Air conditioners

[Landorhope]

I have a new CC Champagne Edition and find that neither Dometic A/C blow cold air, had a local Dometic service technician look at them. On one unit the compressor brazing is cracked hence no gas the other just no gas in the unit. Has anyone else had such an experience for both A/C UNITS to be useless? Is Forest River PDI so poor they cannot pick up both units are useless?

[SimchaSabre]

Only a sample of builds go through Forest River PDI. You should be able to find out if yours was selected. It is disappointing that Cedar Creek or your dealer didn't catch it.

[Jim34RL]

As stated above only a couple of units are selected for internal PDI's but your dealer should have done a PDI on your unit.

I know with all three of my 5er's every dealer had operated all of the systems to insure they worked. I and my wife were in all three units when the trailers systems were operated taking notes on how they operated. We did a PDI on each trailer walking into the trailer and climbing on the roof to insure that there were no issues.

Did you do a PDI when you picked up the trailer and did you have were the systems operated to insure they worked correctly at time of purchase?

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by SimchaSabre

Only a sample of builds go through Forest River PDI. You should be able to find out if yours was selected. It is disappointing that Cedar Creek or your dealer didn't catch it.

So true why did the Cedar Creek or the dealer not catch it, the only reason is it was built in winter arrived at the dealer in winter it was cold inside so when you test it cold air comes out of the vents. So they assume it's running, no faults on the control unit just go to show how detailed the PDI really is you would have thought a more technical PDI test would actually show the fan and the airconditioner are actually functional and have gas pressure. We have all these fancy digital control units and yet both A/C UNITS have no gas in the system. Dometic know full well how to check what load the compressors draw from the 120 ac line which tells them the units are actually compressing the gas but they don't feed this info into the a/c control units, we have a long way to go before these suppliers really get with the 21st century.

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by Jim34RL

As stated above only a couple of units are selected for internal PDI's but your dealer should have done a PDI on your unit.

I know with all three of my 5er's every dealer had operated all of the systems to insure they worked. I and my wife were in all three units when the trailers systems were operated taking notes on how they operated. We did a PDI on each trailer walking into the trailer and climbing on the roof to insure that there were no issues.

Did you do a PDI when you picked up the trailer and did you have were the systems operated to insure they worked correctly at time of purchase?

You are so correct, I had my unit delivered to a residential site again it was winter, we checked all the systems, in fact the dealer stayed with us for nearly a week while we went through everything.
Again it was winter, the airconditioners blow cold air through the vents because it's recirculated air which was cold anyhow inside the rig thought no more about it has the Dometic control unit showed no fault codes. When we returned to the unit it was spring it's warming up, it was only when the first day of 80f arrived we turned on the bedroom unit the control unit functioned correctly it turned on the fans then 10 seconds on came the compressors but no cold air even after 20 minutes. Checked on the roof fan motor and compressor both running on both units.
Dometic Technician came found one unit the brazing on the compressor was cracked the other also no gas. There you the whole sorry story, the DOMETIC CONTROL UNITS do not monitor gas pressure in the a/c units and so give a error code just how ancient can it be, thinks DOMETIC need to get with it in the 21st century.

[Landorhope]

I would like to know from Cedar Creek and any dealer how do they check out the airconditioners are actually functional in the depths of winter?

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by SimchaSabre

Only a sample of builds go through Forest River PDI. You should be able to find out if yours was selected. It is disappointing that Cedar Creek or your dealer didn't catch it.

Good idea just how do I find if my unit went through a PDI in the factory? and if it did just how do they check the compressors are actually compressing gas to the correct pressure, there is no monitoring points in the a/c units they do not have a CAN output to feed info into the control unit in the unit. So the only people who know if these units are totally functional are final test and inspection in Dometic. You can actually check the a/c load when the compressor kicks in when you don't have a pressure test points. Unlike automobile a/c units which are fitted with real gas monitoring outlets for high and low pressure sides now that's how you do it correctly, Dometic take note.

[Iwannacamp]

Originally Posted by Landorhope

I would like to know from Cedar Creek and any dealer how do they check out the airconditioners are actually functional in the depths of winter?

I don’t really know unless you did a temperature drop. The temps would be wacky because the temps would be low indoor and ambient. The amount of drop might be a guess, but you could get a differential.

If the units are heat pumps they could easily be tested in heat mode(strips off).


I would strongly suggest two new units(unless you already have) and try to move on. I am not sure you know, but Dometic had a rash of leaking coils recently and we are still feeling that.

[GOTTOYS]

So who really cares why they were or were not checked somewhere along the line. They will be replaced under warranty and life will go on.

[dieselguy]

I don't want to sound rude, but my home's A/C is of the 21st Century and it has no monitoring of the gas or pressures inside the unit, but there are high and low pressure connections for a set of gauges. RV A/C's are built by the thousands on the cheap ... no place to hook gauges. That's widely known by most any RV repairman. I accepted the fact due to temperature in the work bay that the A/C's would not come on in February when I took possession of my fiver, so I planned on testing them when the weather warmed up. May rolled around and fortunately they both worked. Like just mentioned ... there was a run of leaking units in the not too distant past.

