Thetford Refridgerators

[Afyfe]

Our caravan has one of those Thetford fridges fitted where the source of power can be manually sequentially selected (Battery/gas/mains) by pressing a pushbutton.

I find that after working at the sink or kitchen area the fridge power source usually has changed from - say, mains to battery.

This is caused by inadvertantly pressing against the pushbutton which is of bad design being proud of it's surrounding surface instead of being recessed

Has anyone else experienced this and thought a power source failure had occurred.

 

[adrian_374544186]

Your lucky you can get yours to work at all mine has been a dismal failure together with the replacement. We have had to hire a fridge, buy one from Currys (not practical to lug around) and we have lost two lots of food. And it cost me a holiday in the Bahamas as my wife refused to go to the S of France without a proper fridge and I am still trying to get this sorted and may have to resort to the only option left. I am now miffed as I cannot book a ferry whilst this is un resolved. Thr Dealers have been very helpful but 4 years on and much tinkering and still no fridge. Thetford has not enhanced its reputation in this neck of the woods Im afraid!

 

[J.Lo]

Alistair, I had the same problem with it changing from mains to gas by somone leaning on the control panel. I overcame this by turning the gas supply to the fridge off. The van went back to the dealer three times in its first two months of use because of problems when running on gas. ( it would go out and would not relight for a couple of hours,I gave up in the end and just put up with it. This is a Swift van and will be changed at the end of the year for any van that does not have a Thetford fridge. All the dealers must know they are a problem, the caravan makers know there is a problem and Thetford must surely know. J.Lo

 

[Guest]

Have to throw in tuppence on the other side of the coin, I am afraid.

I have a Thetford fridge and over the last 5 years it has worked absolutley fine. I note that it works in the Mediterranean heat far better than the Dometic one we had in the previous van. However, I admit mine is a budget model and does not have any push buttons. The choice of fuel is by a knob that is rotated.

 

[xtrailman]

My dometic fridge has broken 3 times in 6 years, each time the 240v element, so buying a caravan WITH OUT a dometic fridge is at the top of my list!

The opposite to the above. funny but until reading this thread i have not read any negative posts re thetford.?

 

[Soozeeg]

Thetford did have a bad batch of circuit boards 3 or 4 years ago. The circuit board on our Thetford fridge (the large/fridge freezer model in our 2007 Adria) had to be replaced twice.

Not quite the same problem as yours though Alistair, sorry for going off topic a bit.