Norcold 1200 Refrigerator Failure

[ronlit13]

Hello all,

I am a newbie here, but not new to RVíng.

Carl, I have the same fridge and my inside display no longer works?

Can you explain exactly what you did?

My coach has the recalls done and after changing the batteries, it will not turn back on?

All fuses check good, and I tried a reset on the control board, and its still not working.

Thanks for any help.

Ron.

[huffypuff]

Hold a strong magnet to the right of the light on the bypass box for about 5 seconds. You will hear a click and the bypass box will reboot. If all is well the light will go out and the controls will be working again.

[ronlit13]

Thanks so much for the help, I will check it out.

Ron.

[ronlit13]

I don't have a strong enough magnet apparently, so I just bypassed the recall added little board and now it cools fine!

My local dealer will take care of it now, but a big thanks to all posted and helped me figure it out.

Thanks again,

Ron

[huffypuff]

It's a safety device so you don't want to leave it bypass. If it doesn't reset with strong magnet the board is defective if not the cooling unit. Have it looked at soon..

[ronlit13]

Yep, I have already contacted local dealer and they will repair it before we head out to AZ. later next month.

Thanks again,

Ron

[Rjroxie]

Hello all,

I am a newbie here, but not new to RVíng.

Carl, I have the same fridge and my inside display no longer works?

Can you explain exactly what you did?

My coach has the recalls done and after changing the batteries, it will not turn back on?

All fuses check good, and I tried a reset on the control board, and its still not working.

Thanks for any help.

Ron.

I wanted to share with you what I found out this month. We also have the 1200 LRIM unit and it has had 2 recalls on it, and had both of them completed before we purchased the coach.

While we were camping on Labor Day Weekend, I noticed that the drip pan under the refrigerator fins was holding water, so after the weekend of camping and the coach was back home I decided to turn off the refrigerator and do some cleaning and find out why the tray was holding water. It was just a clogged drain line in the back of the refrigerator, after cleaning it and getting the water to drain again I plugged the refrigerator back in to start it up.

Nothing, no lights, no display, nothing, the only thing that I saw from the back of the refrigerator was that the add on box from the recall had a red flashing light. I started checking breakers, fuses, wires and everything I could think of and I finally figured it had to do with the little black box with the red flashing light on it so I by passed the box and the refrigerator started up, after seeing that I turned it back off and started to look at the black box to see if I could find anything wrong.

I used my meter and checked for continuity on the thermocouple and there was none so then I put a jumper wire in the plug that the thermocouple plugs into and the red light quit flashing and the refrigerator started up. At that point I undid the jumper wire and started the task of looking for a replacement thermocouple and that is where the fun began.

After calling 3 different RV dealers in Huntsville Al I got 3 different stories of what I was going to have to do to get it fixed. It appears that you can't buy a replacement thermocouple for these units, I looked all over the internet and could not find one. In short all 3 RV dealers said that I would have to pay for the replacement parts and I could not buy the thermocouple alone, I was going to have to buy the complete kit which is @$150 but they could not sell it to me without me bringing the coach to them and letting them do it which would then cost me the labor plus the parts.

Then I decided to call Norcold and ask them why I could not buy replacement parts for our refrigerator, I know there is a liability issue with it being a recall, I just wanted to hear it from them and do a little venting. The Norcold person I talked to was very nice and helpful, after I explained the situation to him he told me to take it to any authorized Norcold service center and if it was determined that the thermocouple was indeed bad as I suspected, then Norcold would pay for all of the parts and labor to fix it.

I then called D & N RV service center in Guntersville Al and told him what I suspected and when I told him that the black box had a red flashing light on it he stopped me right there and told me that the red flashing light means that it has lost communication with the thermocouple, finally someone that doesn't talk to me like I am an idiot. Brandon at D & N then told me that he had good and bad news, bad news was that he could not sell me the part that I needed, the good news was that if I would bring the coach to him then he would fix it for free because Norcold would pay for any defective recall parts, and the labor associated with fixing it.

I hope that this may help someone out there if they have a similar problem with a red flashing light on their recall part. It seems that it may be standard practice for some of these dealers and service centers to charge the customer and then turn it in to Norcold as a recall fix and get paid on both ends for the same job. Very sad that these places do business like this. I just wonder how many of the members here have had to get theirs fixed and pay for parts or labor.

[carlpeterson]

I started this topic back in 2012 on my Norcold 1200Lrim refrigerator. The fridge had always worked good until the recall switch was put in. I was able to go around it successfully because I was on a trip with the fridge full. I since have had two more switches install and this past weekend it failed also. Trip canceled. I called a mobile RV tech. and he wired around it, and checked for normal operation. That's the way I am going to leave it, regardless of all the warnings from Norcold. The Technician said he's never seen a problem doing this. It's the way it was designed. I'm not recommending any one else to do this, but I'll keep this topic updated. BTW, the last recall switch was fairly complicated, so I had to call someone to help me go around it. Brett- are you going to get after me?