Death of the Engel

What!! You trying to find out if its under an extended warranty program? :)))
Michael

Lyndon, not quite the legend of reliability!
My 1997 model dies after 5 years - compressor failure plus a new fan. The authorized Engel repairer said that you are best to leave them running when not in use in the car - as a drinks fridge etc.
Engel customer support did not exist at the time, letters & phone calls were all ignored. I had it repaired as I had a heap of extras for it. Ran it 24 x 7 and apart from a thermistor fault, ran perfectly when sold earlier this year. I replaced it with the new ARB unit.
Cheers, Tony.

gooday Lyndon .
sorry to hear about ya engel , my first engel was 13yrs old , and on the 1st morning camped on the CSR in 05 we realised the fridge had a problem , suspected all was not well the previous couple of days . We couldn,t, go on with only 2 fridges for 7 people and 2 wks so we went back to Halls Crk an bought another one , bought the old one home , couldn,t bring my self to chuck it out . so I walk around it in the garage for 3 yrs finally decided to get it looked at , a friend of a work mate is a fridge man had a look and said it won,t be any drama . pretty straight forward !! so he repaired the broken pipe regassed it and its going good again and the best part was a 30 pack of VB cans and he was happy as larry , he used it as a training job for the apprentice .
I,m a very happy man and have 2 fridges now .
cheers Mechpete

We have 1 x 40ltr and 1 x 29ltr they run non stop, never had problems with them, the 40ltr is in the truck and the 29 ltr is my bait freezer when we go fishing, as said before never turn them off.

Cheers

Seems like my 40litre Engel which has bounced all around Australia in the rear of a 4x4 is going pretty well then given I bought it in 1986

Wish i knew this last week, spent 2000 on 80l fridge freezer and will be entirely unimpressed if it doesnt see out the century!
Ian

Hi Lyndon
We have same problem 8yr old one. Engel gave us a repair agent to take it to .. His look at price was $300. Found a guy to look at it free for us and going to cost $700 to repair pipe re-gas and replace Compressor. We figure put $300 to the repair price and buy a new one is the better way to go. Be interesting to see what Engel says to you please keep me informed :)
Cheer Lesley & Geoff

G'Day Lyndon,

How is the NT treating you? Try Engeland for a complete cooling system replacement. Scroll down the screen and you can get a Condensor, Compressor and Evap. Fully Gassed and with 12 month waranty. No affiliation or anything. I am a Fridgy by trade and its the cheapest way to do a compressor replacement. If you know a fridgy that can get it rade for you it will help a lot ( I cant unfortunatly as I am in Carnarvon on my way around oz)

Hope this helps

Matt

4 yr old ... hmm all i could guess is bearings in motor / compressor - caused catastrophic failure.......

Boc

Thanks for the replys folks. We do use the Engel as an inside fridge when not traveling, however i won't claim that it's never been switched off.
Will keep you posted as to Engels reply.

Cheers Lyndon

I read your original post Lyndon, but didn't reply to it.

My 40 litre Engel (with ARB badges) was doing a similar thing to what you described, a couple of years ago. It didn't seem to want to run on either 12 or 240v. The green light would be on, and you could hear it clicking to start and almost straight away it'd click "off" again.

I took it to the nearest Engel agent (80klm away at Crystal Brook) and left it there for a few weeks; nothing happens very fast in the country...... hahaha

When i called him up to see what was happening, he told me to come and collect it as he couldn't find anything wrong with it. He put it on his work bench as soon as he got it and put it on 240v. It started up and ran beautifully for a couple of weeks. He charged me (not sure, but i think it was $50-), just for his time (???) and I brought it home and it runs 24/7 now in the Patrol...never had another issue at all.

It's still got me stuffed what was wrong the first time....probably a didgy connection; but hard to believe it could happen on BOTH plugs at the same time.....

Roachie

MMM, no reply yet! Hope they do get back to me as it will save me a lot of time searching the net to find every 4x4 forum to post my story on.
Cheers Lyndon

Hi Lyndon just an update .
I contacted Engeland in Matts reply and they have Cooling Unit Assemly units for 40litre engels . with 12mth warranty for $495 plus delivery ( only $33 to QLD) which is resonable. Just ordered one.
Thought if you get no Joy from Engel maybe this could help you.
Cheers lesley&Geoff

A refrigerator is a refrigerator regardless of whether it's the one sitting in your kitchen or the one you take in your car. The one in your kitchen is very rarely turned off and is designed to run continuously. When you do turn it off and transport it to your new house/flat/etc the manual tells you how to do it so that it should work when you switch it back on.

My Waeco FF40 is now 10 years old, has never missed a beat and is in constant use as my beer fridge. When I take it to use in my car I never let it cool down, the transition is very quick and it's very soon under power again.

While this procedure may appear to have no apparent scientific reasoning, my fridge is still going and I believe it's because I run it continuously.

Our 40 went to heaven on the way up to the tip last month. Its done 11 hard years. Always in the car. One car roll over another time the other half forgot to tie it down put a hole in the side wall of interior of car. Three kids and how many 4x cartons later. In all that time never had it taken for repairs. When ever our fridges get half full we fill the gap with towels so the stuff in it doesn't shake around.