[valleyduo]

The good news is you've caught it early in the summer season and are still under warranty. One of ours lost it's charge 6 months past the warranty. Cheapest I could find a new unit was $600 self installed. Has anyone tried any of the other brand a/c's?

[Iwannacamp]

Factory hermetically sealed units rarely EVER have service ports unless they are commercial units. Hundreds of millions? of refrigerators and room air conditioners have been produced without service ports lasting many years. The materials are getting thinner(copper and brass are high) and minimums have changed. Factory manufacturing practices have lessened quality and the demand is high.

If you stay with Dometic I would try for the extended factory warranty...it isn’t real expensive and I a good investment. IMO

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by Iwannacamp

Factory hermetically sealed units rarely EVER have service ports unless they are commercial units. Hundreds of millions? of refrigerators and room air conditioners have been produced without service ports lasting many years. The materials are getting thinner(copper and brass are high) and minimums have changed. Factory manufacturing practices have lessened quality and the demand is high.

If you stay with Dometic I would try for the extended factory warranty...it isn’t real expensive and I a good investment. IMO

Thanks for your informative input, I do agree with your comment re the quality of the Dometic product it's certainly not a quality product so would be well worth paying for a extended warranty. I am still of the opinion that the Dometic Confort Control Center 2 which has 9 error codes which come from the roof a/c units could include a low coolant pressure sensor it would sure help in diagnostics.

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by Iwannacamp

I don’t really know unless you did a temperature drop. The temps would be wacky because the temps would be low indoor and ambient. The amount of drop might be a guess, but you could get a differential.

If the units are heat pumps they could easily be tested in heat mode(strips off).


I would strongly suggest two new units(unless you already have) and try to move on. I am not sure you know, but Dometic had a rash of leaking coils recently and we are still feeling that.

That's the route we are going, two new units, one has the leaking coils the other a cheap brazing job on the compressor housing, cheap Chinese junk.

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by dieselguy

I don't want to sound rude, but my home's A/C is of the 21st Century and it has no monitoring of the gas or pressures inside the unit, but there are high and low pressure connections for a set of gauges. RV A/C's are built by the thousands on the cheap ... no place to hook gauges. That's widely known by most any RV repairman. I accepted the fact due to temperature in the work bay that the A/C's would not come on in February when I took possession of my fiver, so I planned on testing them when the weather warmed up. May rolled around and fortunately they both worked. Like just mentioned ... there was a run of leaking units in the not too distant past.

The Dometic Comfort control 2 thermostat does have LCD error codes which cover virtually all events that affect the functional performance. Except not one gas pressure sensor would not add more than a few $ to the cost of a a/c unit and would be so useful in fault finding.

[Landorhope]

Originally Posted by GOTTOYS

So who really cares why they were or were not checked somewhere along the line. They will be replaced under warranty and life will go on.

That's alright saying it will be replaced under warranty big deal but it's all the Inconvenience of sorting this out especially when you a few thousand miles away from your dealer and Cedar creek and Dometic cannot believe two faulty units are on the same rig. It will not happen again that's for sure.

[eddy53]

Dometic are Rubbish there made in the outback of China, how they are still in business I don't know. Bin them and get a American a/c if we build anything any more

[Iwannacamp]

FWIW

In the summer of 1966 when Sheldon Coleman made his annual trip to Montana to test all of the new Coleman® products that would be marketed during the upcoming year, he decided that rather than sleeping in the traditional Coleman® tent, he would spend his nights in one of those new Motorhomes.
He loved the motor coach, but found it difficult to sleep because of the heat, and told his engineers that "before the trip next year, they need to design an air conditioner to cool the coach down". They did.
In 1967, the Coleman® Company introduced and sold their first RV air conditioner called the PolarPal. Since that time, as the Coleman® Company, and later as RV Products the Coleman®-Mach® name has remained the leader in the RV Industry. Since 1967 we've built over 6,000,000 air conditioners in our factory in Wichita, Kansas. Most of them are still on the job producing cool comfort for RV enthusiasts.

[MR.M]

Originally Posted by Iwannacamp

FWIW

In the summer of 1966 when Sheldon Coleman made his annual trip to Montana to test all of the new Coleman® products that would be marketed during the upcoming year, he decided that rather than sleeping in the traditional Coleman® tent, he would spend his nights in one of those new Motorhomes.
He loved the motor coach, but found it difficult to sleep because of the heat, and told his engineers that "before the trip next year, they need to design an air conditioner to cool the coach down". They did.
In 1967, the Coleman® Company introduced and sold their first RV air conditioner called the PolarPal. Since that time, as the Coleman® Company, and later as RV Products the Coleman®-Mach® name has remained the leader in the RV Industry. Since 1967 we've built over 6,000,000 air conditioners in our factory in Wichita, Kansas. Most of them are still on the job producing cool comfort for RV enthusiasts.

And in 2019 coleman AC's are no better then dometics . just had 2 on the same coach 1 yrs old both copper lines cracked on the low psi side of the compressor . both were identical cracks . Seems now days it doesn't matter what you buy it's all made elsewhere and made cheaper then 50 years ago