My Norcold is toast!

[gripper]

Today, I pulled into a park, in North Carolina and began setting up to camp for a week. When I went to check the refrigerator, to see if it changed from propane to electric, I found that it was off. No matter what I did, I couldn't get any readout from the keyboard on the door. So, I thought a fuse must have blown. I went outside and pulled the panel off and saw that dreaded red light on, where the recent norcold recall work was done. I was told that the recall was to install a "safety switch" that would shut down the refrigerator, if there was a leak in the coolant. It was to prevent a fire. Well, the switch works, because I didn't have a fire. What I did have was things melting in the fridge!

I was also told that if the red light comes on, the refrigerator's cooling unit has to be replaced. There was no way to "reset" the switch and continue to use the refer. Bummer. Now, I have to end my travels (I have been on the road since March the 12th., when we attended the Perry GA. rally). I had no intentions of going home yet. However, thanks to Norcold, I have to go home. Yes, I will have the fridge fixed, but you can bet your boots, it won't be with a Norcold....I'm joining the others, who installed a residential refrigerator. Ask me if I am upset!

["007"]

gripper, have been discussing in this thread what you might do in your situation, its up to you but if fridge has alway worked for you why not put it back to original hookup without recalls looks like there may be a third recall because of problems with second.

[Diplomat Don]

gripper.....Unplug the wire from the box, plug it back into the circuit board and eliminate the "black box". There was no permanent change made by the black box, they just disconnected the power lead and hooked it to a thermostat. I would disconnect the wire (the original wire with a female spade plug is unplugged from your circuit board and plugged into a male spade on their box). Watch it for a few hours and see what happens.

A lot of the failures have apparently been their boxes.

[tucdc]

Again, another problem with a so-called fix. It appears that Norcold brilliant engineers can't even fix the problem with their initial fix, even after 3 or 4 tries. Why don't they bite the bullet and fix the problem, not throw bandaid fixes? I don't know about all of you, it's starting to get expensive driving 100 miles to a facility to get a recall done.

[Route 66]

I would think that each "recall" is done with the lowest cost in mind. Unfortunately, the "Nocold" owners are the injured party, not "Nocold" who is trying to save a buck.

[Dr4Film]

It appears that Norcold is up to Revision E already with their little Black Box fixes. The earlier ones have had all types of problems. Some were overly sensitive to voltage fluctuations and prematurely tripped.

I had my recall installed in late November 2010, so I believe I have version A and it is still working great but I am prepared to bypass the Black Box if necessary to keep my frig stuff cold.

However, I will take a temperature reading of the stack just above the heaters after the bypass just to make sure that it is truly not a defective cooling unit.

I am a full-time RVer and cannot afford to have the Black Box take out my frig for some unnecessary reason.

Dr4Film ----- Richard.

[Clifftall]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diplomat Don gripper.....Unplug the wire from the box, plug it back into the circuit board and eliminate the "black box". There was no permanent change made by the black box, they just disconnected the power lead and hooked it to a thermostat. I would disconnect the wire (the original wire with a female spade plug is unplugged from your circuit board and plugged into a male spade on their box). Watch it for a few hours and see what happens. A lot of the failures have apparently been their boxes.

There are 4 wires in the black box. Which ones do you unplug and plug into circuit board?

[Elkhartjim]

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifftall There are 4 wires in the black box. Which ones do you unplug and plug into circuit board?

Inquiring minds and a warm refer want to know also.

[paz]

Be careful bypassing the black box without having the cooling unit checked out first. I know there have been problems with the box, but the reason it's there is to shut down the cooling unit in the event it overheats. If it overheats, it can cause a fire.

[Elkhartjim]

I understand that, Paz. My unit had been off since the middle of January albeit had been on shore power. I turned it on yesterday and it immediately went into error mode. That would be a pretty fast heat up, huh?

[gripper]

Thanks for your suggestions, but I'm done with Norcold. Besides, after I discussed the potential of fire, with the DW, she is afraid and won't settle for anything but a residential refrigerator now. We are headed home today and then I will contact Lazy Days or some other outfit, near Tampa and have the Norcold replaced. I have an extended warranty and I think they will pay some of the repair costs. I will just have to come up with the difference.

We don't "boondock", so having the propane/battery/110 volt refrigerator means nothing to us. The one in our home, never gave us any problems.

[John_N_Terry]

Our Norcold went the way of the buffalo (died) a couple of weeks ago also. I was quoted $950 to repair it as the cooling unit was fried. I replaced it with a $300 residential unit. It won't work on propane now, but I run the genny on the road anyway, so who cares??

The benefits of a residential unit FAR outweigh replacing it with another RV fridge, or repairing the broken one.

["007"]

I posted this on another thread also.

[Diplomat Don]

clifftall.....Norcold black box wires......brown wire from box goes to the sensor they installed on your flue to check heat. The green wire from the box has a ground clip on it and just clips to sheet metal on the refer as a ground. The blue wire form the box is plugged into the back of your refer where you previously had a 12volt power lead from your M/H manufacturer to power your refer. On my coach, that 12 volt wire supplied by the M/H maunfacturer is red. They unplugged that red wire from the back of my refer and plugged it into the fourth wire (red) coming out of the box.

So essentially, all they are doing is putting a switch in your 12 volt power source that was supplied my your M/H manufacturer to power your refer. Pull the blue wire off of the refer, unplug your 12 volt power lead from the black box red lead and plug your 12 volt lead back into the refer.