Author Topic: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.  (Read 3662 times)

Dave1442397

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I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« on: December 31, 2018, 01:10:51 PM »
We have a Samsung side-by-side fridge from 2010, and in the last couple of days we noticed that the fridge wasn't cooling down properly, even thought the temperature on the door was reading 34F. I did some research and found this handy video on YouTube showing a possible fix for the problem.

https://youtu.be/PeDclsete4M

I followed the directions and took off the panel inside the fridge. I found lots of ice just to the left of where the fan sits when the panel is on. After 15 minutes or so with a hairdryer, I had melted all the ice away. It probably took a couple of hours total, but it was well worth the effort. The fridge has been back together for three hours now, and everything has cooled down nicely.

I saw that one of the comments on the video mentioned a quote of $675 to fix the issue, so I dodged a bullet there.

socaso

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #1 on: December 31, 2018, 03:05:57 PM »
Great work! We have a fridge issue that is estimated to cost $500 but two parts need replacing so I doubt we're going to get off the hook as cheaply as you.

nereo

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2019, 10:33:08 AM »
We had a similar problem with our Samsung.

I hope you added an extra wire/metal tab to from the defrosting coil down into the drain to prevent this from happening again.  I used a 3" piece of romex (with the insolaiton removed) and it's prevented the freezeup from reoccurring.

Stupid design problem; the factory clip was about 1" too short.  10¢ could have saved Samsung the embarassment and customer frustration.

Dave1442397

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #3 on: January 02, 2019, 12:01:02 PM »
I hope you added an extra wire/metal tab to from the defrosting coil down into the drain to prevent this from happening again.  I used a 3" piece of romex (with the insolaiton removed) and it's prevented the freezeup from reoccurring.

Stupid design problem; the factory clip was about 1" too short.  10¢ could have saved Samsung the embarassment and customer frustration.

No, I didn't know I should add an extra wire. Where do you add it? At the top, where all the ice was, or somewhere at the bottom of the defrosting coil?

It's taken eight years for it to have this problem, and having taken it apart once, I could do it again a lot faster. I can add a wire if and when it happens again.

nereo

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #4 on: January 02, 2019, 12:25:54 PM »
I hope you added an extra wire/metal tab to from the defrosting coil down into the drain to prevent this from happening again.  I used a 3" piece of romex (with the insolaiton removed) and it's prevented the freezeup from reoccurring.

Stupid design problem; the factory clip was about 1" too short.  10¢ could have saved Samsung the embarassment and customer frustration.

No, I didn't know I should add an extra wire. Where do you add it? At the top, where all the ice was, or somewhere at the bottom of the defrosting coil?

It's taken eight years for it to have this problem, and having taken it apart once, I could do it again a lot faster. I can add a wire if and when it happens again.

See the attached image.
If it's the same problem (I assume it is, given Samsung's flaw here and what you've described) - what happens is that the drain hole below the coils gets jammed with ice, so each defrosting cycle doesn't clear all the ice off the condenser like it should.

The problem is solved by adding a metal wire or tab that is slightly longer than the one already there and extends DOWN into the metal drain hole from the defrosting coil.  This way, each defrosting cycle the heat from the coil melts any ice in the drain plug and allows water to drip down to the bottom of your unit into the evaporation pan (located under your fridge).

Otherwise it just forms an ice-dam and as you've noticed the unit operates less effeciently.  You'll also notice that some water may accumnulate in the veggie drawers (it drips down the back wall and accumulates in the bottom of hte fridge.

You can use a 3" piece of solid core wire, or you can snip one our of aluminum yourself, or you can spend $6 to buy the part off Amazon here (https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-DRAIN-EVAPORATOR-REFOEM-Original/dp/B008KFG9NO/ref=asc_df_B008KFG9NO/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167164501807&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1113058533659136084&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9002730&hvtargid=pla-365302905727&psc=1)

If you DON'T do this, your fridge will work well for a while, until the drain hole plugs back up with ice, and then it will slowly get less and less efficient.
« Last Edit: January 02, 2019, 12:27:31 PM by nereo »

Dave1442397

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #5 on: January 02, 2019, 02:52:54 PM »
^^ Thanks, I'll do that next time I'm cleaning the fridge.

