Well, here we go again. It's been sitting in the shop running for a month and a half now. When I was out in the shop last night it was running, but I thought it sounded a bit louder than usual. When I went out this morning it has quit working again and is going through it's endless cycle of trying to start, resetting, and trying again. That whole cycle takes about 5 seconds each time.
When it started working again, I mentioned that I would never be able to trust it again. I am certain of that now.
And I have NEVER gotten any kind of response from Engel. I still don't know what the problem is and am unable to find any service information.
I also have the cheapo 43 quart Edgestar. It was about 1/3 the price of the Engel. It has worked flawlessly from the day I bought it in 2009. When one of the plastic hinges cracked, I contacted them and they immediately sent me a new set of hinges. There's an obvious difference in attitude toward customer service between Compact Appliance and Engel.
I had an issue with my 7 or 8 year old Engel 45 not cooling so I searched on some threads rather than start a new one. A.K.A. Thread Necromancing! My fridge has lived in the back of my 4Runner and has not been pampered. Every offroad trip described in my blog has provided plenty of bumps for the Engel.
First, I called Engel yesterday and did not box myself in to communicating via only email and thus self-limit my chances of success. I did not want to buy a new fridge, even another brand X which is superior and wonderful and cheaper and beautiful compared to the object of scorn. If the vendor yaks, I take notes and I ask questions and document it. Basically I want my fridge working so email, FAX, telephone are all good and non-exclusive.
Sam at Engel was quite wonderful to deal with on the phone. He spent quite a bit of time to understand how I set my vehicle up and then advised me step by step how he would check and test various items. The upshot is that he was exactly right. It was a DC power issue. I did not want to think so because I have a very nice set up with a clean installation: Fairly new Sears Diehard Platinum marine battery, thermal breaker, 10 ga. lines coming to the back, nice quality cig lighter outlet and the factory cord. But I was not honest with myself. Other than the battery, the install is as old as the fridge. Things can corrode, gather dirt, flex and break and so on.
I originally assumed that all the symptoms pointed to the Engel: not getting as cold as it should have, running a bit too much to the point where last weekend it did not cool at all. Sam faxed me his own check list and I forced myself to discard my assumptions and manually check everything. That included running on AC only where it turns out the fridge ran fine and gave me reassurance that I had a external DC supply problem to fix.
In the end, I believe that the fuse in the cig lighter plug was loose due to the end cap becoming unscrewed a bit. I shotgunned everything and replaced that fuse and the 10 amp plastic fuse on the back of the fridge, cleaned all connections points and even cleaned the inside of the (dusty) cig lighter outlet.
Fridge ran great on battery power and cooled down to 16 deg in a heartbeat.
I called Sam again today to relay the results and he was genuinely happy that I did not have to spend a dime. He could have sold me a control board or refrigeration unit but did not. I think I may still go ahead and buy that factory hard-wire cable for the Engel and eliminate the cig plug. I think I have run out of excuses as to why I did not need to.
If it had not been the external cord I would have opened the Engel up. It is easy. I had already Googled and found Youtube videos and other tech info. The compressor and cooling is all one unit. The power supply is another module and the control board is an obvious one. I was also prepared to trace out and test the temperature sensor (thermistor) in case it was giving false readings. With Sam's live advice on the phone i knew it could be resolved.
Lessons learned:
- Fax, call, and email the vendor but don't set yourself up for failure unless you want to enshrine some dearly held assumptions
- Discard all of your assumptions. Take the advice of the factory guy and make an honest run through at troubleshooting.
- Pay attention to the warning signs but don't jump to conclusions (see #2). Make a list and follow though on probable causes.
PS: Sam also explained the reasoning behind the special thermal fuse. It handles an electrical overload issue with the 10 amp fuse element but the "thermal" part is based on a large number of dashboard fires in old vehicles over in Africa. The fuse will literally open up at 130 degrees of heat if the cig lighter socket is deficient and starts to melt and catch fire. In America you should not need the thermal fuse and can get by with a normal 10 Amp fuse for replacement purposes. The other feature of the fuse is reverse polarity protection. Proper wiring eliminates the need for that feature of the fuse. It is probably just an inline diode anyhow so I'll try to remember to test one of the Engel fuses and report back.
