'American Style' Samsung Fridge Freezer (merged threads)

lovelylinzi

milkydrink wrote: »

I change mine every 6 months as I worry that it might not be safe to drink if it were left go longer. You can get them on ebay really cheap, just make sure you get the ones with the right fittings.

Where the heck is the filter in this god dam thing???


wanna throw it out the window, fridge tem is flashing so have turned it off for 12hrs just hope it works for now, then if this happens again then will try the taking the fan out n using hair dryer bla bla, xxx

wouldnt mind but its the blinkin landlords arrrrrrrr

123monty

Hi Tigermaid, Thanks for more information. Once again I called Samsung and they keep on saying that the F/F is out of warranty and will only pay depreceation value and cost of £50 for the food. How much did you pay for the engineers report and was the report very comprehensive? How much did you get for the food, I have claimed about £250?

malid

malid wrote: »

I had mine replaced on the agreed date and the old one was taken away. I realise that some customers are cross and frustrated but whilst I was inconvenienced with all the breakdowns and repairs, I am happy with Samsung's customer service.

All you MSEs with problems, see my previous posts on this and last one above in March 2010. Good luck

GSDog

How reliable are the latest models? Have all of the issues discussed on here been rectified?

I'm currently looking at the Samsung RSH5UBBP but after reading about all the reliability issues it has put me off. The other fridge/freezer I'm looking at for a similar price is the LG GWL207FBQA.

Tigermaid

Hi 123monty

The report from Comet cost £99 (refunded by Samsung) and stated exactly what was wrong with machine. I managed to get £100 towards lost food. This didn't cover everything as I grow lots of my own veg/fruit etc which I freeze and use for pies etc through the winter. Mention the Sales of Goods Act and that machine not fit for purpose. Phone them every day until in the end they will get nearer to what you want. Good luck and DON'T give in.

dogspods

...don't want to be the one that puts a downer on everyone's free repair good news but don't count your chickens just yet! Had our repair done by Samsung in Jan 2010, they contacted us by letter, but now the constant noise and ice build up is back, although the temp is not yet acting up, looks as if the 'repair' doesnt last. Have 4 months of the extended 5 year warranty left, not sure whether to contact Samsung and try to argue the case or just bin the F/F and buy a replacement, will never buy another Samsung product tho.

Tigermaid

Check my previous posts. Don't give in. My f/f was 4 years and 5 months when it packed up (after the repair). Go back to Samsung and use the Sales of Goods Act as not fit for purpose.

Bristolboss

steve.n.i wrote: »

I had the exact same problem as you guys have been describing about the buzzing that came and went on and off when opening and closing the fridge door. only problem mine went one further and when i came home from holiday yesterday the fridge had completely stopped cooling and water no longer worked (though ice dispenser was fine). after reading your posts I decided to tackle the problem head on - and touch wood, good news! my machine now seems to be back to full working order. the problem was the fan and components behind the centre internal panel were completely frozen solid. I found this by simply turning off the power to the machine, taking out all the selves and drawer units, and then removing six screws to loosen the centre panel (there are 2 additional screws for the light panel which I did remove but found later that it wasn't required). here on my machine there were 2 cable connection plugs that simply unplugged and the whole fan unit came out. mine was frozen stiff so a quick blast from a hair dryer helped speed things along. once off it was apparent that things had really frozen up and the fan blades were jammed solid (obviously that was the buzzing sound building up as the ice grew and grew). at this stage to minimise any breakages to the unit I had to stand for about 20mins with the hair dryer again and melt all the ice away. some ice had also formed in the back of the machine and since the cover was off that got a good clean and defrosting too. re-assembly is simple enough and the whole process took about an hour to do. at first the machine seemed to still be broken but that was maybe down to the fact that I was so used to hearing strange noises and now everything was quiet again! water function worked straight away and hey presto 10mins later fridge was rapidly cooling down to set temp and working again. A handly tip that I am going to do in the future is a full 24hr defrost every 6mths to try and avoid such a big built up of ice. hope this is some help and saves you a few quid and needless worry.

steve.n.i

I have the RSH model but again first made a noise, the water dispenser stopped (but not the ice) and then I noticed the fridge was way over temperature.

Switched the appliance off at the mains, removed six screws, carefully removed the lower centre panel (not the upper light panel) once the ice had melted a little with the help of my wife's hair dryer, unclipping the two electrical plugs and around the fan was a massive ice ball stopping the fan from spinning.

Removed all the ice, re-assembled and within 2-hours the fridge was down to temperature and working like normal.

I see on the web that many will try to sell you a new panel at approx. £150 but clearly is not needed in many cases so don't waste your money without trying as Steve suggests first.
Spot on advice from Steve. Many thanks.:j

mark_d_2

I have a Samsung srs 2028 sideby side fridge freezer. The temp on the fridge has risen and it has started to make that loud 'whirring' noise, which ceases with a clunk upon opening the fridge door!
The freezer is fine.
I have had the fridge about 10 years and have had this problem before about 5 years ago, an engineer cam round and changed the pump or whatever the fix is for this (seemingly common problem, judging by internet forums etc!). Of course I do not really want to spend another £150 for the same problem.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Many thanks
Mark

Billy_Wig

Just to add credibility - I had the same problem and instructions on how to resolve worked for me. Thanks saved me a small fortune:T.

gfb wrote: »

Samsung RS21 DIY Repair Instructions For The Fan Problem

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Many Many thanks to all of you who have posted their comments above. Because of the details of your experience and the remedial action taken, I was able to fix the problem myself and saved around £200 worth of the engineer's cost, plus lot of food that would have been spoiled while waiting for the engineer to come. Thanks a lot once again.

