Mistral FF72 fault?

[admin]

Last night our 4 year old fridge began to warm up, a lot, pressing FF didn’t help.
The fan would not run, replugging the fridge briefly gave a P1 code, we vaccuumed the front lower condenser, left it unplugged for various times and eventually it restarted, phew.
I am sure we have had a similar problem in the past, where a freezer temp of say -16 was displayed and pressing fast freeze didn’t work automatically, flicked the power and it started.
As it has some parts cover left, we have asked Hotpoint to fix it as it will be guarrenteed for a year.
I have read the other posts but wondered if this is due to excessive freezing or an intermittent component fault?

[Dave_Conway]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

It’s normally the thermistors in the freezer playing up, also the fridge door can drop stopping it hitting the fan switch. Overicing is another reason, which can be caused by quite few things.

Dave.

[admin]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Thanks Dave,

after some more reading, I am a little concerned the engineer may pass it off as a “no faults found”, especially as this is the only time it has been so bad.

From what I have read, a faulty or open door can cause this, as well as faulty components, so if it is running on the day is he likely to change anything?

I am not tight, but I don’t want another night like last night, missus upset as she has just spent £75 on food, seeing it defrosting, then more for an engineer to not see anything.

One thing which intriged me was when my wife said that there was condensation on things in the fridge, when she was putting the shopping away, could the door have been slightly open and caused a freeze/no fan/over temp problem?

Regards.

[Dave_Conway]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Guest wrote:could the door have been slightly open and caused a freeze/no fan/over temp problem?

Very possible.

OK, try the defrost solution first. It means emptying the whole thing though I’m afraid. Friendly neighbour with some spare freezer space ?

Leave it off with both doors open for 48 hours and try again, it will be OK for a while but if it happens again fairly quickly then there is a fault.

Dave.

[admin]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Thanks Dave,

it is 24hrs post failure and all is well, so I will leave the defrost, just let the time pass until Friday when the service guy calls. I guess if it is working on the day it will be passed as “one of those things”.

I can understand this, though if he fits a few new components we should have some comeback until next year.

Just to clarify, could a partially closed door have caused this, without ANY component faults/failures?

I can sort of cope with this though find it strange, though as they have processors I am sure anything is possible.

Regards,

Ged.

[Dave_Conway]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Let the time pass until Thursday and if all is still well cancel the engineer 😉

And yes, a partially closed door can cause this 😀

Dave.

[admin]

Thanks Dave,

I will take your advice, see how it goes and make a decision on Thursday.

When I cleaned the condenser system it was covered in black fluff, how do you get to the fans behind the steel back plate?

It doesn’t appear to have screws, is there a few tricks to removing it and should I? Could it benefit from a vaccuum to clean it out?

Thanks for your help,

Ged.

[Dave_Conway]

Guest wrote: how do you get to the fans behind the steel back plate?

The fan near the very bottom ?

I’m not sure to be honest, I wouldn’t worry too much if it’s cooling correcly 😉

Dave

[admin]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

I’ve also got one of these – de-icing helps immensely!

Just recently though, mine started not cooling the fridge section. I checked the air valve in the fridge bit, and it was open, but the freezer fan would only run for a few seconds when the door switch was depressed. A complete de-ice and power off reset didn’t help, so I’ve wired the fan permanantly on, which seems to be doing the trick. However, I’m sure this will give me an increased electricity bill, and play merry hell with the unit’s automatic de-ice cycle.

Anyone seen this before, or at least got a circuit diagram for this model?

[Penguin45]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Hi Tony, can’t advise you directly, but there are 17 “Mistral” threads if you check the search facility; most relate to temepature problems. Failing that, hang fire ’til morning when the rest of the lads are back on their feet.

Regards,
Penguin45.

[admin]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

After I posted this thread I took the advice, cancelling the service call.
Touch wood, all has been well since, it maybe was an open door. Out of interest though, I pulled off the front bottom grill to clean the black pipes and unscrewed a panel at the bottom on the back, are there any more things to clean?

[admin]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

Just to let you know that we had the same fault.
Our fridge would go up to +20 and even with the fan running would not come down.
The freezer would ice up and and restrict the airflow so that the cold air was not getting up into the fridge.
I found I could remove the back panel of the freezer, de-ice pipes with a hair dryer and return everything in less than 20 mins.
This fix would work for about a month then need redoing. I became paranoid that I would come down in the morning to find the fridge at +20 again.
Eventually the defrosting trick would only work for a few days so I called in Hotpoint.
The engineere defrosted the freezer, replaced both thermistors (one with a yellow plug & one with a green plug), charged nearly £90 (the parts were less that 5yrs old) all in the space of 33mins!
At least now I know that everythings OK.
If you hold the door switch closed when the fridge door is open, The fan should start up and you can cold air blowing in if you feel up at the top left hand side where the grills are.
By the way, I tried the flicking the mains on and off trick whilst the freezer was at -18,and the display went to -1 and stated dropping over the next hour or so until it reached -18 again, which shows that if the thermisters have gone, you can’t trust the temperature gauge either.

[admin]

Out of interest, how did you take the large back panel off, it looks like it is a permanent fixture?
How do you change the thermistors, and where are they fitted?
Ours is nearly five years old so I am awaiting the day!

[Dave_Conway]

Re: Mistral FF72 fault?

The back panel is permanent, everything is in the freezer behind the panel at the rear, remove everything (drawers etc).

Power off of course first :plug:

Dave.

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