Probably one of the most reliable devices you will have in your house is the refrigerator, as its compressor has the minimum of moving parts and carries its own lubrication. It’s not uncommon to find fridges many decades old still in use, and fridges are far more likely to be discarded due to broken fittings rather than a failed compressor. An interesting teardown of a failed fridge compressor comes from [turbokinetic], who gives us a professional analysis of how shortcomings in its construction caused it to fail. It’s both an opportunity for a look at the inside of a fridge compressor, and a commentary on the quality of consumer grade hardware.
Electrically the unit seemed unhurt, but the motor wouldn’t pump anything. Cutting the lid off revealed the motor, and it was soon established that the bearing had failed. As the teardown proceeded the conclusion was that the fault lay in the oil being too low viscosity. The designer had picked a very light oil in pursuit of low friction for lower energy consumption, but had ended up with one too light to provide adequate coverage within the bearing. The compressor has a lifetime of around ten years baked into it from manufacture, whether the designer intended it to or not.
You can see the full video below the break, but meanwhile this isn’t the first fridge compressor we’ve seen.
Just a guy and his workshop and this is what I love about these videos! Simply straight to the point and enjoying the moment of finding the problem and discussing it. Sadly the “algorithm” filters such videos from being found.
Being an unlisted video doesn’t help discoverability.
It popped up up on my feed…. eventually..new tech takes time and patience……
I exported top quality compressors from factory in China, one cost less the $85
Maybe it’s just me but this little crocodile clips seem to be a little bit dangerous to plug the compressor … no ?
Only of you don’t know what you’re doing. But this guy clearly does.
Looks like they didnt braze the pupe connections. In my fridge the cheapened up and epoxy’ed the joints. And guess what failed and let the freon escape.
Honestly, I’ve never seen pupe connections on a fridge. But if there was, I guess it would be best to epoxy them. Now, if you’re speaking of the copper tubing, they don’t ever use epoxy on that. They either braise them or use a crimp connector. The newer model‘s often have crimp connectors because they don’t want to braise on the systems that have butane in them.
That is the reason why he showed touching the prong of the compressor plug to check continuity before connecting to live just to be safe.
He flips a switch next to the plugsocket OFF before touching the device or casing. He’s safe.
It’s really ok as those are alligator clips…
I love the engineering in fridges. Many have a leak tube where condensation from the inside of the fridge drips out, into a little bin on top of the compressor. Heat from the compressor will evaporate the water, making sure the fridge is kept dry inside (more efficient and more hygienic) and the water “goes away” without user interaction.
Just never let milk spill down that hole. The smell of it from the drip tray will knock you out.
I’ve seen two of those compressors, both in smaller (for the USA) narrow fridges.
The first one overheated almost immediately and burned out requiring a warranty swap. The second one went about ten years slowly cooking itself to death. The defrost function was also pretty crap in mine.
Makes sure my local rat also has a watering hole.
There’s the fridge compressor to 2 stroke engine using only hand tools. https://hackaday.com/2017/08/16/fridge-compressor-to-2-stroke-engine-jb-weld-for-the-win/
12 years before failure on a low cost, energy efficient consumer appliance is hardly corner-cutting. Cool teardown and RCA tho.
12 years for a fridge isn’t even a minimum in my books. We have better materials, better ability to design, better lubricants, better manufacturing processes. How is it that things still break faster?
Intentionally designed for a specific lifespan. Manufacturers don’t want to sell you something that will last your entire life. They want to make you buy one every 10 or 15 years. Bean counters and shareholders run companies these days, instead of engineers, inventors, and designers.
Phoebus Cartel
Makes the opposite point. Less efficient light bulbs last longer.
Part of the Cartel’s actions were to make sure that each manufacturer’s light bulbs lasted about 2,000 hours. They were “baking in” a limited lifespan much like appliance manufacturers today.
I wonder f Slothrop’s ghost is running around sabotaging old fridges. See Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.
