Refrigerator Hinge

Be careful with your refrigerator door.  The bottom hinge on the lower door of mine just broke--again!  It broke last November, and Norcold sent me a new door since it was still within the 1 year warranty.  Now, 10 months later, the same hinge breaks in the same place.  We didn't store heavy items in the door, and have been careful opening and closing it since it broke last year.  I've read several comments about this problem with Norcold refrigerators and their poor design.  Guess it's better for Norcold to replace a few doors instead of designing a stronger hinge.  The hinge is molded into the door, so you have to replace the entire door.  At least it's easy to install the new door--little expensive after the first one, though.

The bottom hinge on our PC also broke while on a trip.  After calling Norcold, they shipped a new door to the closest repair shop and paid to have it installed.  All this when out of warranty!  Although they’re great in that respect, I agree that it would seem to better to just build the door with a stronger hinge.

We too lost our door. It took three tries to get a new one from Dommetic.
Now forced to keep the door empty and duct tape it shut while on the road.
How they expect to hold all that weight with a small plastic pin in a plastic hole
is beyond me. Time the RV industry got after them to build a quality product
to put in their units

I called Norcold today and was told--sorry, out of warranty--call a service center to get a new door--we don't sell parts.  The cynical side of me says: design a weak product, pay a few claims within the first year, give their authorized service centers extra business selling/installing new doors (it's really simple to install).  Oh, well, it's not worth dwelling on small things.

It's not cynical, I think you dead on. When I worked for Chevy they had nothing but problems with the Citation steering, they fixed the problem long enough to get out of warranty, then SOOOOORY!  I've been there and seen that!


On another note one of our door hinge bolts stripped. I am a little disappointed, the door has four 1/4 bolts. I know thats not PC fault because I believe they buy the door as a unit? Just the same, a little larger bolt would have been nice.

Imichael, is it the hinge or the door that breaks?

For us, it was the door flange that attaches onto the pin that broke.  The entire door had to be replaced, although the wood panel insert was transferred to the new door.

It's the door flange/hinge that breaks.  Since it is molded into the door frame, the whole door has to be replaced.  Both times, mine broke where the flange starts to extend from the door frame.  I've found comments/complaints about this problem online dating back to 2008.

Here is something that could be of interest.  I copied this from another website.

A few weeks ago, the upper hinge on my Dometic fridge door broke and the door fell on the floor. I then noticed that the freezer door hinge was also cracked and ready to break. A call to Dometic confirmed that the only fix was to replace the doors. I invested over $300 in new doors. Today I found a post on a "Sportscoach" site that mentions a less expensive route. The following is quotation from that message. "The upper freezer door hinge broke on my Dometic refrigerator. I checked with Camping World and other sources and was told my only solution was to buy a complete door for $150 or so. Not liking this answer I called Dometic. They said that kits are available to repair all of the door hinges and are available through All Seasons RV Appliance Parts & Service in Elkhart, IN. You can reach them at 800-348-7697 or 800-344-0673. The upper and lower hinge repair kit cost $18.95, can be charged to a credit card and shipped anywhere

I may as well add my name to the list of broken refer doors.  Ours hit the floor on the way home from Florida. Since then we stopped using the shelves on the door when travelling. We also added Baby safety locks to the referigerator, so that the door will not open when driving. The safety locks built in failed a few times.

I will say that Dometic stood by us, sent us a new door at no charge.     

Bill Golden