Now about my experience. What I am going to write now will be very helpful to others who will or are having this same problem, i.e., the fridge not cooling. I am going to write the DIY instructions to fix it yourself. It is very simple. I did it myself in an hour or so. It took that long because I did not have any instructions and I was being very careful not to break anything. But first, my experience, i.e., how the problem started, so as to give an idea of early symptons of this issue.

Two days back, my fridge got very noisy. At that time, I did not know what happened as I am not a mechanic/engineer. I know now that lot of ice had accumulated around the fan inside the fridge's cooling unit and it was blocking the fan from smoothly running. The noise was coming when the fan was hitting against the ice. Then next day, the noise stopped. The ice conquered the fan and stopped it completely from rotating. At that time, I thought the problem (whatever it was, I thought) had rectified itself. But next day, I noticed that the food inside is not cold as usual and the fridge temperature was showing 17 degrees. Now I know that since the fan was not moving, it was not circulating the air and the top levels were warmer than the bottom ones. No matter how many times I tried to set the temperature to 2 degrees, it reverted back to 17 and did not come down. I switched ON the Power Freeze button but it only brought the temperature down by 1 degree. I thought that the machinery to cool down the fridge has broken down and I was so disappointed because my machine was out of warranty period now (bought some 2 1/2 years ago). I put all the food in the bottom racks, which was cooler than the upper parts (since the cooling things are at the bottom). I logged onto the Internet to see if there is something about this issue and thankfully, found this forum. After reading all your experiences, I decided to give it a go myself. The only problem was that there was no information about the location of the fan. So it took a bit of time to explore the fridge and then I thought that I'll update this forum with the detailed instructions so that others know how to do it.

Instructions:
1. Switch off the Fridge and take the plug out of the socket for safety.
2. The cooling fan is inside the fridge. So do not open the fridge from behind as it is not accesible from there. I wasted some time opening the back first and searching the fan there. There is one fan there also but it is to cool the machinery. Ignore that. The problematic fan is inside the Fridge compartment.
3. Take out all tray and baskets from the Fridge.
4. Now open the Light Panel. There is only one screw on the top and various catches that you have to release (I believe 3 on both side and 1 on top and 1 at the bottom). Use a small flat screwdriver to push the catches inside to release. Refer to your user manual which has detailed instructions with diagrams to do this. Or if you have not kept the manual, download it from:
5. When you remove the cover, the bulbs will be exposed. The bulbs are attached to another panel and you have to take that out as well. This panel has 3 screws, from top to bottom, at regular intervals. Unscrew and take out the panel. Please note that there are 2 set of wires in the back of this panel, attached to sockets. So remove the panel a little bit and take the wires out of the sockets to detach the panel from the fridge. Also keep in mind that this panel has 2 small extended points at the bottom, which go in 2 slits. So you'll have to tilt it from top and then move it up to take it out from the slits.
6. Now you'll have to take out the bottom panel which has the offending fan on the back of it. First, you'll have to take out the air filter on both sides of the panel. You'll have to press the catch on the air filters to release them (see user manual). The screws are inside this space. One screw each inside the air filter compartment and two screws at the bottom. Unscrew all 4 of them and you'll also have to unscrew the coolant pipe attached to this panel so that you can move this panel around freely. If you are opening it for the first time, please note that the rubber gasket around the edge of the panel will be stuck with glue to the inside of the fridge. Gently applying pressure, remove the panel outwards also taking care that you don't break the coolant tube pipe in front of the panel (it's not that difficult, but thought I should warn you). This panel also has wires attached to the sockets. These are for the fan/motor. Take them out so you can detach the panel from the fridge and take it away.
7. The fan is on the back of this panel. The motor and the fan are on a metal plate and that plate is attached to the back of this panel. The back of this panel has a cavity and the fan revolves around in that cavity. The ice will be inside this cavity. For convenience, I unscrewed the metal plate (4 screws) to have more space to take care of the ice. As suggested by beebee1 above, I used the hair dryer to melt ice inside this cavity. It was rock solid and took some time to melt all of it. My wife suggested later that hot water would have melted the ice quickly. Good idea. I'll try that next time when this happens. You can take it to the sink so that the melting water from the ice do not create a mess.
8. When you melt the ice, you'll notice that there is a slit at the bottom of this round cavity, which is used for outlet of the water when the ice melts during defrosting process. Make sure that you melt all the ice around this slit and also the outlet below it. When you are satisfied that you've melted all the ice, it is better if you pour water in the cavity (where the fan rotates). The water should flow smoothly through the slit at the bottom and out of the outlet below. As suggested by shamrockabc's engineer above, I widened the slit (drain hole) to allow more easy outlet of the water. The slit was in the Thermocol, so it was not difficult to widen the gap.
8. That's it. All done. Now do the above steps in reverse order, i.e., putting the plates, panels etc. in the same way (and in reverse order) that you started with.
9. Switch on the Fridge after it is assembled back and the trays etc. are put back in. Set the temperature to your required level (see user manual to set the temperature, if you have forgotten about it) and the fridge will start working to achieve that. After some time, you'll get your desired level of temperature.

Since the water does not drip on any motor or any such electrical parts, you can start the Fridge straightaway. No need to leave it for drying as there is nothing to dry. You can clean the inside of the fridge for hygiene purpose, for minor water spillages, but that's it.

I hope the above instructions will be helpful to get it done yourself. It is very simple to do and doesn't take much time.

My fridge is working perfectly since then. Very pleased!