracked 1x4 with an oak 1x6 on the back wall. After removing the old one I used a small drill bit and drilled something like 40 holes behind where the board would cover until I found 2 frame members. Then I installed 3 of those screws into each one.

It was immediately obvious that the new board was tight compared to the original.

The other thing that happened to me was that the front feet had dug through the vinyl flooring and wore about halfway through the sub floor. Those feet now sit on a 1x that I screwed to the floor. It’s pretty much hidden by the freezer drawer unless you look close.

Then I added side supports for the metal band that are attached to cabinet framing top to bottom on each side and as the final insurance policy I added a strap across the front for travel.

Best of luck. I’ll keep watching in case you have any other questions.

[Paul M]

Don’t use anything over 1 1/4 that’s what in there

[Dzboater]

Remember, it has to go through the 3/4 inch 1x board first so that leaves only 3/4 inch going into the frame member.

[harleyguy302]

Thanks for update! I'm going to menards after work tomorrow for supplies and hopefully get this taken care of.