Dometic Refrigerator Recall
 

This morning a customer came into my shop and notified me of a recall that I did not know about and thought that I would let everyone on this forum know.

Dometic is recalling a bunch of fridges with a production date of April 1997 - May 2003. The boiler tube is cracking and causes a potential fire hazard. To see if your fridge falls under the recall you need your model number and serial number and go to this website and it will tell you.

http://www.dometic.com/enus/Americas...l-Information/

mines in the batch, thanks for the tip. i wonder when people are going to be notified, i bought my warrior new so they know where i am. thanks again.

Like it says in there parts aren't going to be available until Mid April. This customer came in with the notice that they sent them. My shop has had no official notice yet which they usually send me one also.

Have to chek mine. It died sometime when I was away from Casa Grande,AZ Dont knowif I have the model in my secret notebook somwhare.
Note [nonono] Don't want that to happen with food in there and be gone[yuk] ,

I received a notice yesterday, Haven't checked my fridge yet, maybe tomorrow.
Trailer is still in storage although it was sunny and 70 deg. today. "Gettin itchy to go campin" [roll]

i will have to check mine too.

notice to admin
 

i think this needs to be stickied so someone doesn't wind up fried in the middle of the night.

We can leave it up for a couple days for you.

called the 800 number today and found that they are going to install a secondary burner housing on the units not leaking already and fix the ones that are leaking by sealing them with some type of sealer, girl i spoke with didn't know what it was, and then do the secondary burner housing. near as i can tell it's basically a brace of sorts. repairs are only supposed to take 15-20minutes so it can't involve too much.

It is installing a separate burner assembly and installing fuses, basically to make it a non fire hazard if the ammonia-hydrogen mix leaks out of the crack.

They claim that it is a 15-20 minute fix with no special tools but you have to have an authorized service center do it (they will only send the parts to an authorized service center).

As far as the sealant for crack they didn't tell me anything about that. Just that if my shop came across one I would have to call and get authorization to get the right parts shipped to me (they were talking like they would replace the entire cooling unit on the back of the fridge) but I guess we will see.

My Dad got a letter for the one in his 2001 Keystone Cougar yesterday and I checked the website to find that the fridge in my 2002 Cougar is in the batch also. I haven't received a letter yet and Dad and I got our 5ers from the same dealer about six months apart from each other. I guess I can be expecting a letter too. If I'm reading the Dometic website correctly, it appears that you don't need any documentation as long as the model and serial numbers are in the recall.

I will leave this stickied for a while due to the serious nature.
Thanks for the heads up Weg.

Mines an 04 (I'm sure built in early 2003). I'm going to check the numbers tomorrow.
Thanks for the heads up.

This is very interesting, do you have the production date of the trailer? Was it actually built back in 01? I love it when they say it applied to trailers from such and such date and they are totally off [laugh] .

No problem in posting them up, I try to post everyone that my shop sees to let everyone know. Come Monday I can get the 800 number for anyone that hasn't received a notice and for anyone else that has comments if you want.

I think the recall says it applies to fridges manufactured between April 97 and May 03. My brother's trailer is an 03. I put in his serial and model no's, and the recall does apply. My trailer is an 05 which was built in 04. I thought my fridge could possibly be an 03. The model no of the fridge is under recall, but not that paticular fridge, as the serial no indicates it was built after May 03.:cool:

You are right, I wasn't thinking this morning obviously. It does apply until May of 2003.

I checked mine this weekend, Model number is on the list but not the serial number. I have a 2003 5er and had a problem with the refrigerator from the time it was new, they keep doing fixes on it until last spring when they replaced it with a new one, works great now.

I wish someone could post pictures of where this crack can develop in the boiler tube. Some of us that are not on the recall would sleep better at night if we new where to look for this crack. Just to see with my own eyes if there is or not a crack.

10-4 on the pictures. My TT is set up in the country and has not moved in over three years. I'd like to be sure it has a problem before I buy new tires and wag it to the dealer for repair.

