Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

[Mrangry]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

Have also experienced some of the problems in this thread with our Whirlpool American Style fridge-freezer (Model S20BRSS31) which is now 5 years old (this cost almost £1,500 when new). It’s had both front and rear PCBs replaced while still under its first year of warranty. Because of the problems experienced previously, took out an extended warranty, so when the freezer alarm started flashing again just before Christmas (2007) called Whirlpool out. The engineer called after a week and without hesitation said appliance needed 2 new PCBs (again!). Said he’d order these and be back within 7 – 10 working days. It was inconvenient without a freezer over Xmas holiday period, but waitied patiently for a call back. Having heard nothing at all from Whirlpool by mid-January, called them again to enquire about the repair. Was then told the parts were out of stock and wouldn’t be available until Feb or even early March! Was extremely unhappy with this situation. However, Whirlpool called this week to say parts now in stock, so arranged for engineer to call today (21 Feb). This morning received call from Whirlpool to say engineer off sick and no one else available to come and repair the appliance. Whilst I understand that the engineer cannot help being ill, shouldn’t a company the size of Whirlpool be able to supply a backup person? (Although I believe they don’t actually use their own in-house engineers, but contract out). Not to mention the unacceptably long delay in obtaining the parts in the first place – was told they are made in Italy, but surely over 2 months is an excessively long time to wait for a simple repair? Have any others on these forums experienced bad/slow/indifferent/ service from Whirlpool, and why do their fridge-freezers break down so often? Is there anything we, as consumers, can do about this other than write to Watchdog? Have spoken to Whirlpool’s so-called ‘Customer Care’ departmnt who are, as someone else has mentioned, completely indifferent and fob you off with poor excuses. 👿 Also, is it true that John Lewis no longer stock Whirlpool products because of their poor reputation? There, that feels better: rant now over! Will post again if/when it ever gets fixed. Thanks.

[Steve_C]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

My (2002) S25B RSS31 decided to develop a flashing control panel, the speed of flashing varying depending on whether it was in vacation mode, normal mode or with the light on. Compared to a lot of you, I seem to be lucky, the machine is still chilling correctly although I’ve never hooked up a water supply so have no idea if that side of things has ever worked.

On opening the machine and checking around with both a regular fluke capacitance meter and a cap ESR checker, it appears that the electrolytics are all ok, but a number of the polyester / polyprop caps are way out of spec. On the back board, one of the four 0.22’s was half the spec’d value and the 1uf was just over 0.5uf. On the front board, the four caps in parallel (1×0.68 + 3×0.47) should total approx 2.1uf but mine came in at around 0.7uf TOTAL. The 0.33uf on the front board is within spec.

I tried swapping the caps around on the back board but it made no difference in my case, so switching attention to the front board, I stole the 0.33uf cap from it’s circuit and piggybacked it onto the other four .. the flashing display stopped. My theory is that the power supply is so weak that the microcontroller on the front board on my machine is in a reset loop. Once I find the datasheet for the microcontroller I plan on checking supply voltages (5v?) before and after repair.

I now have a bag of capacitors from RS .. the 10 polyprop / polyesters will be replaced with all the electrolytics! Hopefully this will fix it.

Does anyone have a service manual for this beast? Does it have the PCB schematics in it? It’d be a lot easier working out what is going on without tracing the board.

[eric42]

My S20B RSS31-AG bought new in 06-03 had clicking disease in 05, just out of waranty. I noticed that the problem was triggered by low voltage, when I put the 3kw kettle on the clicking was instigated. New back board £175 later all is well. Now I have flashing lights and much reduced clicking. Fridge ia all working at present but I am certain this must be C3 on the front board. I have had a look but need a clue as how to remove the front board. There must be some hidden clips or screws but where please anybody ?

[emmanbee]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

MDM Appliances. This company is the recommended service engineers by Whirlpool.
Their engineer called by appointment 5 march 2008.
Like a previous posting he diagnosed a control board failure without any testing or dismantling of our freezer. He quoted a price which I accepted and then telephoned his Corby Office. He then revised his quote up to £251.51 because my board had been superceded by an improved but more expensive control board. The good news was it would be available earlier and he wrote on my copy of the sales document he would return 14 march 2008. Guess what. I stayed at home all day. No communication,no engineer!!
I will be chasing this next week but has anyone else had problems with MDM Appliances?
I will update this when I have news.
🙁 🙁

[admin]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

Hi Emmanbee

This forum is for advise on refrigeration problems and not a complaints forum for whirlpool.We wont say they are in the right if they are not but they do need the opportunity to respond.

As the company concerned may not be able to defend themselves without being contacted.

