'American Style' Samsung Fridge Freezer (merged threads)

kwatt

rockette wrote: »

I was 90% certain I was going to buy the RS21DCSV. Does anyone know if this is one of the ones affected, or if it has been modified since these problems come to light?
Or should I just spend the extra £150 and get a whirlpool?? Or is an LG any good??

Hi Rockette,

No, don't buy any of the three. Spend that little, tiny bit extra and buy a Maytag. It's really American and really solid as well as a lot better value IMO.

Whirlpool, made in Italy and fraught with problems. Electronic card failures (reputedly resolved, but doubts remain), stupid, stupid parts prices as we just had some poor chap paying nearly £200 for a set of baskets and problems with doors.

LG, made in Korea and if you can get any aftersales service then better you than I.

Samsung, well, just read this thread. Aftersales service a joke and build quality... what build quality?

To be fair the Koreans are working overtime trying to put the issues right and do try really hard, but they don't just fall down on aftersales, they collapse totally.

I've yet to test both side by side as it were and I have asked both for current models for that very purpose but, as yet, no reply from either.

But hold off if you're thinking on buying a Samsung as there is a raft of new models on the way (there usually is with the Koreans) which "supposedly" address all the issues with the current range/s. If you want a cheap pig-in-the-poke though, as soon as the new models touch down look for clearance offers on the RS21's.

K.

gfb_2

Samsung RS21 DIY Repair Instructions For The Fan Problem

---

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: http://www.samsung.com/support/productsupport/download/query.aspx?keyword=RS21DCMS.
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!

milkydrink

FirstClassMale wrote: »

Our one is just over 6 months old and the water filter light has come on. We have no intention of changing it just yet as we live in a soft water area

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.

silvercar

Thanks to gfb for that long post, I've saved it in Word in case the inevitable happens. (search facilities on this site are a let down). Samsung only a year old so holding my breathe.

gfb_2

silvercar wrote: »

Thanks to gfb for that long post, I've saved it in Word in case the inevitable happens. (search facilities on this site are a let down). Samsung only a year old so holding my breathe.

Glad to hear that my efforts are appreciated. :A

This is bound to happen, so keep hold of the instructions (I've made minor updates to the instructions above, so please copy it again). As soon as you hear anything funny, take out the fan and defrost it, unless it is in warranty period. In that case, leave it for the engineer.

Best thing will be to do this on a regular basis, i.e., before so much ice accumualtes that it stops the fan from working.

gregg1

shamrockabc wrote: »

I was fortunate enough to get the problem repaired within the two year guarantee period but I rang a trading standards department listed in Yellow Pages, at the begining of the listings, who said I could have grounds for complaint AFTER the warranty had expired.

He explained the Goods and Services Act, written at the begining of the Yellow Pages, which lasted for six , yes six, years after the product was purchased. I told him about a design fault, which he thought was a good reason for them to repair the product outside the warranty period.

He told me to put my complaint in writing to Samsung and quote the Goods and Services Act. He advised me to mention that I had contacted the local trading standards department , who were aware of the complaint. They had to reply within a week, I think.

I didn't go down this route but for those who do "Good luck"

Shamrock.

This happened to me as well. Samsung American fridge freezer just out of warranty, fridge stopped working. Samsung did not want to know. Rang Trading Standards and they said I needed to write to Currys where we bought it asking them to repair it. They reckoned I had a good case but in the end could not wait for the fridge to be fixed so called out someone to sort it. Turned out it was a build up of ice round fan bit. Once defrosted, it worked fine. Now I think about it, ours had started to make a funny noise just before it packed up.

It really pees me off when a company as big as Samsung can fob people off when there is quite obviously a manufacturing fault with these fridges.

samsung.tech.guy

defrosting the appliance/fan assy will only delay the problem, it will come back,

you need to replace 3 items, to ensure a repair success,

1st cover assy
2nd defrost sensor
3rd thermal fuse,

these can be replaced if you are diy minded,and can be sourced of the internet, but you need to make sure you get the latest versions of these spares as samsung have made about 3 different versions and theres a lot of spares out there that are not the latest version.

we can supply a kit with everything you need to cure this fault,
but im not sure i can list my email add,..
if theres a demand for our repair kit, and we can post email add i will ??

ps we are authorised samsung agents, so we know what we are talking about??

tech guy,

louisg

kwatt wrote: »

Hi Rockette,

No, don't buy any of the three. Spend that little, tiny bit extra and buy a Maytag. It's really American and really solid as well as a lot better value IMO.

Whirlpool, made in Italy and fraught with problems. Electronic card failures (reputedly resolved, but doubts remain), stupid, stupid parts prices as we just had some poor chap paying nearly £200 for a set of baskets and problems with doors.

LG, made in Korea and if you can get any aftersales service then better you than I.

Samsung, well, just read this thread. Aftersales service a joke and build quality... what build quality?

To be fair the Koreans are working overtime trying to put the issues right and do try really hard, but they don't just fall down on aftersales, they collapse totally.

I've yet to test both side by side as it were and I have asked both for current models for that very purpose but, as yet, no reply from either.

But hold off if you're thinking on buying a Samsung as there is a raft of new models on the way (there usually is with the Koreans) which "supposedly" address all the issues with the current range/s. If you want a cheap pig-in-the-poke though, as soon as the new models touch down look for clearance offers on the RS21's.

K.

Maytag are a bit more than a tiny bit extra for a GC2225GEKS your looking at £1999

kwatt

You can get a Maytag online for a lot less than that, unless of course you want it fully clad in stainless steel. You see the model you chose to cite is a fully clad in stainless steel model, not a kid on spray paint job as most others use and it is a decent grade of stainless that won't tarnish.

But here's a question for you...

How do you make a BMW for the price of a KIA?

The answer is that you can't. You either pay for the quality or you don't, both do the same thing get you from A to B, just as a Samsung keeps stuff cool, just like a Maytag or any other fridge/freezer.

Unlike cars, which are primarily mechanical devices just as appliances are, people accept with cars that they simply have to pay to get quality of build and performance and yet, when it comes to appliances, people expect Rolls Royce performance and build for Mini money. Sorry, but that's just not living in the real world.

Or. like cars, you live with a compromise on price against specification, features, performance and longevity.

The reality is that appliances aren't seen as being a "sexy" item, purely functional and therefore people try to spend as little as possible and, at the same time expect miracles.

I do apologise if the opinion causes any upset, but sadly, it is the truth that applies to all appliances.

K.

gfb_2

samsung.tech.guy wrote: »

defrosting the appliance/fan assy will only delay the problem, it will come back,

you need to replace 3 items, to ensure a repair success,

1st cover assy
2nd defrost sensor
3rd thermal fuse,....

I never said that the solution given by me above is a permanent solution. I know it will happen again. But now that we know what the problem is and how to resolve it, we can use this procedure again when it happens next time instead of calling an engineer. I'm sure it is not going to happen in a week's time. It will take few months (or maybe a year or so) to accumulate that much ice again.

My suggestion would be to do this cleaning exercise on regular intervals, i.e., melt the ice before it accumulates so much that the fan stops working. Since this is the first time that I melted the ice, I'll wait and see how long it takes to accumulate that much ice again, i.e., whether it is in months or years.

Another suggestion is that if you go out on holidays for long durations, it would be a good idea to empty your fridge and close it before you go. That way, the ice will melt on its own and you won't have to disassemble fridge.