Check rv.net. Look at the Tech Issues forum. They have a sticky at the top. Lots of info AND pictures regarding this.

Casey

I put a Sticky back on this thread and here is the link for the posts on the rv.net website. CLICK HERE

Thanks Casey

i would like to see those pictures but can't find them.

Look on page 41 of that thread. Other pictures on other pages as well. Shows the problem area. A lot of people including myself are going to an aftermarket heater. The spec calls for 44 ohms resistance and mine was 37 ohms. Putting out too much heat in my opinion. Dometics fix is a band-aid solution at best to prevent a fire but doesn't address the cause of the failures. I hope that by using a properly rated heater, I will be able to avoid a future failure.

Casey

Dometic also blames the problem on too much heat. In the time period of the fridges in the recall they went to a higher heating element.

Today is the first day that Authorized Dealerships/Service Centers are allowed to order parts from Dometic. Just thought that I would remind everyone to get it done.

Hmmmm.......mine is an '01 with the dreaded model and serial number, but I haven't recivied a notice.

I use mine at my place in the country, and it hasn't been moved in about 5 years. I guess I'll have to buy tires and pack the wheel bearings before I can take it in. [verymad]

anyone here of any parts actually being delivered?

Gosh, I'm lazy. I just got out there and opened ours up on Sunday. Sanitized the fresh water tank and fired up the appliances.

I really need to take a minute and check out my serial #, I know with my luck I have one of the ones........

Yes, Dometic is actively shipping out recall kits, my shop has done over a dozen so far. As long as the authorized service centers call Dometic up and order the kits they get them usually within 2-3 business days.

Just checked mine and it's OK, Thanks for the info.

I just bought an 04 Weekend Warrior FS2600 and unfortunately the Dometic Fridge was on the recall list. I took it to my local RV dealer and they performed the recall in about 45 minutes or less. Added some sort of heat shield and sensor. Anyway the fridge worked good before and seems fine now too.

Dometic recall
 

Dometic will not send any notice to customers. You need to contact their customer service Dept. and I believe there is a phone number for the recall.

My unit got a hole burnt into the cooling line. Talked with local dealer, no warranty. Cost of repair close to $800. Five months later wife read about recall. We contacted Dometic got a recall packet, filled it out and sent it back with our recipt and got reinbursed for the total cost.

Be proactive do not wait.

thanks for the info. mine is on the recall. i have been living in my camper while remodeling my house. kinda scary that the fridge could cause a fire or whatever else.

Wanted to keep this one going and say a quick "Thanks!" that this thread was here. Found out my refigerator was covered in May. It took out the cooling unit that was also covered. Took until last month to get the parts in at the shop (because of a large back-log).

All better now and I actually have a refigerator that works! Thanks DTR and other concerned users for the heads-up.

They just started round 3 of notifying people of the recall, got my 3rd today.

My Dad and I both had ours done last month. No damage on either one of our units. It only took about an hour to put the new stuff in. :D

Wish I could have read this sooner. Just bought a new to me 2004 289 Rampage toy hauler had it two and a half weeks. Sitting in the parking lot with nothing on but the refigerator caught itself on fire and burnt down:o. Couldnt get any formal investigation [verymad] insurance co just hauled it off and gave me a check:D. Makes me worry though my 9 year old son and I were going camping 2 days later.

WOW.

I guess consider yourself LUCKY then!

I think Dometic waits for another unit to catch fire and when they find out they add it to the list. They are not handling this very well.

My rampage after 2 weeks
 

rampage pics

Just got mine back. The dealer put a kit and aluminum box around it. Recall came thru mail and said that you might get more than one notice sent out for the same recall for the same travel trailer.[redface]

Well, from my understanding, this recall is only to install the aluminum kit that will help keep the refrig/rv from catching fire. The real problem lies in refrig failure which would led to a fire. SO, the poorly designed/poor quality refrig leading to failure is the real issue here.
If the refrig does not fail due to poor quality/design, no fire!
So, I guess we can all epect a failure maybe sooner than later???
I hae heard that running it on gas is beter for the longevity??? PCM