Zanussi znb4051 - fridge warm

[rubystar600]

Dear All,

I purchased the Zanussi ZNB4051 Frost-Free Fridge freezer a few years back, and although I love the huge capacity and sleek design, it has been giving me endless problems.

12 months into use, and conveniently on expiry of the guarantee, it developed a leak. An engineer was called out and a bizarre 30 sec job of sticking some blue tack around the pipe at the back and at a cost of £90 did the job. Any comments on whether this counts as a manufacturers fault will be most welcome as I have recently found out that I may be able to claim this back.

Anyhow, about 5 months ago, the fridge stopped working, displaying a ' - '-sign and completely unusable. The freezer was fine. Took advice to defrost it for 24hours and result! I was so pleased I didn't have to fork out another engineers fee! Only the problem has now re-occurred so I'm not a happy bunny. To add to the problem of a warm fridge, now the freezer temperature also fluctuates from -18 to -9 throughout the day. An engineer was called and he said it could be one of many problems, will need multiple parts and he cant guarantee that any of the repairs will actually work! He also said it must be defrosted every couple of months, which is beyond me since it defeats the purpose of being frost-free!

I would really appreciate some help on what the problem is and if I really should just buy a replacement, although I really don't want to throw it out because I cant find anything to replace its capacity (especially the freezer) for a reasonable price.

Thank you in advance.

Just to add,
- fridge freezer is much quieter than usual, buzzing is there but none of the usual intermittent loud gurgling sounds
- fan does stop/start on open/close of door
- fan rattles

[spiderwebber]

Hi, did you ever manage to sort your fridge out. Mine does exaclty the same and I now resort to switching it off once a week for a day...............not exactly practical!!!!

[frgtech]

Hi if the fun rattles, then it is touching with the ice, the problem is that the freezer is blocked with ice, so are the vents from where cold air passes from the freezer to the fridge, you have a defrost problem it could be 3 things . 1 defrost timer 2 defrost sensor or the defrost heater. you need to turn the timer manualy to defrost position when the freezer is cold, and check the voltage on the heaters. if you dont have voltage on the heaters then you have a sensor problem and if you have voltage on the heaters and they are glowing hot then you have a timer problem