While I don’t disagree that this happens (e.g. printers https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/11/23301272/epson-ink-pad-right-to-repair) – I don’t think this is an example of cynical planned or forced obsolescence. More likely engineering compromises – how much it costs new vs how efficient it is vs how long it’s engineered to last at a minimum vs size, weight etc.
There’s no point in making the compressor less efficient if the thinner oil will last 10 years anyway, and (for example) the seals or insulation are expected to degrade after 9 years.
As a refrigeration tech of over 25yrs I disagree with your statement.
Compressors fail because the manufacturer either cuts too many corners when making them, or riddles them with unnecessary technology. Do we need wifi in our fridge? Or camera’s?
Variable speed compressor, or inverter compressors, fail way faster then any single speed compressor I have seen with few exceptions. LG is the largest contributer to this and information can easily be found.
The insulation used is spray foam which will outlive all of us! Years ago, fiberglass was used and has been used in homes. Are you saying you need to replace your homes insulation every 9 years?
Door seals are made from rubber. They fail mostly from being unsanitary. Something gets spilled, usually sticky, and never cleaned up
My grandpa’s fridge lasted will still ran over 30 years even though it used R12? The banned gas
I wouldn’t even say moving parts but cheap parts that break easy
I also have R12 devices around 30 years old (fridge, freezer). They just work.
I recently tried to get parts for a 15 year old fridge. There is effectively only one parts supplier left in my area as the pandemic killed off many of the older Mom and Pop suppliers who’d barely been hanging on for years anyway. That remaining supplier couldn’t get the part I needed anyway. Refrigerator repair companies are in decline too – mostly older guys approaching retirement with few young people willing to sign up for a job that is increasingly just telling customers that their fridge can’t be fixed due to a lack of parts.
Apparently manufacturers now only have to support fridges for 8 years in MA, and that 8 year clock starts when the model is introduced. So if you buy a 4 year old model and it craps out after 5 years you could be shit out of luck. If you need a fridge less than 36″ wide your options are already limited. Good luck finding one for under $1500.
It really is a depressing realization that you should be budgeting hundreds of dollars a year towards refrigerator replacement. It may not be a big deal for many techies here, but for people closer to the poverty line that’s quite significant for such a vital technology.
The clock starts ticking when the model goes out of supply – it’s the remaining warranty of the last unit sold and after that they no longer need to keep parts available, which is why these days the OEMs introduce new models every two or three years to push the old ones out.
Parts for my 2 stroke mower are hard to find and expensive.
Good thing it’s bullet proof. I might need to leave California to get the oil eventually.
Hmmmm… maybe there’s a market for handbuilt, serviceable fridges out there? Yeah, it’d be expensive but you could have a family heirloom on your hands if the business became viable.
Planed obsolescence.
It seems like newer appliances are designed with planned obsolescence. I bought my Frigidaire 37 years ago and it has had zero maintenance other than wiping off the shelves and vacuuming the condenser. Even the defrost timer still cycles correctly. There aren’t any fancy features; it only keeps the contents cold, which is fine with me. Entry level refrigerators I’ve glanced at in stores recently look much flimsier than vintage refrigerators. I assume a modern basic refrigerator will probably only last five years before all plastic parts inside embrittle and fall apart – or the compressor with low viscosity oil quits.
Account for survival bias, efficiency gains, price inflation/deflation, use cases, etc and you will see we have actually improved a lot.
That was GM Frigidaire, owned by General Motors. Not the same as Frigidaire today which is owned by Electrolux of Sweden but made for the US market at a plant in Mexico. Frigidaire is a shadow of it’s former self.
Those engineers would have died rather than give you a major appliance that would fail you. 30, 40 years later, still working! Today, you buy a major appliance and 3 or 5 years later you are looking for a new one.
Beancounters are running those companies now.
They used to be run by real American engineers.
A fridge should be replaced after 15-20 years
I have seen some fridges that had mold growing on the outside
The problem is that the insulation absorbs watter and stops insulating
Most peaple wait until there fridge breaks but they forget that they are paying hundreds of dollars to the electricity company by “saving money on a new fridge”
Hoax. You sound like the marketing presentatives desperately trying to portrait planned obsolesence as a good thing.
