Exit, Refrigerator

In November of 2018 I bought a new refrigerator. I got a French door fridge with the freezer at the bottom. I loved it.

A month or two after I got it, I noticed some plastic parts on the floor. It seemed to be a cosmetic issue, so I didn't think much about it. As time went on, more plastic fell off, but the fridge worked fine for years. 

Then one day I opened the fridge and the right hand door seemed to sink down a bit. When it closed, the doors were no longer aligned. It still worked. But by then it was beyond the warranty. 

Last November it stopped closing smoothly, and I had it jog the right side door up a bit to get it to close. I called the repair guys and they asked about the problem and to send them a photo. Without even coming to my house, they said the part could not be replaced and that I would need a new refrigerator door. The cost was $750.00 with another $150.00 for freight. That did not include the cost for installation. I had paid $1100 so I wasn't going to spend $900 on a five year old fridge out of warranty. I considered just getting a new fridge, but my son suggested that the engineers where I work could fabricate the part with our 3D printers.

So I talked to one of the mechanical engineers and she came over, took the door off the fridge, made some measurements and fabricated a replacement part.

That broke within minutes.

We've since made more new parts, and tried filling the empty space, but nothing has worked. 

We now believe the door was defective. We think the foam insulation was not properly installed and left a gap. We think the door started to fail as soon as I started using it - the weight of the items stored on the door and the movement of the opening and closing of the door caused that interior hinge area to fail. 

So the refrigerator is going, and a new one will be delivered tomorrow. Naturally I did not buy the same brand, and did a bit more research before buying a new fridge.

And yes, a letter to the manufacturer is in the works.