Whirlpool side by side, fridge side freezing contents…

Hi All,

I’ve read through the multitude of Whirlpool American side by side fridge freezer issues and whilst they give hints towards my problem none of them are exactly it. Therefore I’ll explain my problem and try and fill in what I’ve learned from the other issues….

Model: FRSB36AF20/2
Service Number: 8586 158 15040

Bought the unit just over a year ago and hence just out of warranty! First noticed that some of the fruit and veg were frozen and hence had to be thrown away. Tried looking around the unit for possible reasons, blocked vents, dodgy seals, thermostat covered etc but nothing obvious.

Rang the Whirlpool service line to check that I wasn’t missing anything obvious prior to calling out an engineer and got told, what I believe is a load of rubbish, i.e. that the temperature setting for the fridge works the opposite way round and hence if it is too cold that I should set the display to a lower setting to warm it up!! Thought I’d give it a go just to check and bought a cheap fridge thermometer (not calibrated but probably close enough!) to check. Changing display made no real difference.

Fridge temperature ranges from 0 to -5 degrees seemingly independant of the display setting. Whilst I was at it, I thought I’d check the freezer side even though it appeared to be fine. Whilst the display was set to -18 the actual was nearer -11.

Worth pointing out at this point that at no point have I got any sort of warnings from the displays etc, either audible or visual.

I checked the manual again and noticed the comment about turning the unit off for a while and then turning it back on again. Upon turning it on I got a flashing “d” but after a while this was replaced by the 5 degree legend.

Since then the water has stopped working but I suspect that the supply has frozen (coil of pipes at real of fridge) as the fridge temp is so low and the water rarely used.

Whilst reading through the other Whirlpool posts there would seem to be several suspects:

PCBs
Thermostats
Air Flow damper

The PCB fault seems to be very common but the failure conditions seem a little different.

The thermostats were my fisrt thought but seeing as the temperature seems to be out in both halves, this seems less likely although not impossible.

The air flow damper seems to make the most sense as this controls the air flow from the freezer section to the fridge half in order to get the right temperature. If this blocked open then the temp in the freezer would fall and the fridge would get too cold. However I would have thought I’d get some warning from the fridge thermostat?

Can someone shed some light as to whether I’m barking up the wrong tree, or if I’m not, how I can a) prove it and b) fix it.

Apologies for the long ramble but thought it best to post all the available info.

Cheers in advance and anticipation of your useful responses.

Craig