I have metered long-term consumptions of numerous refrigerators among lots of other appliances, old and new. There is pretty little deviation – way too little to ever break even the cost of new refrigerator. And absolutely no increased consumption due to insulations absorbing water. Only significant increase of consumption with age in normal circumstances is due to *really* worn and aged (seldom occurence, and often refurbishable by stretchin while heating with hair dryer) or sometimes-occuring really broken or dirty seals.
Years ago we had a freezer fail by the insulation. It really absorbed and condensed moisture from the air and did not keep it’s set temperature, although running continously. It had to get replaced.
I totally agree. I’ve been in the construction/remodeling industry my whole life and have installed many appliances. I have always built with the intention that things will last a very long time. It’s very frustrating even from a contractors perspective to not know you’re selling products designed to wear out quickly.
Devices breaks down to create business cycles and profits. People tries to develop mechanical aptitude to break the cycle and save, things to check before junking an old friedge. First, if the fridge fan is running check the compressor capacitor, if it’s good, check compressor. Price for a new compressor is around $400. If you know the brazing, installation drill, compressor availability and time constraint are to be considered vs buying a new fridge.
I’m not sure this is really corner cutting, it seemed to have a reasonable life, but the tragedy is that the entire fridge probably had to be junked because the compressor failed..
There are two routes to longevity, the Pyramids of Giza (over-build it to last forever), or the Ship of Theseus (use standard interfaces between the parts so they can be replaced easily over time).
The latter makes much more sense, but unfortunately consumer goods are following neither.
Unfortunately, I think the Achilles heel of the Theseus approach for refrigerators is the Freon circuit. A non-environmentally damaging working fluid would make most of this equipment repairable.
I like the longevity examples–hadn’t heard that before. Now you have me thinking about how to deal with emergent properties in a repairable system…. (i.e. only a complete refrigeration system is able to contain Freon.)
Nothing (legally) can use Freon, for quite some time now. R-134a was the last big refrigerant, but is also phasing out for more environmentally favorable options. Propane is actually a decent contender.
Even with less safe refrigerants it’s still completely possible to deal with them responsibly. The major setback is actually the lack of built in ports for accessing the refrigerant in most domestic appliances. Commercial refrigeration equipment is expected to be worked on and can be evacuated with a vacuum pump fairly easily and added back after the repair. Domestic equipment has the fill port soldered closed after filling and generally requires punching a hole into the copper tubing to access it.
The access tool is available from a HVAC parts store for a few dollars plus a few more dollars for a pack of more permanent fittings to braze into the system.
That used to be true until DuPont Chemicals became Chemours and retroactively renamed all of the HFC Suva refrigerants back to Freon so now their R-134a is indeed a Freon.
Yeah, I made those up.
Of course for refrigeration, the working fluid has to match, and the expansion ratios etc have to also match, but the connections to the rest of the circuit could be standard, and then it’s a case of looking for a ‘NEMA 17 compressor’ or something similar.
What would be interesting is a kind of mix between both, where the fridge part is technically separate from the compressor part, so that you basically have an insulated box built like it was furniture, and a compressor cooler that sits in a separate compartment and blows cold air into the box.
It’s easy to build a fridge that lasts forever if you don’t count the mechanical parts, and it’s easy to make a compressor that is cheap and efficient as long as it doesn’t need to last forever.
Also much easier to build a compressor that will last ‘forever’ justifiably if you know if/when the unit its in gets battered by time and retired/replaced the workings are still transferable to the pretty new box.
That is the way commercial restaurant refrigerators and freezers are done. There is plumbing from the case out to the compressors. The compressors are usually mounted outside so a lot less noise. There are units like this for the home market but they start at $10K on up.
Considering my previous fridge lasted 30 years, I would be furious if my replacement dies after 12 years.
Great video and analysis, but I do think some corners have been cut.
