'American Style' Samsung Fridge Freezer (merged threads)

kwatt

Hi,

I would have thought it would have cooled lower than that by now.

You did let it stand for a few hours before starting it up didn't you? You need to do that to let the oil settle although many of the "big" retailers don't bother to tell you that.

K.

substanceg

Thanks for the swift reply K.
I didn't let it stand. I plugged it straight in. Nobody in Harvey Norman told me to do that and nobody from Samsung suggested it either. Should I unplug it, leave it overnight and start it up again tomorrow morning?

kwatt

Too late I'm afraid.

If they get transported then oil often runs from the compressor into the pipework and, when switched on, that gets dragged up and can choke the system. If that happens it's either a major operation to vac it down and regass it or, it's a write off.

But the effect is you get a customer complaining that a brand new fridge, freezer or whatever, won't cool.

I'd get onto the retailer and tell them about the fault, especially if it's not cooling yet.

Regards

K.

mariat

Hi, I haven't read the whole thread, but I bought mine a couple of years ago, and it started making noises within a few months. I phoned the seller (a firm on ebay), and they told me about the design fault. They also arranged for an engineer to replace the faulty fan system under warranty. It's been fine since.

But does anyone know why the filter light always comes on after around 6 months, regardless of how much the water dispenser has been used?

walmslei

Water filters on these fridges are ran off a timer - simply put the technology to monitor water quality would cost several times what your fridge is worth if it was truly capable of determining whether the water quality was good or bad.

Six months is the European (and worldwide) accepted standard for changing granular activated carbon cartridges. Every water filter on the market just about will quote a life in terms of so many gallons or six month whichever comes first.

Reasons for this include the fact that disposable cartridge housings are not designed from an engineering perspective to withstand long term water hammer(compare a filter cartridge to a water filter system that has 'permanent filter bowls', such as Ametek style housings, and the plastic is much much thicker), and the fact carbon will begin to break down and harbour bacterial slimes if it is left in situ too long - Six months is pretty much deemed to be the trade off the industry has come to accept as being well within safe boundaries BUT at the same time ensuring the whole thing remains relatively economical.

Given the wide range of compatibles on the market for these products, which don't affect the warranty in the slightest, and the advent of internal compatible cartridges to the UK (to replace the more awkwared twist and lock bespoke filters), you are looking at a monthly cost of about £2 to £4 for fresh filtered water, which if you consider it (and why you bought a fridge with such facilities in the first place) isn't that unreasonable - although manufacturers originals cartridges would make you think twice, I agree.

TaraT

I had exactly the same problem after 18 months. Engineer replaced the faulty part and said we'd have no more problems as Samsung had changed the design of the part to eliminate the problem.

16 months later, it's happened again and the fridge is no longer working :mad:

SamsungNeverAgain

Our Samsung fridge freezer failed with the buzzing noise etc etc. Happened last year 2008 and we lost a lot of food in the fridge, complete nightmare. They couldnt visit for 5 days and we had a lot in fridge as large family. BIG complaint to them (letter). Ended up with free repair (it was only 12 mths old), also got cheque for around £40 towards food thrown out and warranty extended to 5 years also got choice of Samsung DVD or one of their phones. Chose the DVD player but turned out absolute rubbish to use - not user friendly and since found out many bad reviews for it!! It is VERY noisy when its on so when you watch a quiet bit in a film all you can hear is the unit whirring - Great, thanks Samsung! Got engineer coming again as fridge failing again, noise again although temperature ok at the moment!! Will never buy Samsung again.

chrispardo

Hi All,

I've searched this thread, but haven't found any mentions of the model of fridge we have. We've got a Samsung SR-S20 side-by-side fridge freezer that we inherited off family members a couple of years back. No problems whatsoever until 2 days ago, when I noticed it wasn't as cold as it should be. Temperature display was still showing the chosen temperatures of -18 and 3.

Took the usual 'something electronic doesn't work properly' route of turning it off and on again, and it whirred to life (only at this stage did I realise it'd been pretty much unusually silent when I'd noticed ) and the temperature display started showing -6 and 9 degrees instead. These temperatures then started to drop, and a couple of hours later had dropped by a few degrees, and was definitely colder too.

However the problem resurfaced the next day; quiet fridge, temperature saying it was at the set values, but turning off/on showed this wasn't the case. I haven't sat and watched it continuously obviously, but it's almost as if it cools down until it reaches it's target, then stops. Or alternatively, it works for a few hours when reset, then stops cooling.

I realise this is slightly different to the problems experienced by SRS21 owners. Has anyone experienced something similar? Going to try defrosting tonight as we have backup fridges and freezers that have been 'warming up' since yesterday.

kbroom

Just had the samsung engineer out to my fridge freezer bought 18 months ago, so thasks to the forum for pointing out that there is a 2 yr guarentee, its a newer model than the rs21, but it was the same problem noise from fan and fridge not mainting temperature. Aparently its the defrost heater thats gone but interestingly he used a steam generator(wallpaper stripper) to defrost the element much quicker only took 10 mins, have to wait for the part but I have to say that I only phoned them yesterday and spoke to an extremly helpful lady who I could understand ( ie not a non uk call centre) so I must give them some praise for how they have dealt with my problem so far, we will see how long it takes to fix and see if the problem is with the newer generation of fridge freezers.

telsokari

I'm looking to buy a side by side American fridge and Samsung was one that i was looking at till i saw some of the threads going about.

but my question is, with them supposedly redesigning the faulty part has the performance of the fridge improved? is it still likely to be causing these sort of issues in 6+ months time?

Also, is thre 5 year warranty also on new models or is just the affected models?