All my cooling appliances are dying.

[dogmush]

I have a big Samsung french door fridge in the kitchen and a deep freeze in the garage. Both are kinda cantankerous, but chose this weekend to come to a head.

The fridge, which I've hated from about a week after it was installed in 2012, developed a slow freon leak back in 2020 (while I was deployed, of course) and the repair man we called told the wife the leak was up in the evaporator coil where he couldn't get to it, and was therefore unrepairable, but he could sweat a service valve in and top it off to give her some time to shop.    I have 30lbs of R134 in the garage, so I was all about this.  About every 8 months or so it leaks enough to start causing problem, and I hook the gauges up and give her a little more juice.  *expletive deleted*ck the ozone layer.  Well, this last time when it came back on it started throwing Compressor error codes.  Kinda randomly switching between compressor lock and abnormal compressor current, depending on it's mood.  I locked the 3 speed compressor into low speed, filled it, and got it to run, so figuring I had pressed my luck with this one far enough, I availed myself of the end of Lowe's 4th of July sale and the new fridge will be here Tuesday.  This POS just needs to hold on till then.

The Deep Freeze in the garage is more of a problem for me.  It's a Maytag MZF34X, which is supposed to be designed to run in non AC spaces like garages.  Unfortunately, it has a tendency to ice the evaporator, which requires me to periodically unplug it, take the covers off, and hit the coils with a hair dryer before my 1/4 cow thaws.  This annoys me and I'd like to fix it.  I'm thinking that it either: 1. can't actually handle the heat in my garage, and the compressor is running 24/7, 2. Also has a small freon leak and is running low causing the low pressure lines to build ice over time that gets to the coils, or 3. something is wrong with the auto defrost timer.  Can anyone with more appliance repair know-how than I point me in a direction for narrowing down this issue?  I'd rather not have to buy a new freezer, and when the coils are not iced, it holds -10 like a champ.  I haven't pulled the back cover off it and looked at anything yet.

[K Frame]

I hope you didn't buy another Samsung fridge.

Word of advice to everyone...

Do NOT buy Samsung appliances.

Their electronics are great.

Their appliances suck monkey balls.

[dogmush]

I did not.  When we moved I to this house, we bought a whole suite of Samsung appliances.  Fridge, stove, microwave,  dishwasher, washer,  dryer.

This fridge was the last appliance running from that mistake. Honestly,  I only dealt with it's issues this long because replacement french door fridges are stupid expensive and I wanted to put it off as long as possible.

Never again will I buy a Samsung appliance.

With the 4th sales, we got the new LG at about 45% off regular price.

[Jim147]

Your freezer is getting some moist air in somewhere, or you have a problem with the defrost duration or, time off after wards so you are blowing warm moist air around. Not sure without seeing it. Check door seals and defrost drain. It night have a trap in it or a duck bill to keep air from coming in from the drain pan.

I could have fixed your first fridge on the second trip out. But the windshield time would have sucked.

[WLJ]

I hope you didn't buy another Samsung fridge.

Word of advice to everyone...

Do NOT buy Samsung appliances.

Their electronics are great.

Their appliances suck monkey balls.

What I've heard.

[Jim147]

I hope you didn't buy another Samsung fridge.

Word of advice to everyone...

Do NOT buy Samsung appliances.

Their electronics are great.

Their appliances suck monkey balls.

The White Goods, appliances are made in a different place then the Brown Good, electronics.

There is a lot of overlap these days, but it is still made at a different plant.

In my old job I did appliance school for about every brand there was. Only GE and LG let me do electronics training also. This is pre 2008 so it might be differnt now.

[dogmush]

Your freezer is getting some moist air in somewhere, or you have a problem with the defrost duration or, time off after wards so you are blowing warm moist air around. Not sure without seeing it. Check door seals and defrost drain. It night have a trap in it or a duck bill to keep air from coming in from the drain pan.

I could have fixed your first fridge on the second trip out. But the windshield time would have sucked.