Drawing such a conclusion from just one examined compressor is a bit shaky.
One thing missing is an examination of the lubrication circulation circuitry. It’s possible excessive wear has been caused by the lubrication system not working as designed, and this could have been just a rare exception.
Bearing pictures would have helped. Why did the bearing fail after 10 years so badly?
I’m with you.
Is there any oil filter? It could be some dirt during manufacturing that remained inside. It could be manufacturer has a general dirt problem and kills a certain percentage just be that.
Who knows from a single item?
No, there is no oil filter and only a very simple “pump”. The oil is more or less sucked up by centrifugal force and transported by the spiral groove in the bearing.
Interesting video, investigating failure modes is fascinating to me. I’ve designed rotating equipment for the space station using journal bearings and water as the lubricant. Liquid ammonia also. I’d like to know the method for delivering oil to the journal bearing. I think this bearing was starved for lubricant at startup which caused wear and the clearance between the shaft and bearing to increase. That condition will exacerbate the rate of wear and lead to earlier failure.
Samsung fridge compressors use a spring for energy storage and a million moving parts to get a few percent higher efficiency number on the showroom tag. Unfortunately, they barely last their warranty period resulting in class action lawsuits to get Samsung to replace them. It’s a bad compressor design.
It is quite terrible for owners, spoiled food and waiting weeks for a repair, if you’re lucky. Imagine a house with no fridge, these are mission critical.
Honestly Samsung refrigerators have a relatively solid compressor. They have internal fridge compartment issues. I repair them on a daily basis.
I can easily imagine that!! A little over 3 years ago I bought a whirlpool fridge (along with complete set of other home appliances) ! The fridge died at 2,yrs &10mos condenser repair estimate roughly the same as purchase price. Bought /upgraded fridge to match kitchen suite. It crapped out just over 4mos!! Now, over 2mos with NO fridge!
Auto industry proudly refers to it as “programmed obsolescence”
Yep. You double the speed of something you quadruple the wear. Saw it all the time little compressors eating their own guts. But those big old Tecumseh ones just plodding along for decades.
I bought used KitchenAid once. It had a replacement compressor. On day it stopped working. So I put my gauges on and fired it up. The act of putting the gauges on it let out so much gas (I.e an once of gas) it burned out the moment it turned on. They make them so cheaply these days that the act of testing it could destroy it.
Sorry, but that can only mean you did it wrong. Gauges are easily attached without wasting refrigerant. I don’t think we can blame this one on the manufacture.
Maybe you should have just checked the running capacitor. My Kitchen Aid is 25 years old.
The compressor would run also without gas. You can use it as an air compressor, although it has really high oil throw as it is intended for the closed system.
Your compressor must had another failure.
For things that are designed with tight tolerances and high speeds, you actually do need the oil to be as thin as water so it can make the gap. Thicker oil would not have made the design last longer, because the oil film might not form properly, and in any case the thicker oil in a tighter design would simply heat up until it starts to flow. The thermal stress degrades the oil faster and causes the lubrication to fail anyways.
What most likely happened was a manufacturing defect that left a burr or a piece of debris in the compressor, and it got churned up and fouled the oil, which then wore out the bearing.
Great video and commentary, thanks!. I like the no BS, down-to-earth monologue with no silly music or camera tricks. For those that like this kind of forensic mechanical excursion, check out I Do Cars on YouTube.
Bearings seem to be the failure mode of most of my appliances, mine usually fail from water ingress.
My washing machine leaked water down the axel into the wash drum bearing, and my shop vac delivered salty water from my annual garage puddle through the motor along with some air to cool it.
Failed dishwasher’s motors were excellent, but failure mode was the machine’s float switch not always floating until after it had leaked a couple quarts onto the floor.
My unsupported suspicion is that multi-decade reliability has been gradually value engineered out of anything built since around about the turn of the century. We had an analog Amana still working after 18 years when we left it behind for an international relocation. I’d wonder if the electronic controls in current refrigerators will last 10 years before a component fails, usually requiring replacement of an entire – and expensive – circuit board.
