Community Forums

Bruadair · 02-05-2014, 08:14 PM

When we bought our 2014 Bounder 35K two months ago one of the issues that came up at PDI is that the refrigerator door handles on the Dometic unit would not latch to lock the doors. All four of them would not latch at all. At that time they told us they would order new handles and before sending us on our way the dealer used packaging tape to hold the doors shut so they would not swing open while driving.

We received the new handles and had them put in. As this is our first Dometic refrigerator I'm just not sure if the handles are working correctly. All four doors close and seal as they should however they will only latch into the locking position if you push really hard on the door until you hear a click. And I mean push hard. Is this the normal operation of these handles in the 35K? The way I read page six of the manual it states to lock (latch) the doors simply close the refrigerator door. It doesn't say anything about putting your back into pushing the door to lock it. The other issue is that to open the doors it takes some effort in pulling the handle to the side, a lot of flexing to get it unlatched (I know I'm not explaining that very well). The dealer is telling us this is the normal operation for the Dometic but I wanted to confirm with other owners. I think the next time I'm at the dealer checking up on our motor home I'll walk out to the lot and look at a few other units, just to compare. Thanks for your feedback.

**CLIFFTALL** · 02-05-2014, 08:17 PM

My Norcold required a push to lock.

Bruadair · 02-05-2014, 08:32 PM

Thanks Cliff!

**JohnRR** · 02-05-2014, 08:35 PM

Touchy feely with a couple of like units sounds like a great plan.

chuckftboy · 02-05-2014, 08:47 PM

I have a 4 door Dometic and it latches with little or no effort. not sure if its the same as yours as mine is an earlier model. On mine the doors lock down when I shift out of park. I have to move the latch left to unlock when traveling. When parked it easily closes like a residential frig.

Davdeb1 · 02-05-2014, 08:47 PM

My norcold closes like any other residential fridge I've had.

The reason its so hard to open is the same reason you have to put your back into it. Something is out of adjustment.

SarahW · 02-05-2014, 10:43 PM

The doors on our Dometic "click" lock easily; no pushing required. After buying our Bounder, we found that one of the 4 doors on the fridge had a plain handle with no lock mechanism. I contacted Dometic and they mailed the correct handle directly to us. (Dealer is over an hour and several gallons of gasoline away, so my hubby swapped the handles.) Wonder how many other Dometics are out there with the wrong handles installed.

mst0neham123 · 02-06-2014, 09:31 AM

On our 2012 35K, the refrig doors close and lock easily. However, in the first three months we had our unit, 2 of the handles snapped when opening the fridge. Dometic mailed us 4 handles and I installed two of them. No problems since and I now have 2 spares.

Bruadair · 02-06-2014, 11:26 AM

Thank you everyone. It sounds like my doors don't close as easily as most of yours so I'll re-address it with the dealer. If they are unable to resolve the issue I see no harm in contacting Dometic directly. Thanks again.