Page 1 of Any Fridge Experts Out There? Problems With A Hotpoint Fridge Freezer

As the title says our 9 year old Hotpoint Fridge Freezer has just decided that 2 weeks before Christmas, with credit cards so over used they are smoking & a bank balance the wrong side of 0, is just about the right time to pack in.

It is a Hotpoint Mistral Plus model number 8496X

The problem we have is the High Temp light is flashing, it seems to be working ok, every thing inside is cool, no puddles on the floor etc.

Had a look on Hotpoints website and managed to download the manual, it was no help, just says if the High Temp light blinks there is something wrong and to call an engineer.

I am pretty good at repairing things so am happy to have a go myself, there is shop not far away that carrys most parts but unfortunatly the staff are not helpfull at all, I`ve asked in there before for advice but they won`t give you any, their only answer is we can send out one of our engineers to look at it, for a hefty fee of course.

All the best

Gerald.

Think we had one of these a while back although don`t know the model number. We had problems a couple of times with frost building up on the inetrnal sensors and were told that despite it being `frost free` it isn`t really and should still be defrosted every so often. Maybe worth giving that a go if your freezer isn`t too full.

Worst case scenario if it packs in there are often fridges/freezers up for offer on freecycle if there is a group near you, that could do you over Christmas

Is the compressor running all the time?? It should be if it is trying to cool the unit down.

As Girders said, worth defrosting it to see if that helps. Also check that the drain at the back of the fridge is not blocked.



why take life so seriously..its not like you are going to make it out alive

Very similar issue happened with our Hotpoint fridge freezer. Turned out to be the "thermistor" which is a simple part to replace.

Not saying its the same with yours...but the hotpoint engineer did say that he`d recommend turning it off for 24 hours at least and then switching back on since this often solved a lot of issues. I know it sounds like a crap "have you tried rebooting it?" answer, but might be worth a try.

Good luck
Miles

Wow, thanks for the fast response, I managed to find a site last night that had a few answers. I searched all day and found nothing then, 10.30 last night thought I`d do a simple search for `8496x fault` google came up with a pretty helpfull forum.

It suggested the same as you have, posibly the sensors have ice on them so defrost it for 24-48 hours. If that doesn`t work then there are 3 thermisters in it, chances are one or more of these are faulty, they suggest changing all 3 as you can not tell which one is faulty and they are not too expensive.

The main test they had though was turn it off and back on, you chould be able to hear the compressor start up, and the condensor fan. Then the fan to the fridge should also start. Sure enough all of it was working so going to try defrosting it. If all of these work then the fridge/fans and sensors should all be ok.

We took everything out and crammed it in our small emergency fridge and left it overnight to defrost, no puddles as yet but will leave it for another 24 hours as we have never defrosted it in the 9 years we have had it.

All the best

Gerald.

You might also want to try the UK Whitegoods forum, http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk.

Cheers

Nick

Lets hope you save the £90 it cost me for an engineer to come out and basically just de-ice my thermisters!!! He said they were faulty, but I still felt cheated :D

We`ve got a Hotpoint RLA34 fridge (the fact I can remember the model number will be explained below...)
Pain in the ass it`s been.
We`re on our third one, coz the other two made horrendous noises.
Honestly, the best way to describe it is like Whale song. :/
"Some gas noise is normal", according the manual, but this was daft.
The current one still makes more noise than any other fridge we`ve ever had, but we can live with it.
How the likes of Beko can chuck silent fridges out for under £100, yet Hotpoint can`t make a silent one for double that, is beyond me.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 11th December 2007, 12:58

Ours started making a really loud `clunking` noise which turned out to be the internal fan (that blows the cold air to the fridge)...basically the ice had built up on the back of the plastic panel and the fan was hitting the ice constantly. Luckily I dismantled it and thawed it out :D

Am I the only one here that bins fridges when they break? :/
Repair?
Repair?
This is 2007! :D

This item was edited on Tuesday, 11th December 2007, 13:37