Several years ago I bought a brand new Maytag refrigerator which came with only a one-year warranty. Sure enough the compressor failed after 53 weeks. Thankfully the company repaired it under warranty anyway.
The technician who replaced the compressor told me he was installing the brand Mayag used to use, but they had switched to using junk.
In my opinion, some bean counter figured they could save a few bucks per unit buying cheaper compressors, and either believed the new manufacturer’s test results or just didn’t care.
The theory is that an MBA can manage any business, without needing any technician knowledge. You’d think companies would know better by now.
There are some machines made to last.
https://youtu.be/cRgbfxJ8MTQ
I worked in the lab at Maytag refrigeration. Maytag and Amana (and many other brands) are owned by Whirlpool. They use Embraco compressors from Brazil. Whirlpool owns Embraco.
In the time I was there I saw how the life tests for refrigerator compressors went from 20 year life to 15 year. This was a business decision to sell more refrigerators. They loosened specifications on everything so they could save a buck.
German precision.
A somewhat modern German car will start to generate maintenance costs the same as the payment on a 5 year loan for same on the cars 5th anniversary!
Lets see GM do that.
Never buy an water cooled German car.
If you have a fridge/freezer/air conditioner/heat pump with a dead compressor and no other problems, it is still possible to replace it with with a new or used compressor of similar specifications.
The primary difficulties are:
1. Refrigerant fill and drain ports are not always provided. You may have to buy and fit self-piercing service valves aka vampire taps.
2. Removing and recycling the old refrigerant requires not only special equipment, but a licensed technician. You are probably best off hiring someone to do this for you, which could be expensive.
3. The refrigerant lines are almost always soldered directly to the compressor. You will have to cut out the old compressor and solder on couplers to attach the replacement, and leak test your joints.
After that it is easy enough to rent the equipment to evacuate and refill the system, and new refrigerant and compressor oil are cheap and readily available.
I would love to see an article on this
These are the reasons that domestic refrigerators and freezers are disposable items – lack of serviceability, and the barriers to servicing them.
And for some good reasons too. The refrigerants have their own handling precautions, with safe collection and disposal being a major environmental and safety concern.
Adding ports and valves and unions not only adds cost and complexity to the design, but it also adds failure points. A factory soldered joint is much more reliable than a fitting in terms of its likelihood to leak gas. Vampire taps might be ok to top up and get a few more years out of one, but they’re a serious leak potential to noone is going to guarantee. They’re probably better just used to evacuate the lines for a ‘proper’ repair
So the compressors requires replacement. Pretty standard item right? Just need to match the size and flowrate, the refrigerant and oil type compatibility, the operating pressure, the electrical operation. These combinations probably add up to 20 or 30 different compressor styles that need to be stocked.
Ok now the barrier to service. There’s tools and skills or course, as well as legal requirements. Some of the refrigerants are dangerous, either poisonous or flammable or both. (a fridge tech once told me a particular refrigerant + flame = some nerve gas). Modern ones also operate at higher pressures than older ones, meaning the quality of work needs to be higher and the tolerances for air/water/oil contamination much lower.
Since most joints are going to be soldered/brazed that’s hotwork in a cramped space full of what is probably flammable insulation.
And then you still need to pay for all this. Replacement/repaired compressors might be cheap, and new fittings/lines probably so as well, but the refrigerants are definitely are not – at least in small quantities. Add on the technical expertise, specialised tooling, compliance costs (incl disposal), callout(s), guarantee/warranty on work. That does not add to a cheap job, and is exactly why repairing a fridge adds up to half the cost of a new one.
Don’t get me wrong though, it’s something I would like to see happen more.
In particular the soldering of the lines I see as particularly difficult/dangerous. Perhaps a small induction heater could be used for this.
@bootstrap The refrigerant lines are brazed not soldered. Due to this a very high temp is required. I use a Smith brand Little Torch which comes with several different tips including a “c” shaped tip with flame jets all around the inside of the “c”.
