New Dometic Recall Initiated March 11, 2008
Thanks to the members who have provided info on this new one. Dometic has a new recall for refrigerators made between June 1, 2003 through September 30, 2006. Many of these are the same models as w...
Forum Discussion
Sage, you can find coolant sniffers at places that sell HVAC instruments, such as W.W. Grainger. Whether it's financially practical to own one is another question, and I don't think it would be useful unless you established a fairly rigid schedule of inspection.
As to the non-inclusion of your reefer, my experience has been that recalls or defects are associated with some change either in design or production/fabrication. For example, the risky units could have resulted from some poorly thought-out change in the assembly instructions that workers use on the production floor. In which case, the company's engineering department would know when the faulty instructions were put into effect, and when the error was discovered and corrected.
I spent more than ten years in quality-assurance and reliability engineering, and it's been my experience that sometimes the most innocuous omission from an instruction sheet mushrooms into a big problem. We had one run of stuff where a particular electric connector seemed especially prone to shorting-out. After a lot of destructive testing, we learned that the assemblers were leaving one of the internal wires too long. More specifically, they were stripping off more insulation than they should have been. We learned that their assembly instructions said to "strip at least 0.5 inch of insulation," but did not specify a maximum. So in the interest of working a little faster, the assemblers were just eyeballing it, sometimes leaving the exposed wire twice as long as it should have been. We corrected the instructions and created a comparative gauge for use on the assembly bench.
This stuff is not really rocket science, but it does involve using SOME of your brain cells. That's why so many of us are wondering whether Dometic will leave us twisting in the wind if these units fail, just because they've covered their butt on the liability for fire.
As for class action, as I understand the process an individual (known as the "lead plaintiff") files a lawsuit, and asks the court to certify it as a class action. Someone has to be willing to spend the time and up-front money to do that. Such an action is beyond my financial means, but I'd urge anyone to try it. There must be some RV-owning lawyer out there who could file, and cover some of his own costs.
Life would be far simpler if there were an advocacy group for RV owners, but as I've said, Good Sam is not an advocacy group, having financial ties to Camping World and countless other places. Perhaps the Escapees are the right organization.
As to the non-inclusion of your reefer, my experience has been that recalls or defects are associated with some change either in design or production/fabrication. For example, the risky units could have resulted from some poorly thought-out change in the assembly instructions that workers use on the production floor. In which case, the company's engineering department would know when the faulty instructions were put into effect, and when the error was discovered and corrected.
I spent more than ten years in quality-assurance and reliability engineering, and it's been my experience that sometimes the most innocuous omission from an instruction sheet mushrooms into a big problem. We had one run of stuff where a particular electric connector seemed especially prone to shorting-out. After a lot of destructive testing, we learned that the assemblers were leaving one of the internal wires too long. More specifically, they were stripping off more insulation than they should have been. We learned that their assembly instructions said to "strip at least 0.5 inch of insulation," but did not specify a maximum. So in the interest of working a little faster, the assemblers were just eyeballing it, sometimes leaving the exposed wire twice as long as it should have been. We corrected the instructions and created a comparative gauge for use on the assembly bench.
This stuff is not really rocket science, but it does involve using SOME of your brain cells. That's why so many of us are wondering whether Dometic will leave us twisting in the wind if these units fail, just because they've covered their butt on the liability for fire.
As for class action, as I understand the process an individual (known as the "lead plaintiff") files a lawsuit, and asks the court to certify it as a class action. Someone has to be willing to spend the time and up-front money to do that. Such an action is beyond my financial means, but I'd urge anyone to try it. There must be some RV-owning lawyer out there who could file, and cover some of his own costs.
Life would be far simpler if there were an advocacy group for RV owners, but as I've said, Good Sam is not an advocacy group, having financial ties to Camping World and countless other places. Perhaps the Escapees are the right organization.