Papa bear

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #6 on: January 02, 2019, 02:56:15 PM »
Awesome!  Glad you got that fixed - we have had major issues with our Samsung fridge, specifically the ice maker and the poor engineering that went into that.

This reminded me that it’s time to pull everything back out and defrost the block of ice in there.

Fixing my problem may include 300$ of just parts.  I make my cubes in a tray now and have a big old block of wasted space in my fridge.


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Pylortes

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2019, 07:08:08 PM »
Nice work! Also we got a new fridge last year and I did a bunch of research beforehand.  Lots of horror stories about Samsung refrigerators.  They look nice from the exterior and have a lot of features but I read tons of horror stories on them.   My conclusion was that Samsung as a relatively new entrant to the world of refrigerators cut a lot of corners on engineering the units for the long term so there are a lot of issues.  I decided early that I would not purchase a Samsung until they improved their reliability substantially.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2019, 07:09:50 PM by Pylortes »

nereo

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2019, 08:49:00 PM »
Nice work! Also we got a new fridge last year and I did a bunch of research beforehand.  Lots of horror stories about Samsung refrigerators.  They look nice from the exterior and have a lot of features but I read tons of horror stories on them.   My conclusion was that Samsung as a relatively new entrant to the world of refrigerators cut a lot of corners on engineering the units for the long term so there are a lot of issues.  I decided early that I would not purchase a Samsung until they improved their reliability substantially.
To me it’s a good reason not to buy a new appliance in the first place - there’s no history of model reliability. Appliances a few years old sell for a fraction of the new ones on CL all the time, and by that time you can research which ones have trouble-spots, and whether they are easy fixes.

Personally the defrost-cycle issue was small potatoes, once we learned what it was.  A couple hours and a few cents worth of wire permanently solved the problem.  Our doesn’t have an ice maker so we haven’t had those issues.

MishMash

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2019, 08:54:13 AM »
Add us to the nothing but issues with the samsung appliances.  We actually have a home warranty (never thought I'd buy one) because of all the issues we have had.   They've lost money on us the past few years, they actually just replaced both the fridge and microwave at no cost because they got sick of fixing them.

Dave1442397

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2019, 06:09:15 AM »
Add us to the nothing but issues with the samsung appliances.  We actually have a home warranty (never thought I'd buy one) because of all the issues we have had.   They've lost money on us the past few years, they actually just replaced both the fridge and microwave at no cost because they got sick of fixing them.

We replaced all our appliances back in 2010, and I went with LG for the stove and microwave, Bosch for the dishwasher, and Samsung for the fridge.

I researched dishwashers, but I had planned to buy the fridge from the Sears Outlet, and you never know what they'll have. When I saw the Thanksgiving sale prices at the regular Sears store, we went to see what they had. The Samsung was at least 50% off that day, and I thought "Hmm, Samsung, good brand, what could go wrong with that?".

I'll go with something else next time. I think LG makes a better fridge.

Papa bear

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2019, 06:58:54 AM »
For you Samsung owner’s with issues, I believe there is a class action lawsuit against them.  I found it on the Samsung forums of all places.   There’s a lot of us grumpy people out there.

I haven’t heard anything since though...


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geekette

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Re: I fixed my Samsung fridge for free today.
« Reply #12 on: January 18, 2019, 07:59:47 AM »
We've had our Samsung French door fridge for 8 years now with no problems.  The 7 year old washer and dryer, OTOH...  Washer was recalled and fixed, but we've had to replace the heating element on the dryer twice.  We have another heating element on hand just in case.