If you’re a do-it-yourself type trying to replace your failed compressor on a budget and living paycheck to paycheck then I think you realistically kick step #2 to the curb to avoid the headache and expenses of special equipment, licensed professionals, reclaiming/recycling refrigerant, etc.
Seriously. Put the thing on a dolly, cart it out to your backyard, some gloves and safety goggles, hold your breath then snip the refrigerant line at the compressor and walk away while the old oil and refrigerant escapes. Considering how many TONS of refrigerant have been dumped into the atmosphere over the past decades, I don’t think a couple more pounds is going to realistically matter much. Odds are the refrigerant is one of the “green” HFC’s after we transitioned away from ozone depleting CFCs.
Get some emory cloth, silver solder, some paste and a propane torch then swap in your replacement compressor then borrow some guages, fill it with oil, & 134A then be done with it.
Just my opinion.
AIUI, most of the CFCs released into the atmosphere were the result of manufacturing processes such as the manufacture of Styrofoam type products. But in banning all use, the “little users”, such as techs cleaning switch contacts or freeze spray suffered too.
B^P
And please don’t leave the vampire clamps in place. They WILL leak over time.
Just last week the old fridge in my garage died. No point in repairing it. Craigslist showed me four people within 5 miles offering free refrigerators that had stopped cooling. I got one of those, a $9 bottle of R134a from Walmart, and a $7 bullet valve from amazon. I own a set of HVAC gauges, but you can buy the refrigerant with a simple gauge attached.
Add enough refrigerant to raise the pressure from negative to about +1 or 2 psi, and it works again.
If that doesn’t fix it, just go get another free refrigerator.
But do NOT drag home a Samsug fridge, no matter how new. Just read a few of the reviews by people who purchased one new.
You misspelled Swampscum!
B^)
Before y’all get too upset about modern devices, there was an alternative hypothesis about the cause of death on hacker news when this was posted there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32466128
> I suspect this fridge compressor has been misdiagnosed.
>
> Yes, the bearing has failed.
>
> But I suspect it was caused by a substantial DC electrical current running through the motor on top of the AC current it was designed for.
>
> A DC current in many motor designs causes a large sideways force, and that caused the bearing to wear.
>
> DC currents can be caused by improper wiring or another faulty device in the house (or even in a neighbour’s house)
This.
Bit weird but I understand the failure mode now without seeing the one small bearing
Perfect.
Survival bias say “the old ones were better”, cause no one would remember those that stopped working.
The windings are symmetrical. So also a DC current should create same forces as AC. I think the failure could be to a high number of starts. At start up the lubrication is often less than optimal. The oil runs out of the bearing during the pause and has to be brought back again. That takes some time.
Interesting. I own an appliance repair business. While it’s possible for a compressor to fail like this, it’s not common. Lg has the most compressor failures. It’s usually caused by a faulty valve in the compressor. It will still run just not circulate/cool. It was as a result of poor quality control in one particular South Korea factory. The new lg compressors are better quality.
On refrigerators on general, compressor bearing m failure is not that common. Today’s refrigerators are more apt to have a Freon leak then an internal compressor failure. The r600/butane molecules are smaller then r134 or r12. And the evaporator coils are often made out of aluminum instead of copper or steel like they once were. The current copper is quite a bit more porous and it easily develops pinholes. Many ‘sealed system’ failures are not actually a faulty compressor but a leaky evaporator.
The manufacturers recommended repair for a leaky system typically would be find/repair the leak, install a new dryer and compressor. This could easily be in the $600-1200 range which is why it’s often better to invest that money in a new machine.
How does Frigidaire compare to LG, my Kitchen Aid is 25, but they are now owned by whirlpool so not sure what I could expect in the future.
They’re decent. Most of the newer appliances are more problematic. That’s just the way it is. So you want to get the most serviceable ones at this point. In general I recommend GE, Frigidaire and then Whirlpool products in that order. Other techs may see it differently. But with parts availability and quality that’s my current position. Lg and Samsung should have stayed with entertainment devices in general. The lg laundry stuff is decent but I wouldn’t recommend the other Lg or Samsung products.
