MamaGoose
Canada
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Hi, I'm new here.
We just bought a 2003 Fleetwood Revolution and found out about the recall on the Norcold 1200LRIM 4 door refrigerator. We had the motorhome at a dealership a couple of days ago to get it and the tow vehicle fitted for towing and they did the recall work (installed a high temperature sensor box) on the fridge while it was there. The fridge ran fine on propane and then on AC. We returned home today and emptied the fridge and shut it off, as we're going to park the motorhome with batteries off until we're ready to head south for winter. Hubby washed the motorhome and parked it. Walking by, he could see the red light glowing from the back of the fridge. The fridge hadn't even been running for a couple of hours at that point, so obviously nothing was overheating, the thing just tripped for no reason. Of course now the fridge won't turn on at all. Tomorrow we'll be phoning the dealership where the work was done, and we'll also try the magnet reset. We live on a farm about 4 hours away from where the work was done. We farm, harvest is approaching, and we simply do not have time for another trip to get them to fix this. Was this recall kit installation worth it? As it stands now, it didn't 'protect' us from anything. Nothing was overheating, nothing was leaking. We'll be trying to reset or bypass the kit until a new one can be installed.
* This post was
edited 08/15/14 09:01pm by MamaGoose *
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MamaGoose
Canada
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hottubkid wrote:We just returned from AZ and on the way the recall shut the refer down .I checked it out and the black box of the recall had shut the refer down. Here I am with a full refer and no cooling. I saw the red light on the recall and checked the 12 volt in and out of the box. Because of the situation I jumped the black box out. Called the dealer in Bull Head city and they wanted the coach for three days. Drove home with it jumped out. When to the dealer here and they reset the black box and told me to run it for 24 hours and charged me $56.00. I learned that to reset the black box all you have to do is hold a strong magnet to the upper right hand of the box until you hear a click and after the unit has cooled down. If I had this knowledge I would not have jumped out the safety and still would have been protected. Just a FYI for my camping friends
How do you 'jump out' the box?
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MrDoneIt65
Golf Country NC
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I never had a problem with my refrigerator until they informed me of the recall. When they put the Chinese sensor on the fridge the coils blew out. When I called Norcold I was pretty much told, "Tough", they had no responsibility for the coils being blown. Personally, I think the solution that came from earlier post was the best solution. I replaced the coils with the Amish built ones from Shipshewana, Indiana. No black box, no red light, no PROBLEM. When I was in Arizona on vacation I bought two 4" pancake fans at Radio Shack, made legs for them out of threaded rod, and set them in the corner of the compartment blowing up across the coils. My refrigerator works perfect. Freezes ice cream and keeps stuff cold while being set on 5. And it was easy to do.
'02 Southwind 37U towing '05 Chevy Colorado with Blue Ox tow bar and Brake Buddy. 8100 GM/Workhorse Chassis. Retired UAW-GM.
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MrDoneIt65
Golf Country NC
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I have posted this response enough times that everyone should be able to see it. If you need further info on what I did then you can e-mail me. I won't be posting this response again. Good Luck! And Happy Camping!
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MamaGoose
Canada
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I started a thread on the subject of recommendations for other brands of RV refrigerators, and I mentioned what had happened to ours with the recall kit. It was mentioned that washing the RV will trip the sensor. We applied a stong magnet to ours today and it reset. We're leaving the fridge on for a few hours to make sure everything is OK and then we'll power it down again.
I see the problem with the sensor--either poor design or poor installation. I'm attaching a picture of ours. Wouldn't you think it would be better protected than that? Given that the wiring is that exposed, it would be easy for it to get wet when one is traveling in wet weather or even parked during a rain storm, or when one is washing one's RV.
![[image]](http://i1096.photobucket.com/albums/g328/countrysk/hightempsensor.jpg)
* This post was
edited 08/17/14 02:02pm by MamaGoose *
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MrDoneIt65
Golf Country NC
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They did what they had to do to comply with the recall. I never had a problem with my fridge until they did the recalls and then they blew out my coils and said it wasn't their problem. I don't really think Norcold gave a******about how the sensor was installed or what happened after it was installed. They just didn't want to get sued by you or me. I don't have a sensor. I have a refrigerator that works better than it did when it was new.
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MamaGoose
Canada
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OK, I feel stupid. ![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/embarrassed.gif "embarrassed")
Hubby just told me there is a clear cover over that panel in the picture I posted. I guess, however, it's still not enough to stop water from getting in there and tripping the sensor, but at least we know it's not completely unprotected. It looks like there was at least some attempt to shield it from the elements.
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gwheel
Tioga
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I just took my unit which is a 1200 in last Thursday, for the recall, it took about half an hour to install. I did watch to see just what was done. They place a thermocouple about 6 - 8 inches above the burner. When he cut the insulation off in this area, that boiler area is quite rusty. They place this TC tight against the boiler tube, and use a stainless steel hose clamp and torque the clamp with a small torque wrench. I can see that if this area is real rusty, and they were to tighten this clamp too tight it could possibly rupture the tube. So far mine is working ok. I did not even realize that there was a recall, on these units until I got to snooping around these forums. My fridge was likely built in the 2000-2002 time frame, and did have to replace the board, and used a Dinosaur, replacement. I also replaced the flame sensor/sparker at the same time, as the board. The unit has served me well so far. I certainly would recommend the Dino board, to anyone that should happen to have a failure of there board. I guess if my cooling unit does happen to fail, I will have to look at the Amish replacement. So far since the high temp sensor install its doing ok. George
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MamaGoose
Canada
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I think we'll be looking at the Amish unit as well if/when the time comes to replace the cooling unit. We've been checking prices on replacing parts vs replacing the entire refrigerator, and it's still a lot less expensive to replace the cooling unit. We're farmers and quite used to having to do some machinery repairs ourselves. I think if we had to install the Amish unit ourselves, we could, provided we were at home where all our tools are. (If we happened to be snowbirding it in the U.S. when the fridge failed, in that case it might be less expensive to have it done in a shop. Depends what tools are required, I guess. There will be some kept in the motorhome, but not the full line we would have in our shop.)
The way these RV's last for so many years and change owners, often through private sales, I'm sure a lot of people don't know about this recall. I found out about it by accident as well. After our first outing with our motorhome, we were getting the "no LP" alarm on the fridge. We eventually got things straightened out ourselves once we did some homework on the internet and found out what to do, but in the meantime, I had e-mailed Norcold to ask for advice. I told them the make and model number of the fridge in that e-mail, and the rep who wrote back to me told me about the recall. I had suspected, from my searches re this fridge, that ours was under recall and that e-mail confirmed it. So we got our RV registered and we got the work done.
We'll be packing a strong magnet with us for our next outing in case the sensor gets wet and trips.
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luv2dsgn
Philly area
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As a result of another forum posting, I linked to a recalls site and searched my unit. I found our Dometic Frig by model/serial listed as needing an after market repair kit. It had been recalled in '08! I contacted the company, and discovered that Stoltzfus and Camping World stock the kits and it's simply a matter of scheduling the appointment to have it installed......FREE!
Whew!....(another close one!)
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