On last night’s Watchdog Samsung were slammed for problems with their American styled side by side fridge freezer, the RS21. The show basically stating that customers can experience a noise and lack of cooling in the fridge due to an over frozen fridge evaporator. On top of this the model was shown to provide inaccurate temperature readings in the digital display panel.
Samsung did give a response that offers their customers a free repair if required.
Consultant engineer Malcolm Robbins who was featured on the show said that, “This fridge has a fundamental design fault because water which drains from the evaporator coil during defrost cannot escape. Ice forms on the coil, grows back to the fan, hits the fan blades and stops the fan running. After that the fridge won’t work.” Mr Robbins went on to say that he didn’t think it was right that customers should have to pay for repairs and that the fridge was not ‘fit for purpose’.
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Watchdog contacted some fridge service engineers and seven out of the ten called were familiar with problems on this Samsung fridge.
Samsung did apologise in a statement to Watchdog to any of its customers who have experienced this problem with an RS21 fridge-freezer.
Samsung has now introduced an improved model of the RS21 and notified all Samsung certified service engineers of the improvement process and parts required.
Having reviewed the cases featured in Watchdog and its service policy with regard to the RS21, Samsung will now provide an extended five-year warranty from date of purchase in respect of this fault. This will entitle any customer experiencing this fault to receive a free service engineer’s visit and repair. This extended warranty is now in effect.
Samsung would ask any customers who have this problem with their RS21 to call freephone on 0800 988 0123, to arrange for it to be repaired under this extended warranty. Samsung would like to reassure all customers of its commitment to quality customer service and would ask anyone with questions to call the number above.
The full story from Watchdog can be seen from this link
i contacted samsung after you program and an engineer came and fixed my fridge freezer rs21 since 2008 i have had 5 repairs to the same fan part and still today 14/08/2011 my fridge is still freezing up and displays a temp of 17degrees samsung now say it is a fault in the heating element bbehind the fan in a sealed unit that cannot be repaired and because the fridge is 7 yuears old they are not responsible. this fault has accured since purchase and altogether i have had 7 engineer visits they have never repaired it so as it has ever worked properly. the last engineer said he believed the heating element wiring was its original fault that was never diagnosed because the fan icing up masked it and therefore the engineers all thought that this was the fault.he said he had seen this before and it was unrepairable. samsung should do something with my fridge even though it is 7 years old,they know these were problem appliances and i have spent hundreds of ponds on phone calls and lost food
Hi Sandra,My story is similar to yours and I am suing Samsung presently.I am gathering evidence for my case and perhaps you would be interested in sharing what you have collected. You may also want to be a witness in my case which if successful could be of benefit to you also.Craig
Exactly the same problem with mineMine has been repired by comet once and Ssmsung 3 times (requiring 7 visits?) Last repaired in November 11. Samsung now say out of warrenty so they aren’t responsible, and that “fit for Purpose” guarantee is with Comet who sold it to me rather than thenm as a manufacturer they also say repairs are guaranteed for 3 months and it has been 3 months and 5 days since the repair so is not covered. I will never use Samsung again
Exactly same for me,although they did replace my first fridge freezer about 4 1/2 years ago when it broke down for the 4th time.I was without my fridge freezer for over 7 weeks and it has packed up again with a similar fault and over a week waiting for engineer!, I will also never be buying a Samsung product again.Their service is pants!
Clearly the Samsung RS21 has broken down on too many people through serious design flaws – also many have been dissatisfied with Samsung’s poor response. So in the interest of balance here is our RS21 story. Bought from Curry’s in 2007 it worked fine till the weekend when an earth leak suddenly tripped the power. I went online, poked about inside and traced the likely problem to the defrost heater. I rang Samsung’s free helpline simply for technical advice, as our guarantee had run out at least 4 years before. But no. After establishing that Currys had never contacted us to carry out any Samsung modifications, the representative hooked me up to a contractor who came today and has replaced the complete fan/heater assembly for free as well as doing two other modifications. Polite, efficient, job well done. Now hoping for a few more years of fault free service! PS: ancient Amana fridge/freezer in garage is going strong after 25 years. Why don’t they make them like that anymore?
My story is that after years of having to defrost my fridge freezer every 2 to four months Samsung issued a message thru comet that they were giving us an upgrade due to an error in the manifacture of the RS21 I was delighted but a year after the upgrade just after all warranty had run out the whole same thing started now I have to defrost every 2 weeks and have lost food frequently. Do not buyy this Fridge freezer and do not trust samsung. I tried to get parts from them and was given a parts number that doesent work thay sell you the thing then wash their hands I will never buy from them again.