[Samuel], you are doing God’s work. I do just a little bit of engineering for my day job, and spend a lot of time thinking about how fully I can satisfy a client’s needs without being told that my design is too expensive.
In the end, usable life can’t be guaranteed, only warrantied. And if people were willing to pay for $10k, repairable, 50-year ‘fridges….. well, the market would speak, wouldn’t it? But no, the same people who complain about “cheap Chinese crap” usually can’t be arsed to look for products made somewhere “better” and when they do look, they complain that it costs too much and go right back to that “inferior” product. The number of times I’ve heard someone say ‘it’s terrible, but it’s cheap and good enough’…..
Nut up or shut up.
Goes both ways there though – if the properly made to last stuff isn’t particularly available, and you can’t actually trust it to be enduring and repairable despite the higher cost as the ‘no-name brand’ company creating it can so easily end up working out as a scam.
You spend extra to buy a decent tool when you KNOW its actually worth the money, when so much stuff these days is slick advertising of a pretty outer shell, massively overpromising for a shoddy product and the company that created it can just dissapear 3 years later etc. There really isn’t a good choice to spend more as even if the product seems to exist the average person can’t trust they are not just throwing the money away…
You can buy a 10k USD$ fridge. It’s called a Sub Zero. I owned a used one for 4 years. Leaked refrigerant at the aluminium evaporator. There is a kit from manufacturer to fix this and it includes new evaporator and compressor for the low low cost of 1500 USD$. Even the door seals are astronomical. Mine was a model 500. It was like a boat–happiest day of my life–the day it arrived and the day it left.
Rather proving my point – Sounds rather like the ‘extra premium’ product markup scam, as 10K unless its room sized or something is stupidly expensive to fail so quickly… Why is why most folks will just buy the 10x cheaper white goods that lasts just as long…
I’m sure somewhere out there there are good ones, and maybe with just a sample size of 1 this ‘Sub Zero’ is actually one of them and you just got very unlucky. But paying 10x more without certainty its going to last – even if it only lasts 5x as long… If you ever had the hassle of a fridge/freezer going wrong, potentially spoiling its own value worth of food and then having to go without till the new one can be delivered the peace of mind its going to last so long you may die before it, at worst you need one replacement/repair in your lifetime, makes that seem worth the premium if you can afford it.
Unfortunately that’s the way it is. And you can give recommendations on better quality equipment that may or may not cost more. Most of the time they’ll still go to Best Buy and get the fancy junk that only lasts four years.
With the economy being what it is they may not be able to afford the better products.
I would like to think that’s right but the purchased product doesn’t often reflect that.
Live alone in
This is a teardown video worth watching from a guy who knows his mechanical engineering. He shows how the compressor’s manufacturer made a design decision intended to improve energy efficiency but ended up reducing the MTBF (average lifespan) of the device.
Here in California, we lost a rather large energy plant due to “Cost Cutting” by engineers/buyers. (Nobody will say who) You may have heard of San Onofre nuclear power plant shutting down. Now the public must pay twice, once for decommissioning, once for reduced power output. (Higher prices) It seems the superheater tube material spec was changed, (Again, no suspects) and the system failed. When a nuclear plant fails, engineers seem to panic. Fingers were pointed in all directions, yet none landed on a suspect.
I maintained power plants for 20 years, and the exact same thing happened. An engineer changed the tube spec and the system failed in three months. But, he was an engineer, so no harm, no blame. In my opinion, power plants should not be designed like the light bulb it powers. (designed to burn out)
I’ll tell you what happened at SONGS.
The old American made equipment needed to be replaced for some reason, and SCE chose Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to make new heat exchangers. The cost was billions. However, when the warranty for performance was discussed Mitsubishi would only warranty it to $400 million, with the reasoning that more would put them out of business. SCE accepted that.
