Furrion 16cu ft 12volt refrigerator

[On The Fly]

My 12volt Furrion 16 cu ft refrigerator started moving around in the kitchen slide of our 303RLS. As I was examining the problem, I noted that the refrigerator was attached to a 3/4" x 3/4" fiber board type material. The fully loaded refrigerator was attached to this fiber board with a single #7 screw at each door hinge. As you can see from the photo the fiber board could not withstand the load and the screw holding the right side broke loose. Upon further inspection I discovered that the refrigerator is installed on rollers, which allow the refrigerator to easily move once the little fiber board is broken.
I replaced the fiberboard with a 3/4" x 1 1/2" piece of dark stained hardwood.

When I come across this type of problem I think it is important that all owners open their refrigerator doors and inspect the refrigerator floor stops installed in their trailer.

[TucsonJim]

Bill - Thanks for the update. While attending one of the rallies, a tech tried to do a better job of securing the reefer to the enclosure. He ran a screw through a side wall which immediately punctured a freon tube. The refrigerator could not be repaired and had to be replaced. Be careful folks.

Jim

[Jlawles2]

Bill,

Can you cut the end of that board off and look at it? It appears that is the typical material as used. They take a cheaper less desirable piece of solid wood and wrap it with some type of veneer to make it look like what they want. Fiber board would have pulled apart quite differently.

[On The Fly]

Well the Furrion Refrigerator continues to frustrate me. My refrigerator is not square to the slide so the right door makes contact to the slide frame when opening.
I reviewed the latest online user manual for the 16cu ft refrigerator, Furrion ships the refrigerator with leveling feet but the feet were removed to install the wood strip that keeps the unit from rolling out of the slide. Furrion also recommends that the refrigerator be held in place with "L" brackets and of course the brackets would not interfere with the leveling feet.
Furrion, does not carry replacement adjustment feet nor do they ex[lain where to install the L-brackets to prevent damage.
Has anyone had these issues corrected? If so, please explain the proper installation of the brackets and where they obtained the leveling feet.

Thanks

[tdeperte]

Our 12 volt Furrion 16cu fridge has not been without problem. It make a terrible vibrating sound when the compressor is running. The fridge is held in place by a wood strip screwed down into the slide floor in front of the door hinges. There are also two screws that go through the lower door hinges into the slide floor. Then there is a board mounted to the slide ceiling to keep the fridge from tipping out of the slide. I'm not sure what is causing the vibrating. If I tilt the fridge slightly to the front taking weight off the rear the noise stops. The leveling feet that came with the fridge were not installed and only go on the front of the fridge. The fridge is already too high in the front. I wish GD would have installed a door behind the fridge to gain access to the rear. This fridge is a pain to remove due to its weight, elevation in the slideout, and a trim piece of wood installed on the slideout floor front with a lip. My plan is to make some wood boards the same height as the top of the wood trim on the slideout floor. And then some shims to get the front rolllers over the trim piece. Then I'm thinking if I don't find something loose or rubbing on the back I will install some luan on the slide floor in the rear to raise the rear of the fridge and hopefully solve this problem. There is no height adjustment on the rear of the fridge.

[Jay HHI6818]

Our three month old Furrion 16 Cubic ft is not cooling properly. Pulled into campground in Nashville Wednesday evening. Woke up and refrigerator temperature was 48 and freezer was 18. Called GB customer service and they had me perform a hard rest. Disconnect shore power and battery cables. It helped the freezer bit not the refrigerator. Called GD support back again and was told when what I’m experiencing its a cold solder joint on logic board and refrigerator needs to be replaced. I don’t believe this.

[Jlawles2]

If it's a cold solder joint on the board, then you should be able to pull the board and reflow that joint bringing the unit back to life. I wonder if anyone will tell you which solder joint is the issue.

You might get lucky and be able to spot it if you pull the board, Cold joints are usually dull looking compared to the others if I remember correctly.

[Cvanderboom]

So we have the 16cf refer in our 26RD . Like a few above, we had issues with our refrigerator moving around in it’s opening. The L brackets supplied are not adequate. We made much more substantial brackets to fill in the space and hold the refrigerator in place. Using longer screws to get into framing and not just the trim. Solved that problem but the refrigerator doors still like to open during travel. We lost food on two occasions using their plastic U-channel gizmo thats supposed to lock the two vertical doors in place. My question is has anybody come up with a better design to hold the doors closed? I am currently working on a new idea that I found on YouTube but it will require screwing into the refer. Until then we duct tape the channel down so it won’t slip off.
https://youtu.be/yPze_PSeJM4

Chuck & Elaine
2022 Reflection 26RD
2019 Ram 2500 Limited CD

[howson]

Cvanderboom -- you may do this already, but first suggestion is to use expansion rods to hold the interior contents in place. (Pic below is the Haier in my trailer.)



For the doors themselves on the Haier a robust velcro was used. A bit unsightly but never spilled any food.



Forum members clued me in to the folks at Fridge Fixer and sure enough they had a contraption for my Haier. Works great! Give them a shout--they may have something for your refrigerator. https://www.rvfridgeshop.com/fridge-fixer-original/

Below is the Fridge Fixer installed on the Haier.




