AC failures

[Dav5942]

Just had one of the Dometic Penquin ACs fail. Found the motor starter on the start capacitor was blown up. Got a replacement($25) at the local authorized Dometic dealer who wanted us to bring in the coach and fix under warranty(lot easier and faster to do ourselves).

Called Dometic who is "selling" a hard start kit for their Penquin ACs who "have a history of failing and/or tripping the coach breaker" according to them. Ordered one just in case my other two ACs fail(have one presently tripping the breaker periodically)
.
The sympton was fan running, compressor on/off for five seconds.

[Dav5942]

Just had one of the Dometic Penquin ACs fail. Found the motor starter on the start capacitor was blown up. Got a replacement($25) at the local authorized Dometic dealer who wanted us to bring in the coach and fix under warranty(lot easier and faster to do ourselves).

Called Dometic who is "selling" a hard start kit for their Penquin ACs who "have a history of failing and/or tripping the coach breaker" according to them. Ordered one just in case my other two ACs fail(have one presently tripping the breaker periodically)
.
The sympton was fan running, compressor on/off for five seconds.

[h moffitt]

You were smart to get an extra. I had both of mine go out within two or three days of each other. The second one burned a circuit board when it went.

[Digital Boy]

By handling a warranty repair on your own, does that affect your warranty if problems persist?

I'm not quite as "handy" as some and always let a dealer deal with warranty repairs.

I'm just curious about this, not being judgemental.

[Dav5942]

Maybe, maybe not-in this case we reproted the problem to Dometic and took their advise in ordering the hard start kits. With only one year left on the parts warranty(labor warranty now expired) we are not really concerned, but we feel confident warranty would be approved based on our documentation.

In a similiar situation our neighbors house AC compressor went this week, parts were covered not labor-guess what they ended up paying as much for labor as a whole new AC compressor would cost(with labor).

Just received the "hard start kit" which is nothing but the orginal capacitor with a relay replacing the "motor starter".