New Dometic Recall Initiated March 11, 2008

JRK61841 wrote:
Stan47
I have a 2004 fifth wheel. The recall kit is exactly
as you described. It also has the sensor with the wires
running to the control board. The first time we tried
to use the refrigerator after "the fix", it wouldn't
work. Not on electric or gas. The housing behind the
metal shield gets very hot, then a click in the control
board caused by the sensor, and that's it. It will not
light on gas either. I've called Dometic, and been told
if it's out of warranty, it's not covered. I agree with
you and others, a class action suit sounds good. Can you
tell me why the housing behind the shield is getting hot
when we try it on electricity?

There are several possibilities here, but the best advice I can give is the same as Stan (take it back to the shop that installed the recall kit). If you don't trust them, then pay somebody else to investigate. I have seen similar problems before (twice) and in both cases there were errors made by the shops installing the recall kit. In both instances, a wire had been pinched by the new sheet metal. In one case, the refer would heat up the boiler and start to cool, but then the sheet metal would expand and short out the pinched wire. These cases were different then yours though because the end result was a blown fuse at the power distribution box. One unit had a bad PC board as well, but since the recall only interrupts incoming DC power to the board, I believe that failure was unrelated.

I'm a little confused about the statement "then a click in the control board caused by the sensor". If you have a boiler over temp condition and the new recall sensor(s) are cutting power, they will not reset on their own. One sensor is a single use thermal link that will only cycle once (like blowing a fuse), the other sensor (riveted to the sheet metal of the flue) is resettable, but needs a person to push the black button in the middle of it to reset. If that sensor ever trips, then chances are your cooling core is toast.

There have been other people on this forum who's refers wouldn't work after the recall, but would start working again when they removed the sheet metal plate (the large flat plate that was added). The only thing I can think of here is maybe the venting was marginal before the recall, and maybe the addition of the kit further obstructed ventilation just enough to create a problem??? I haven't personally encountered that problem yet, so I can only speculate.

As for the gas operation, make sure the gas valve on the back of the refer is turned on (little knurled brass knob with a slot). The slot should be parallel to the direction of flow (perpendicular is off).

The only other thing I might suggest is to inspect your boiler and look for signs of leakage. A dead giveaway would be a fluorescent yellow residue anywhere in, on, or around the recall / flu stack areas. If you find any of this yellow residue, your refer is dead and will either need to be replaced or will need a new cooling core. Tim