When the new heat exchangers failed in a few months Mitsubishi reportedly paid the $400 million and was done with it, and the plant was now fatally broken. It remains fatally broken. Why? Because the state regulators let the ratepayers be responsible for paying for the cost of “stranded assets.”
But my reasoning would be that the only way the ratepayers should pay for “stranded assets” would be through the rates for the power produced by the plant. If SCE made a business decision to shut the plant down, there were no rates being paid so no money from ratepayers leaving SCE to pay for their own business decisions.
I think companies and people who are getting paid can reasonably be responsible for their own mistakes. I sure always have to pay for my own mistakes.
Typical short sighted decision.
Back in the beginning of multiple energy fiascos, (1980s) the feds demanded “utilities” pay co-gen plants more money per KW than the current rate of sale price. (Pun Intended). Here in the Edison area, sale price was around .04 to .06, and the feds mandated .12 cents paid to “New” co-gens. It’s no wonder Edison didn’t like that.
Edison then mothballed some large “Gas” plants, reducing capacity. It was not long until prices went way up, and then ENRON scammed a ton of cash.
But we all know this.
Today the rates are still high, and will never go down.
My family used an old 1950’s era fridge that lasted close to the y2k. Cant remeber exaxtly when it kicked the bucket, but i think it died more or less from pests getting into the old farm house rather than a mechanical failure of its own. Now it is used as a dry pantry. Dont make em like they used to.
Fascinating inputs! Keep on trusting your God given discernments.
Where are solid-state (Peltier) refrigerators up to in the cost-efficiency-longevity space these days?
They are so way down in energy efficiency that I would not consider them.
If this bothers you, never take the covers off of your garage door opener. Open contractors instead of micro switches, (or better, magnet sensors) nothing protected from corrosion. Depressing.
I inspected many of these compressor teardowns when I worked at Maytag. I notice that the design has changed a lot. There was a locator cup on the top of the shell that held the motor in place. There was also an “Oil Slinger” that was in the bottom of the shell and would scoop oil up from the bottom of the compressor shell and spray it all over the inside of the compressor. I would suspect that not having an oil slinger would be a likely design flaw that would cause infantile failure.
Thank you for making this video. I do a lot of repairs on just about everything, but never a compressor, which led me here. But the words you say at the end about the quality sound exactly like my own words, far far too often. I’m just super happy that someone else “gets it”, and sees the world from the same point of view that I do. As I try to explain things like this to friends and family, and no one ever listens nor cares. But for me, I have to research almost every product before I decide on a purchase. And I value quality over everything, price, quantity, brand, aesthetics, etc. And I think most things we purchase should be able to perform their job for a person’s lifetime. We shouldn’t have to buy the same Chinese made product over and over from Walmart. As this cycle is just plain irresponsible and inexcusable by manufacturer AND customer, and makes no sense to me. We are basically paying China to fill up our landfills with their junk. And everything they make is junk. And it’s impossible to “boycott” Chinese-made products. But I do the best I can to avoid trade with that backwards country. In search of quality products, I find that anything Swiss-made is made with the quality and mindset that a product shouldn’t have to be repurchased in a person’s lifetime. I think that the US should look to Switzerland as an example of how products should be made, as in America, we seem to value pride in the things we make the most. That’s great, as pride goes hand-in-hand with quality. I just don’t know how to point out the obvious to everyone. They are all out rebuying their junk at Walmart in bulk.
I agree! I want to purchase a new refrigerator MADE IN AMERICA. It is almost impossible to find out where appliances are manufactured (and their parts)! I also want to avoid R600a as it seems to me that compressors using this refrigerant are failing (from what I see on line within 6 months to 1.5 years after installed in the home???!!!) I have read that the “redesigned compressor parts that accommodated the use of R600, have been the point of failure”. OK, so now I’m trying to figure out if there are any refrigerators available in my area that have the older refrigerant R134, in hopes that buying an appliance with that will last past a year and a half?! Suggestions? I realize R600a has been brought in for its less negative environmental effects—Does anyone know of any resources that can help me identify American made refrigerators without R600 compressors that last longer that 5 years?