Refrigerator noise.

[MF5270]

While out on a 3 night outing. The dometic fridge started making loud noises.

Its about 1 year old, been used about 8 times. The fridge is normally just about silent.

Precooled on electric. Traveled 3 hours using gas. Set up and ran on electric.

Cooling was never a problem. About middle of the second day, the fridge started making kind of a grinding, growling noise. I switched to gas for a couple hours, no change. So I switch back to electric. The noises continued all day and evening. Cooling was always ok. Kind of worrisome.

Next morning back to normal. All quiet.

Ran on gas all the way home. Always cooled well and stayed quiet.

Other than, if it works, don't fix it. Any ideas?

[SeaDog]

What you may have heard is the liquid boiling in the boiler portion of the frig and expanding. Was the frig level? I have no idea what would make a grinding noise on something that has no moving parts. could that have been a cooling fan?

[dbledan]

I betting seadog is right and it was the cooling fan behind the fridge. They sound pretty bad once the bearings start to go and it would last maybe a day once it started before it failed completely running full time. It would also not impact the fridge cooling right away if it is cooler (below 90) outside since they never used to use them.

You should be able to check by pulling the vent outside and trying to spin it with the power off. Odds are it won't spin freely but it may be hard to reach.

[deartruc]

I 2nd the fridge fan. If the loud noise all of a sudden stopped it may be because the fan has stopped. So silence may not be good news here.