Hi Dometic;
I do hope you can help me. We have a 2012 Jayco discovery caravan ( model 17.55.3 ) that is now just on 12 months old and was purchesed last December ( 13 ) from our local Jayco retailer.
We traveled up to Darwin in May of this year and traveled over 8500 Kms and the only problem that we had was the fridge was useless up north. after about katherine the temp go up to about 8+ degrees when we were staying at one of the local caravan parks and pluged into power. Yes we had the fridge turned over top 240Volt and was working. I have installed two 12 Volt computer fans in to the top vent to help with the exstraction of the heat and they do help. BUT the fridge still will not go down to under 6 degrees. Their is only my wife and my self thay live in the caravan, so no kids opening fridge door all the time,
I have had the caravan sevviced at the local Jayco agent and was told that the fridge works fine and no problems were found, this i believe, and yes the fridge will work down here in Mildura and not a problem.
My main concern is that when we travel up north again the fridge is going to fail once more !!!!!

My wife is not happy with the fridge and after spending $38,000 on a NEW caravan you would think that the manufactures would manufacture a fridge that is designed to take the Austalian weather. Lets face it, we traveled up to Darwin and had a great time, weather was great and not at all hot and the average temp ran into about 33 Degrees, so not what you would call hot. But the fridge.......well that is a nother thing. Down here in Mildura the fridge will work on all three sources OK, but the caravan is under cover.

Is there any thing that Dometic can do. Or do i sell the three way and purchese a two way compressor fridge in it's replacement, and then i would also have to up grade my house battery's and increase the size of the solar panels as well .

G'day V8,

Dunno if the Dometic man visits here anymore?

The most common issue with fridge performance is poor installation. They include, top and bottom vent heights wrong, inadequate sealing around the 4 sides (right at the rear) to stop hot air flowing around the fridge sides and top, and too much space between the back of the fridge and the wall it is up against. Everything should be done to ensure the air circulating over the condenser fins has an efficient entry and exit point and not allowed to wander around other areas except over the fins. Fans help.

Being a Jayco I would imagine (perhaps generously) that they know what they are doing with mass-produced vans so installation should not be an issue. A simple test on a hot day is to feel around the fridge cabinetry from inside the van (if you have access) and see if you can feel surface areas noticeably hotter than the van interior. If so some external hot air is leaking around the fridge between it and the fridge cabinetry.

What thermostat setting do you use? I use around 3.5 to 4 (out of 7) but on really hot days I turn it to 5 or so the night before. Dometic instructions advise to crank it down a bit more in hot weather. This won't make it work any harder as already flat out but my theory is it allows the whole fridge to get down overnight thus having a head start for the hot day. In these circumstances I often have close to zero degrees at breakfast time. Just have to be a bit careful you don't ruin things like tomatoes by freezing them.

Hi Valiant,
The RM2350 is rated ‘ST’ which is subtropical and as such is only good to 38 degrees air temp. This may make it a bit hard to do a good job in the tropics but if installed correctly as OT mentioned it should do OK. I know that it is not much help but the ‘T’ rated fridge is a better option as it is good up to 43 degrees unless you change to a compressor fridge then that will solve the problem but how far do you go?

JR

Hey thanks guy's;
Yes as stated i have had the fridge check in the last service ( yesterday ) and all the company would have done is checked that the fridge is getting down in temp, and after 4 hourse after been turned on i was told that the temp had gone down to about 1 degree SO it appears to be working. End of test.
I've never had a problem with the fridge down here and if turned up to hight, things would start to freeze in the fridge part, eg, lettuce freezing and frozen eggs !!!.
You would think that the local Jayco dealer would have checked the fridge out a bit more thoughly and not just plug it in to power and see what the temp is after a few hours. I have never had a problem with any of the Dometic fridges in any of my caravans and the first Jayco was a camper ( swan model ) and the current Jayco discovery and only 12 months old the fridge that is placed into that model is the same model as the other van's that we have had, but i have never traveled up north before. As i have stated the fridge works fine in all respects ( in the southern states ) but head any were north, and the fridge is just not keeping cold and even after a night of not beening opened the fridge is still only down to 4~5 degrees. would you trust food that is kept at that temp, would you drink beer if it was at that temp, I THINK NOT.
On a nother note i do have a digital temp guage, and the senser is half way along the middel shelf and towards the back of the fridge.

Heaven forbid if we were a young family with young baby's that had baby formular stored in that fridge. What if it had gone off, due to the fridge not been able to keep things down to a proper temp to be able to store milk and the like. The other thing is the cost of the replacement of the food and also the wife not beening happy, it all makes for a very trying time and can make what should be a injoyable holiday, to one of a.......well a big disapiontment. Heaven help if any one got sick or like from useing food that has not been kept at the correct temp while under refridgment.
I mean to say just about every day you read that some farst food shop has had there premises inspected and found that the food is NOT cold enough or the food in the food warmers is not hot enough.
These places face big fines etc.
I will be getting in contact with Dometic next week and also Jayco to see what can be done. We will be traverling over to South Australia for the xmas holidays and will proberly have more trouble with the fridge again.

One thing we do do is be fore we set off we always turn the fridge on a couple of days befor we leave and have the food already cold be for placement in the fridge.

What i should have done when i had to have the caravan made to my own spec's is to have taken the up grade in fridge and specify a compressor fridge !!

Jayco generally do a fairly reasonable job installing fridges, but the RM2350 even when installed correctly is not worth a pinch of salt when the weather gets hot and even worse when combined with high humidity.
I being saying for years that the distributor shouldn't be allowed to import fridges that are clearly 'Not Fit For Purpose' in a hot country like ours.
Ozjohn.

Hi Valiant81,

The links below may be of help.

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11023

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=11022

Tar Trekka.

Any day above the ground is a great day.

I had a jayco with a RM2350 in it and never really had a problem with it. I must admit that when I was at a place when the temperatures were testing, I was usually in a National Park and on running the fridge on gas. The only problem I ever had, if it was really a problem, is that on gas, it was hard to stop the stuff in the fridge freezing at night.

So maybe this is not the answer you want and I do not blame you but run your fridge on gas next time and see how it goes.

On electricity, I ran the fridge on 5 but on gas, about 3 and after a day or two, turned it down a bit more.

The only other thing that effects a fridge running at its optimum is that it really needs to be level on both planes. And I like the van level so I don't fall out of bed.

$20 a week for gas might be a cheap fix??

HEY MATE ,WITH THE GRILL OF THE TOP VENT REMOVED WHERE IS YOUR CONDENSOR IN RELATION TO THE OPENING , HAD SAME PROBLEM ,NOW FIXED

I put my salad stuff in a soft esky bag in the fridge, it stops the overnight freezing problems.

Hey thanks all;
This problem has reared it's head only while we were up north and had been settled into the caravan park for several days and running on 240 Volt power at all places. Even turning the fridge up to a higher setting and/or changeing over to gas did not help.

Down in the southern states were we live ( Mildura, Victoria ) the fridge works fine and not a problem.