Dead Dometic RM8501

Originally posted by mjlrpod Well, 3 degrees is equal to 3 3/4 inches from side to side of the pod. So the door side can be 3 3/4 inches higher or lower than the hook up side. Incase you wern't sure.

Originally posted by spydie I got my pod back after two weeks with the dealer and they couldn't fix it.  Dometic said they could only test it if it was OUT of the pod, on a test bench.  So they did that and it worked fine inside.  Put it back in the Pod and it still wouldn't cool properly on LP.  I took it home and called Dometic and said I wanted a new refer.  They said it has a 2-year warranty and that the only the dealer could request a warranty replacement, so I took it back to the dealer and they are now trying to get a replacement.

In the mean time, it is not hard to clean the gas jet.  If the pressure is OK in the trailer, a clogged gas jet would produce your exact symptoms (assuming it cools OK on AC power).  If their bench test pressure is higher, it could overcome a clogged gas jet and produce adequate cooling.  It doesn't seem linear.... below a certain flame size, you get zero cooling even though there is a nice blue flame.  That was my issue earlier in this thread.  

OK, just got back from the RV dealer.  They've been working with Dometic for the last week (again) and Dometic now says it's a Forest River problem.  Forest River did not mount the Dometic correctly.  He is now working with Forest River (sent them 15 pictures) and waiting to hear from them.  We all know that FR isn't going to take ownership of the problem any more than Dometic will unless there's a class-action lawsuit that forces them to recall the R-pods and mount the Dometic differently.  So I'm pretty sure that after the dealer has it another week, they'll tell me it's my problem because nobody wants to fix it.  My options at that point are 1. only camp in colder weather so the refer works OK or 2. replace the Dometic with a real refrigerator like the Engel I built into my last RV or 3. trade it off for another brand that may or many not work better.

In my opinion, which isn't worth much, I think the absorption refrigerator is antiquated and needs to be abolished.  They've never been efficient in an RV if you travel in warm/hot weather.  They were developed for household use and I'm sure they are fine in that capacity, but even then they were replaced with more efficient compressor refrigerators.  So what did we do?  We took something that was replaced with something better for the household, and tried to put them into RVs where the OAT has a major affect on them.