Have a samsung american fridge which needs one of the heating elements replacing, need advice in fixing it can you help?
Hi Mick,Ask in the forums as several of the engineers see a lot of them, they won’t see your comments here.
Hi CraigI am interested in how your case is going suing Samsung.I am in the same situation as so many other people. Samsung now want me to pay for their mistake which I feel is such a cheek.Beryl Coley
I’ve had the same problem with my Samsung American fridge freezer.and thank to this web page and for number to call.i called samsung .had a good response from them and now have a engineer being sent out this week by Samsung to fix the fult free of charge.anyone els who has the same problem I would advise giving them a call on the number up above.it really is worth doing as of me having good result.
i got a samsung RSH1NBRS_SS fridge back in dec2009, got exactly the same problem, making noise when open the door its stop and build up ice inside. spoke a lady in samsung customer service, they wont repair under warrently. can anyone help?
Our Samsung F/Freezer RSH1 DTMH manufactured 2009 & purchased 2010. We have the same issues as reported on this programme. However, having rang Samsung a number of times & emailed, the scripted response from both Technical and Customer Service Department, is our particular model is out of warrany and has been modified so does not have the same problem. What is alarming, they are meant to be making notes of our calls, but when I rang to check what had been written, the only notes they had was their scripted one. Totally ignoring the facts of what is wrong with our freezer. A youtube clip shows a modification wire, well guess what; ours does not have that! They won’t send out a service engineer to check, they want us to pay for that. Additionally, they said our case was closed. We have told them to open it again, as we are not leaving at that. They said customer services will take 2-3 working days before calling us. Technical didn’t forward on from our first call.
Thanks for the comments my fridge done the same so googled and saw this so rang the number. Just got off the phone after reporting the fault of noise and loss of temperature and saying it was their known design fault. Within two minutes they said they would do a one off free of charge upgrade and the engineer is booked for next Thursday. Great I thought I was going to have a right battle as I bought the fridge back end of 2009.
Has anyone experienced rusty smelly water coming from the part replaced? I’m told ‘tough’ by Samsung
Same problem on samsung RL model! Samsung refused to take any responsibility despite admitting manufacturers fault for this problem on RS models. I have already paid for Samsung approved engineer’s £150 repair and 1 year after same problem occurred. I am left without a solution to this repeated problem.I have contacted samsung customer services again today but they still deny responsibility. I will be suing Samsung so please contact me if you are in a similar position and wish to pursue this further.
I had a problem with my American fridge in that the bottom draw was frozen in and water collected on the door ledge. The solution is to remove all freezer contents take off the panel on the back of the freezer pull the fridge out and there is a drain pipe around 18mm with a rubber end on it. This end bit is glued together to form a figure of 8 simply open it up to form a round pipe again and this solves the problem. I have to say Samsung we’re amazing so polite and sent an engineer out (trio) who fixed it in no time. Any good DIY er could do it now you know where to look. Hope that helps.
[quote name=”TTT”]Same problem on samsung RL model! Samsung refused to take any responsibility despite admitting manufacturers fault for this problem on RS models. I have already paid for Samsung approved engineer’s £150 repair and 1 year after same problem occurred. I am left without a solution to this repeated problem.I have contacted samsung customer services again today but they still deny responsibility. I will be suing Samsung so please contact me if you are in a similar position and wish to pursue this further.[/quote]Hi, we have the RL model and seem to have the same problem as well as the digital panel not working at all now whatsoever. Have called Samsung just at the end of warranty period, having bought at comet and them going bust I didn’t have any proof of delivery and Samsung didn’t authorise any repair as they only see proof of purchase. Now we can see all food getting stale in the fridge and water droplets in them.
I called Samsung today and they were very helpful, as I have been having the same issue that the whole of the fridge freezes up and there is no running water from it. . The lady said they are aware of the faults with these fridge/freezers and will send an engineer out to fix the problem. Just have to wait and see whether the engineer appears.
Our freezer keeps beeping and going into power freeze mode at -25. Can anyone advise what is the problem?
Hi I have the exact same problem with the RSH1DBMH model. Phoned Samsung, they are not taking any responsibility.[quote name=”TTT”]Same problem on samsung RL model! Samsung refused to take any responsibility despite admitting manufacturers fault for this problem on RS models. I have already paid for Samsung approved engineer’s £150 repair and 1 year after same problem occurred. I am left without a solution to this repeated problem.I have contacted samsung customer services again today but they still deny responsibility. I will be suing Samsung so please contact me if you are in a similar position and wish to pursue this further.[/quote]