The freezer is in a garage in FL, so everything I open it it gets some moist air.  Do they still use defrost timers? Or is it all electronically controlled now?  And are the defrost times and time off after adjustable?

I feel like the drain is probably working, as when I melt the evap with a hair dryer, all that water goes down the drain and dissappears.

[K Frame]

I did not.  When we moved I to this house, we bought a whole suite of Samsung appliances.  Fridge, stove, microwave,  dishwasher, washer,  dryer.

This fridge was the last appliance running from that mistake. Honestly,  I only dealt with it's issues this long because replacement french door fridges are stupid expensive and I wanted to put it off as long as possible.

Never again will I buy a Samsung appliance.

With the 4th sales, we got the new LG at about 45% off regular price.

Wow. Ouch. Ouch. That's a lot of money.

I don't know of anyone who has owned a Samsung appliance who has been completely satisfied.

The odd thing is... if you do searches on Samsung appliance reliability you get "statistically they are very reliable!"

With LOTS of people bitching about their Samsung appliances sucking monkey balls.

[WLJ]

Wow. Ouch. Ouch. That's a lot of money.

I don't know of anyone who has owned a Samsung appliance who has been completely satisfied.

The odd thing is... if you do searches on Samsung appliance reliability you get "statistically they are very reliable!"

With LOTS of people bitching about their Samsung appliances sucking monkey balls.

Got the Samsung dishwisher I got for free and so far it's been fine. Cross my fingers.

[Brad Johnson]

Friend of mine had a Samsung refrigerator that only lasted about five years. Oddly enough, the mechanicals were fine. It was the electronics that died. Replacement would have cost almost as much as the fridge did new, so she ditched it and went with a upper-mid-tier KitchenAid which ended up a screaming deal due to a Scratch & Dent clearance.

Brad

[Calumus]

I hope you didn't buy another Samsung fridge.

Word of advice to everyone...

Do NOT buy Samsung appliances.

Their electronics are great.

Their appliances suck monkey balls.

I have a friend that works in the warranty dept for Samsung corporate in the appliance section. According to her, they hover around an 80% warranty rate. Meaning that 80% of their production needs work at some point during the warranty. That’s abysmal.

[WLJ]

I have a friend that works in the warranty dept for Samsung corporate in the appliance section. According to her, they hover around an 80% warranty rate. Meaning that 80% of their production needs work at some point during the warranty. That’s abysmal.

Are they made in the other Korea?
How the heck would they make a profit?

[K Frame]

I have a friend that works in the warranty dept for Samsung corporate in the appliance section. According to her, they hover around an 80% warranty rate. Meaning that 80% of their production needs work at some point during the warranty. That’s abysmal.

That's not abysmal... that's virtually criminal.

[Jim147]

Are they made in the other Korea?
How the heck would they make a profit?

They can write that off. That's why most parts for newer appliances are way overpriced.

Not sure what defrost set up you have in your freezer but the factory one is not adjustable. If it is still a mechanical timer, they used to make a universal adjustable one. I'll see if I can remember who made it. If you wanted to get crazy you could get a commercial timer and wire it in.

[dogmush]

This freezer is still giving me issues.

I tested the door seal with both a dollar bill, and a good look through my thermal, and it looked pretty good.  No obvious signs of failure.  We only open it once or twice a day, so even in the FL garage humidity, I can't see that much moisture getting in.  (Of course when I unplug it and hit the evaporator with a hair dryer every two weeks, some humidity gets in then)

defrost heater tests at 37.5 Ohms, which seems to be in spec, per the internet.

Condensate drain is not clogged, and works. Checked today.

Evaporator Fan works

This unit does not seem to have a dedicated defrost thermostat, but there is an evaporator thermistor clipped to the liquid line.  I couldn't find resistance specs to test it, but I bought one for $10 on Amazon, so I'll throw that in.

If that doesn't fix it, am I correct that we're looking at a control board?  Maytag runs the hole freezer through what they call a "Freezer Control Unit".  That part is $245, and given that it was a $400 used freezer, I'd rather not buy that unless I'm pretty dang sure that'll fix it.

Anything else I should check?