Sport Fridge by Fridge Freeze

[soulpatch]

http://sportfridge.com/home

I never see these mentioned in these forums.... is it only because of the price? The ones I have seen churning out ice cubes in summertime Sea of Cortez temps and humidity have been pretty darn impressive.

Gotta have a big wallet, though.

 

[BigSwede]

Interesting, first I have heard of them. They talk big:

SportFridge is the most reliable and efficient portable 12 volt and 24 volt refrigerator and freezer available for off-road, recreational and marine use.

And yeah they aren't cheap, but they are "handmade in the USA", too. And this is interesting:

The SportFridge is so efficient because it uses the entire outside casing as the condenser to dissipate heat. This is possible because the casing is made of marine grade aluminum. All other portable fridge/ freezers use a fan and an external condenser. The problem with this method is that a fan increases the amp draw and the external condenser is susceptible to corrosion and breakage.

 

[soulpatch]

I wanted to buy one years ago for our place in Baja but I was gifted a 3-way that works awesome.... so, free worked for me.

But, my neighbors and other people I saw with them loved theirs and we always had ice ready to go.

 

[1leglance]

When you compare to the top of the line National Luna fridges then the price isn't horrible.
I wonder about in vehicle use if the entire outside case gets warm...you would have to make sure you had good all around airflow.

If my ARB ever goes out then I will have to give them a look over.

Hey they are in San Diego....I know we have some Expo folks around there, someone go chat and look things over

 

[soulpatch]

I am going to give them a hard look when I do my build. I do not think it would be hard to leave a bit of a vented space around one, possibly with a small 12v fan to move air.... or two if I want one for freezing since I plan on many week+ trips and possibly more with my family around Latin America.

Also, it is always awesome to have on to throw on the boat since ice takes up so much room...... options are good and made in the USA is, too,

 

[moabian]

I used a FridgeFreeze for about 10 years. When I bought my 60-liter FridgeFreeze for around $1700 (now $2045), they were all called FridgeFreeze. There was no SportFridge line. You just paid more if you wanted the features that made it suitable for transporting medical supplies and body parts. Now they call the medical line FridgeFreeze, and the "cheaper" recreational units are dubbed SportFridge.

They are extremely well-built, heavy-duty and dependable. Mine lived in the back of an F-250 for several years and then was transferred into the back of a Tundra in 2008. I sold the Tundra earlier this year and sold the FridgeFreeze with it because it was too big and heavy for the JK, which now has the 63-quart ARB semi-permanently mounted. I never had a single problem with the FridgeFreeze...and it was in the trucks for about 364.5 days out of the year. They may be the best fridge/freezers out there...if you have the room and don't mind the weight.

So far, I've been happy with the ARB. However, shortly after I bought it, the fan started hitting one of the coolant lines and making a huge racket...so I had to pull off the cover and bend the line out of the way. It's worked perfectly and silently since. It's the first time I ever had to work on any fridge, which doesn't say a lot for ARB. I also used 2 different Waeco fridges (now Dometic, I think) in previous Jeeps and never had a problem. The smaller Waeco, probably 12 years old, is now in the back of my girlfriend's Fiat 500. She loves it.

 

[soulpatch]

That's an excellent review.

I think since I am going to go with a SuperDuty platform and with the lighter, aluminum framed pop up to save weight and for the build that I will justify higher end components..... sometimes you get what you pay for.

 

[XploreBaja]

I have 2 FridgeFreeze units, the oldest one is 13 years old and is a 60 liter size and she's a workhorse, and the 45 liter size is 9 years old. The smaller newer one is mounted full time behind the passenger seat in my Dodge Ram 4WD Cummins with 800K Baja miles on it. It fits perfect right behind the seat and runs only off the 12 Volt and when camped for extended days I simply hook up an 85 watt solar panel that keeps everything ice cold and allows me to keep making ice cubes when the heat is climbing and the humidity is rising.

Both units have never stopped ticking at all.

I smashed a big hole in my 70 gallon fuel tank one time deep in the mountains of Baja and we stuck a tshirt up in the baseball size hole in the steel gas tank to slow the flow. I hurried to empty out the 60 liter FridgeFreeze and unscrewed the top lid and pushed it under the truck fuel tank to catch as much diesel as we could since we were alone!

We pulled out the shirt and captured as much as I could filling the FridgeFreeze to the top. We pulled it out and screwed the lid back on it and put it in the bed of the truck strapping it down. Then we used a hammer and a screwdriver to puncture two holes through the lid of the FridgeFreeze to allow for a fuel line and the return fuel line.

We bypassed the empty fuel tank and drove outta there to the the first farm Rancho and bought 5 more gallons of diesel and poured it into the FridgeFreeze filling it up. I drove all the way home to Orange County stopping every 100 miles to put diesel fuel in the FridgeFreeze to finally make it home the next day.

The owner of FridgeFreeze Jay Black gave me new 60 liter lid and checked it all out and it was fine....I've been using it ever since and no kidding...it's loaded right now for a 7 day Baja trip leaving at 6 am ....

They are not cheap, but I would do it all over again. I have literally beat my two FridgeFreezes up averaging about 45K a year trudging around Baja's dirt roads and highways. I have replaced 12 volt power cords but that's it and that's been from my own issues like LOSING them when I'm switching between trucks or the Excursion ... by the time I'm looking for the next trip it's gone!



XploreBaja amigos!

Tim

 

[soulpatch]

That's a heck of a story and an endorsement!
It's amazing what you do when you're in the middle of nowhere in baja and no one's coming to your rescue.....

I had to pull a trailer off road for a bit around a semi wreck north of Catavina once which meant some pretty gouged up dirt road.... I ended up using wood, jack stands and re-positioning a few times to get my trailer across a pretty big wash out... my car would have made fine but that trailer combo and the angles produced just weren't making it easy.

Still got to Bahia de Los Angeles well before anyone that waited for that wreck to be cleared did, though.

I gotta say, you did some quick thinking there and that's awesome!

 

[BigSwede]

Great story!