twintubdexter
Well-known member
That's what my late best friend used to say they asked at Eastern Airlines many years ago. I hope I can get some advice from the crew of experts on Autowasher.org.
My 10 year old Whirlpool all-refrigerator has developed a refrigerant (R134a) leak at the evaporator outlet. The evaporator frosts a few inches beyond the capillary tube and that's it. There is oil at the joint at the end of the evaporator as well as oil below the joints on a Styrofoam piece. The compressor runs and the defrost timer cycles. I am not "Mr. Know It All" but I learned to service refrigerators when I was in high school and college (I think they still delivered ice to homes back then.)
I stopped by a local appliance repair place yesterday and got nasty treatment. After the owner chewed out some poor employee about not adding enough 0's to GE part numbers I explained my problem...and I said nothing about knowing anything about repair work. The scruffy guy told me it would be a minimum of $800. I told him that my brother owns a small major appliance repair shop in San Jose...nothing more...and he went ballistic and told me in these exact words "if you even attempt to repair your refrigerator yourself you will spend 2 to 5 years in the penitentiary (not jail or prison.) I thanked him and left.
I've scheduled a service appointment with A&E Factory Service and hopefully I can get an honest answer to the cost of repair. I don't expect it to be cheap. In the "old days" if something like this happened, provided this was the only leak, the connection could be re-soldered provided the evaporator core was copper tubing. You'd pull a vacuum on the system and proceed from there. I'm assuming the evaporator in my fridge is all aluminum and the connections seem to be machine-crimped. Should I expect to need a replacement evaporator?
In addition I have a special problem. This all-refrigerator matches the freezer next to it. For about $1,180 I can replace the fridge with the new Whirpool model (I paid about $700 10 years ago) but the current model will not match my freezer and I couldn't stand to look at that. My kitchen has a 60" wide space for refrigeration, originally designed as a Kosher kitchen with 2 of everything. I am trying to decide the best thing to do in the event the cost of repair is too high.
I could:
1. Spend $2,400 on 2 new appliances from Whirpool. New similar models from Frigidaire, Kenmore and Electrolux are too big at 32" wide.
2. Spend a whole lot more than I want to ($8,000 to $12,000) and get pricey 30" wide stuff like Thermador, Viking or Liebherr and the rest (and pay to have the cabinets modified to accommodate the additional height)...I don't have that kind of swanky house or matching swanky bank account.
3. Buy a normal-sized close-to-counter-depth refrigerator/freezer and have a cabinet made for the leftover space. The guy I bought the house from had a black side by side with a stack of dry dog food piled next to it. All the built-ins are white so it looked pretty ugly. Maybe I'm being too picky.
I've also thought about buying 2, 30" fridge/freezers and reversing the doors on one but models that narrow are usually super-deep and they'd stick out a foot from the cabinets...too tacky.
If you have any suggestions I'd appreciate them, especially on the repair. Thanks for staying awake long enough to read all this.
not enough cold to cool a cucumber
My 10 year old Whirlpool all-refrigerator has developed a refrigerant (R134a) leak at the evaporator outlet. The evaporator frosts a few inches beyond the capillary tube and that's it. There is oil at the joint at the end of the evaporator as well as oil below the joints on a Styrofoam piece. The compressor runs and the defrost timer cycles. I am not "Mr. Know It All" but I learned to service refrigerators when I was in high school and college (I think they still delivered ice to homes back then.)
I stopped by a local appliance repair place yesterday and got nasty treatment. After the owner chewed out some poor employee about not adding enough 0's to GE part numbers I explained my problem...and I said nothing about knowing anything about repair work. The scruffy guy told me it would be a minimum of $800. I told him that my brother owns a small major appliance repair shop in San Jose...nothing more...and he went ballistic and told me in these exact words "if you even attempt to repair your refrigerator yourself you will spend 2 to 5 years in the penitentiary (not jail or prison.) I thanked him and left.
I've scheduled a service appointment with A&E Factory Service and hopefully I can get an honest answer to the cost of repair. I don't expect it to be cheap. In the "old days" if something like this happened, provided this was the only leak, the connection could be re-soldered provided the evaporator core was copper tubing. You'd pull a vacuum on the system and proceed from there. I'm assuming the evaporator in my fridge is all aluminum and the connections seem to be machine-crimped. Should I expect to need a replacement evaporator?
In addition I have a special problem. This all-refrigerator matches the freezer next to it. For about $1,180 I can replace the fridge with the new Whirpool model (I paid about $700 10 years ago) but the current model will not match my freezer and I couldn't stand to look at that. My kitchen has a 60" wide space for refrigeration, originally designed as a Kosher kitchen with 2 of everything. I am trying to decide the best thing to do in the event the cost of repair is too high.
I could:
1. Spend $2,400 on 2 new appliances from Whirpool. New similar models from Frigidaire, Kenmore and Electrolux are too big at 32" wide.
2. Spend a whole lot more than I want to ($8,000 to $12,000) and get pricey 30" wide stuff like Thermador, Viking or Liebherr and the rest (and pay to have the cabinets modified to accommodate the additional height)...I don't have that kind of swanky house or matching swanky bank account.
3. Buy a normal-sized close-to-counter-depth refrigerator/freezer and have a cabinet made for the leftover space. The guy I bought the house from had a black side by side with a stack of dry dog food piled next to it. All the built-ins are white so it looked pretty ugly. Maybe I'm being too picky.
I've also thought about buying 2, 30" fridge/freezers and reversing the doors on one but models that narrow are usually super-deep and they'd stick out a foot from the cabinets...too tacky.
If you have any suggestions I'd appreciate them, especially on the repair. Thanks for staying awake long enough to read all this.
not enough cold to cool a cucumber