Howard

[WondersAwait]

I was emailing back and forth with someone who was designing a locking mechanism for the fridge, giving him detailed measurements and testing out some 3-d printed prototypes. I'll be honest that nothing really worked and/or looked great so I gave up on hoping that a better option was coming.

What we did is took the plastic U-channel for the tops of the doors and put the 3M velcro strips on the top of the fridge and in the inside of the u-channel so you cannot see it on either side but when you put the U-channel on, it secures to the fridge via that velcro. This has worked perfectly every single time for us since we did it. The u-channel by itself popped off the top of the doors twice before using the velcro adhesive combination. This is the cheapest fix that we could find that also did the trick, is easy, and looks great (don't even see anything different when the u-channel is not on the fridge, and when it is you just see the plastic channel).

[Jay HHI6818]

Saw this on Facebook 337 group

[howson]

Saw this on Facebook 337 group

Clever--and probably effective.

[GD3712]

This is all very troubling to me. I have experienced ALL of the above issues/problems. Namely, the shaky support, the flimsy floor board (even brought up to me by a non-GDRV dealership), the piece of wood at the top to wedge the refer in and prevent forward tipping, the interference with opening the right door and only getting 90 degree opening since it hits the adjacent trim, the doors coming open during transit (the top snaps don't cut it!!), AND - worst of all - the inconsistent cooling. My freezer does great (it keeps a general -1 to -5 degrees with a 0 F set point), but the refer portion typically stays in the 42 to 45 degree range (which is in the danger zone for food spoilage...it has a 35 degree set point). It does not seem reasonable to me to do the recommended hard reset since one side (freezer) is great, while the other side (refer) is struggling. Logically, if power and compressor control is working on the freezer side, then it should work also on the refer side, yes? There should be only one compressor, so how could a hard reset make only the refer side better? Unless the mystery cold solder is part of the refer-only control circuitry. What a pain!! I need to call GDRV support and see what they tell me.

Lastly, we "solved" the door opening problem by taking a cinch strap, encircling the entire Furrion (at about the front control panel height) and strapping in a pillow or soft vent cover at the door opening to press the pillow into both doors to put pressure on them to preclude unintended opening. This is really ugly and kludgy, but it gets the job done. We are just miffed that we have to go to such cobbled lengths to keep the darned doors shut....didn't Furrion or GDRV do ANY real world testing on these units to ensure that the snap system at the top was adequate (or, in reality, totally inadequate)???!!?!?!?!?!!?

Any other thoughts or insights on any or all of these issues would be greatly appreciated!!

[Jlawles2]

This is all very troubling to me. I have experienced ALL of the above issues/problems. Namely, the shaky support, the flimsy floor board (even brought up to me by a non-GDRV dealership), the piece of wood at the top to wedge the refer in and prevent forward tipping, the interference with opening the right door and only getting 90 degree opening since it hits the adjacent trim, the doors coming open during transit (the top snaps don't cut it!!), AND - worst of all - the inconsistent cooling. My freezer does great (it keeps a general -1 to -5 degrees with a 0 F set point), but the refer portion typically stays in the 42 to 45 degree range (which is in the danger zone for food spoilage...it has a 35 degree set point). It does not seem reasonable to me to do the recommended hard reset since one side (freezer) is great, while the other side (refer) is struggling. Logically, if power and compressor control is working on the freezer side, then it should work also on the refer side, yes? There should be only one compressor, so how could a hard reset make only the refer side better? Unless the mystery cold solder is part of the refer-only control circuitry. What a pain!! I need to call GDRV support and see what they tell me.

Lastly, we "solved" the door opening problem by taking a cinch strap, encircling the entire Furrion (at about the front control panel height) and strapping in a pillow or soft vent cover at the door opening to press the pillow into both doors to put pressure on them to preclude unintended opening. This is really ugly and kludgy, but it gets the job done. We are just miffed that we have to go to such cobbled lengths to keep the darned doors shut....didn't Furrion or GDRV do ANY real world testing on these units to ensure that the snap system at the top was adequate (or, in reality, totally inadequate)???!!?!?!?!?!!?

Any other thoughts or insights on any or all of these issues would be greatly appreciated!!

Unfortunately GD is stuck in the middle here. Real world testing it seems happened after distribution and installation of the units. If you read, Howard's solution and several others are actually coming from members / owners of NON GD units in other forums.

It seems Furrion (now part of LCI) was "deploy first and let the real world test" motto. Hopefully LCI can correct this mentality. Please don't get discouraged by GD. Our unit has one of the first iterations of on demand HWH that are known to not work well in cold weather and to correct the issue it's going to be money out of my pocket to replace the control board, so I feel some of your pain.

[On The Fly]

It has now been 6 weeks since my original post. NO ONE has yet to get a call from Grand Design suggesting a solution to our on going Furrion problems. Grand Design appears to be ignoring the problems with the Furrion Refrigerator and their own issues with the installation of the refrigerator in the slide-out. Why can't one of our moderators contact Grand Design and get resolution for us. We all have the same issues concerning the installation and we shouldn't have to individually contact Grand Design to resolve the same problems. Listed below are the two issues that I have not been able to resolve with customer service:

Send me the two leveling feet that were removed so they could install the wooden stop.
Send me a pair of L-Brackets with mounting instructions so that I do not damage the refrigerator.

Everyone can add to the list and one of our Moderators can step up and get us resolution.

Thanks,