BEKO Fridge Freezer Fault - after 3 months!

From UK, 4 posts

Hi all,
I am new to this forum so I don't know what sort of comment this observation will attract, but I'll tell you about it anyway!
I moved house and bought a new BEKO Fridge Freezer on 5th March 2007 (delivered two weeks later).
I will edit this post to give the model number which I don't have to hand at this moment - but it is the largest available and has the cooled water dispenser in the front.

Sunday afternoon this week we noticed that food in the freezer had defrosted.
There was power to the unit - the blue light above the door was glowing proudly!
There had been no power cut - all digital clocks on appliances were still fine.

I think the fan in the back of the fast freeze compartment was also still running.
Pulling out the fridge from the wall, we established that the compressor was not running - turning up the stat in the fridge had no effect.
The fridge was turned off at the mains and then switched back on again - the compressor started up again.
It ran fine for about an hour and then stopped again.
The "radiator" on the back of the unit was warm and the compressor was very warm.
Turning off the plug socket and turning it on again had no effect this time so I left it turned off for about 10 minutes.
When I turned on the plug socket again, the compressor sprang back to life - and stayed on for a further hour and a half before stopping once again.

This leads me to deduce that there might be an over-temperature cutout on the compressor.
When the compressor got hot it cut the power.
Unfortunately, it does not turn the power back on again and the unit seems to require a complete power shutoff to reset whatever is causing the problem - a hard reboot if it were a computer.
Perhaps someone could confirm if my assumption is correct here.

Anyway, Comet were contacted this morning and are sending an engineer out on Thursday - the first available appointment.
I will update this post with whatever information I can get through interrogation of the attending engineer.

It is surprising to me that on a 3 month old machine, I should experience such a breakdown.
Is this a one-off (a Friday afternoon Fridge/Freezer perhaps) or are there any similar cases out there?

What is more annoying is that were I to submit a claim under my insurance policy for a freezer full of wild smoked-salmon (I wish) then doubtless my premium would go up next year - all because of faulty goods and not through any fault of mine.
I am now wondering if taking out the three-year extended warranty which Comet tried to sell me three months ago, might not be a bad idea!

Martin

From UK, 4 posts

Further to my earlier message, I can now confirm that the model number of the Beko Fridge/Freezer is CA7015FF.
More to follow once the engineers have called.
Martin

From UK, 4 posts

Latest update - an good news.
Comet engineer diagnosed a "system fault" which is appropriately vague.
He guessed the fault was more in the gas area than in the electrical system - but unfortunately, since gassing equipment is so expensive, few engineers carry the gear.
He contacted a superior to arrange a plan of action an a replacement fridge/freezer was immediately authorised.
Apparently this is a fault that has been identified on a couple of freezers of this model and the cause is a blockage in the refrigerant piping.
The Comet shop offered either a direct replacement or an alternative of similar value.
My new fridge/freezer arrives on Tuesday next week - I have ordered the same one again as the faults are few and far between (I hope).
This is the only fridge/freezer I could find with a decent size freezer section - most assume you want a huge fridge and only enough freezer for a tub of double-choc-chip icecream and a bag of frozen peas!
Thanks Comet - good show!
Fingers crossed the new one lives up to Which? Magazine's second to top rating for reliability for Beko.

1 post

What a coincidence I purchased a Beko fridge freezer in Sept 2007 from Currys
In Jan 2008 the fridge defrosted itself and spoilt all my food
I contacted Currys who told me to contact Beko direct
I contacted Beko who promised to send an engineer within 2 days.
After 3 days and no sign of an engineer I contacted Beko again and they said it would be another 4 days.

Not happy with this I went back to Currys and demanded to see the manager.
I refused to move into the back office and made my complaint in the main showroom, raising my voice when it was obvious that he was just trying to deflect me back to Beko.
Eventually he gave up and left me.

I proceeded to walk around the store telling customers not to buy from this store.
The manager followed me around at a distance and came to me saying that he would call the police if I did not stop talking to the customers.
When I continued he called the police who said that if I did not leave they would arrest me.

It took 2 weeks before beko sent an engineer to repair it who replaced the main compressor unit.

In Oct 2008 it defrosted and spoilt another lot of food
After many phone calls and missed appointments for which I had to have time of work, altogether 4 days, the engineer replaced the same component on Christmas Eve.

Christmas day it defrosted itself again.
This meant that for 5 weeks leading up to and over Christmas we had no fridge freezer. Wife not happy

Once again many phone calls resulted in an engineer calling on 8 Jan 2009. He said that the Compressor seemed to be okay and the only thing he could do was to change the thermostat and the defrost timer. Having done this he said that if this does not work there was nothing else to change.

He changed both components and as before it started to work, so he left.
2 hours later it had defrosted itself.

On 9 Jan having contacted Beko again they said the fridge freezer would have to be replaced but I would have to pay £100 towards the cost.

Having contacted our local trading standards they informed me that I should not have to pay and advised me to write to Currys and Beko.

I am composing the letter and will let you know what happens

From UK, 4 posts

I had forgotten to update regarding my replacement Beko fridge-freezer which if you recall was replaced by Comet.
All went well for a while with the new freezer, but then we noticed again that the freezer was not working right.
This was in November of 2007 - so still well within the original warranty period.
The engineer was dispatched again and this time there was a different fault - occuring with some circuitry inside somewhere.
This had resulted - and I don't know how this works - in there being a huge block of ice formed in the space where the compressor is housed - or at least in front of that inside the freezer where the compressor compartment is.
This time the parts were unavailable and so I was advised to go back to Comet to arrange for a replacement.
As this was the second of this model to develop a fault, I insisted that I be allowed to choose a different replacement - if possible by some manufacturer other than Beko. Comet agreed and I paid the difference in cost to move to a similar machine from LG. The LG does not have the same proportions as the Beko and so my freezer is now too small and the whole unit is slightly narrower, but to date - touch wood - the LG has performed faultlessly.

1 post

For information I have recently experienced a fault with my Beko fridge freezer model CDA 543F - 18 months old. It defrosted spoiling the contents of the fridge and freezer. The engineer reported it was a fault with the compressor; it appears to have been leaking gas through the drainage hole and finally the compressor apparently sucked in air and stopped working.

Looking at the reviews on the comet web site it appears other people have also experienced problems with compressor faults with relatively new appliances.

My replacement doesn;t arrive for two weeks. No ice lollies for three weeks and we're finally having our 'Indian summer'!!! My next model is not a Beko!!