Did you contact MDM yesterday to see if and when the engineer was going to arrive ?.Give them a call on monday first because there may be a realistic reason why the engineer didnt turn up.Telephone 01536 409645.

Bryan

[dpm65]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

Hi I am new to the forum but like all the other posters appear to have similiar problems- initially clicking and shutting in the water supply (approx 1 yr) now no colling in either fridge or freezer (858616615011 110335009602 purchased Feb 2004).
From reading the previous posts it appears that I need new circuit boards. Can anyone confirm if I need both front and rear and where I can get them from?
Has the previous delay in supply been resolved?

Thanks

DPM65

[spuddie5]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

I have a whirlpool american fridge freezer (without icebox) – its around 2 years old and is a S20DRSS10-A/G model serial no 858615415010. The mains power was interrupted last week and there was a CF error. After doing a bit of digging around, I realised that I would need a new rear PCB board, which I bought from Whirlpool. That was fitted today, but the damn thing still isn’t working . The error message has gone away and the motor etc seems to be kicking in, but it is blowing warm air in both the freezer and the fridge. Basically the unit is now a warm cupboard! Help!! What else is wrong???
Thank you for any help
Spuddie5

[whirlpool suck]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

ANOTHER ONE TO THE LIST

I too have Model 858615815020 : Serial 110427018620 – Purch Sept 04

Clicked from almost day one – and I thought it was air in the water line to the water dispenser as it seemed to clear up after changing the filter… obviously coincidental along with supply Voltage fluctuations. The clicking stops when the fridge door is opened – I assume again because something stops drawing current and allows the solenoid relay to hold properly.

It’s now almost 4 years old and the freezer alarm has started going off, and we’ve lost about 200 quids worth of food.

I had a look behind the front panel and found the problem. The front PCB was made – Italy – enough said for me I’m afraid… Everything I have had from Italy has failed within a couple of years use, boilers, fridges, washing machines.

Will be looking at those capacitors.

American style – none of the build quality I’m afraid.

Steve

p.s. Moderators, if you don’t like my user name, please change, and drop me an email (apologies for the work involved – imagine waking up to a kitchen floor dripping with meat juice…) but don’t remove this post.

p.p.s. Has anyone successfully claimed the costs of the repair back from Whirlpool in the basis of poor design/unfit for purpose?

[helo_75]

wow!!!

wheres philuk when you need him?

[spuddie5]

Hi Guys,
Thanks for any suggestions but it looks like it was all in vain!
Have given in – I`m going to scrap the fride/freezer as its just not worth the effort or expense! Thought i could of saved it, an done my bit for the environment but whirlpool seem to think differently.
I was going to call an whirlpool engineer out for £79.99, after speaking to them on the phone they suggested a 12 month plan at £149 parts and labour(money back if they cant fix it) untill i went to book it. It increased to £199 because parts for my f/f cost more apparently!
With the money and time i have spent without a f/f its time to say goodbye to that big hunk of WHIRLPOOL piece of crap warm cupboard in the corner!
Whirlpool sucks – i certainly won`t be buying another crappy over priced (PRODUCT,PARTS AND LABOUR) whirlpool again!
Hope this post puts off anybody from buying or owning whirlppol again!
Bitter and twisted ex-whirlpool user!
See ya!

[The_master]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

I am having a problem with the flashing control panel, fridge and freezer temperatures seem to be fine, no other problems apart from the flashing and the buttons on the control panel have to be pressed several times before finally registering a press.

Model S20D FBB20-A/G

8586 155 15010
11 0432 021282

Is this just the main PCB at the back that needs changing, or does the control panel itself need changing? or both?

Thanks for any advice

[maxilo]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

same here 🙁

8570 610 15300
41 0220 000863

one board or two ? 😉

what a waste of money really my old fridge freezer was given to us from my wife’s parents and was over 40 years old and still working when we bought this. All so we could have a fancy ice maker which after the first few weeks we never used again 🙁

ok as a follow up i replaced all of the capacitors 8 in total and all is now well. so it appears that replacing all does the trick

i tested the ones i took out all had low values and one was completly dead

hope this helps, o and it cost me around £ 20.00 in total

[neil purssey]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

For my house in the UK I bought a whirlpool fridge/freezer with cooled water and ice dispenser 6 years ago and it has always worked fine.

For a house in France I bought a similar product also Whirlpool less than 2 years ago it is a S20E and has sufferred the problems outlined by others on this site.

Shouldn’t we 176 respondents on this site alone be considering a ‘class action’ against Whirlpool?

Let me know.

[dab62]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

i have same problem keeps flasing clicking freezer cold dont freeze properly then keeps bleeping seriel no is 8586 152 15011 can any 1 help please

[Penguin45]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

Have you read the thread? The answers are all there.

Penguin45.

[Author]

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