Dometic Waeco CoolFreeze CF-80ACDZVERB

Fantastic fridge/freezer – Bought my CF 80 for a round Australia trip. Found that it performed extremely well, even in the back of our Patrol at temperatures in the high 40's.Only once did it let me down. That is when a gecko crawled into the cooling fan and shorted it out, Fixed in Cairns. My Waeco was dual zone,good sized freezer and also refrigerator. Bounced around… Read more

Australia for 5 years,extreme heat and dust, People will recommend more costly fridge/freezers but give Waeco a go. Fantastic.

Surprised And Bewildered As To Why Inside Paint Peeling Off – We have not used this fridge all that often as we have a smaller Engel that is easier to cart around so only use it when we want to have duel fridge freezer when we go camping for a week or more. Have discovered when i went to wipe it out last time that the white plastic coating on the inside is starting to peel of in bits.  Show details

top product – Fantastic product. Size is ideal for caravaning. Holds all your meats etc at constant -18 .no spoilage . Bought another one to carry in vehicle. Recommend to any one as the have a proper compressor fitted . Even on really hot day 44 c it still maintained constant temperature at -18  Show details

A great unit when hooked up to 240V but – The Waeco CF80 came with our camper trailer which runs everything electrical via 3x100amphour deep cycle batteries. When on a powered site with batteries plugged into 240 V the unit is a ripper, can't fault it. However when bush camping or on an unpowered site when the battery voltage gets down to around 12.3V the unit ceases to cool although the… Read more

fan keeps running continuously. This is with the units battery monitor set on low (should cut out at 10.3 V) and yes I've had all the batteries tested and they are in perfect condition. Have had great assistance from local Battery Word dealer in trying to address the problem but to no avail. Am selling unit to a mate who will mainly run it off 240V and have bought a 57 litre Engal Fridge freezer which I'll test on its maiden voyage coming up soon.

Waeco - Be Aware if you buy one they are a Lemon – Waeco CF80 Fridge Freezer. LEMON - LEMON - LEMON - Chinese Land fill I have updated this review (01-01-2017) and downgraded it because it has stopped working AGAIN. the reason is it now gives an "err1" message of which i can find no reference as to what the fault is other than it needs to go to a Waeco repairer which will probably be another… Read more

expensive repair.

I have contacted a Waeco Repairer & they want approx $66 just to look at the problem before any work gets done which would suggest to me that some people have not wanted to go ahead with costly repairs.

If you don't believe me on how much trouble these units are do a search on line & you will find plenty of out of pocket Waeco owners of all models who are dissatisfied.

ABOUT OTHER REVIEWS ON THIS SITE & OTHER SITES FROM WAECO OWNERS

Admittedly there have been some good reviews on Product Review about these units BUT HOW MANY HAVE COME BACK AND UPDATED THEIR REVIEWS WHICH IN SOME CASES ARE OLD.

Some are newer REVIEWS just after they have bought them WHICH IS NOT A TRUE INDICATION OF SATISFACTION & RELIABILITY over a long term.

If they have had problems since they put in their original review they havent come back to update it, maybe some don't want to be embarrassed they made a bad choice.

I have had mine for approximately three years & have updated my review a few times.

Even though I am reviewing the CF80 here, the negatives I will add seem to encompass ALL OF Waeco's range.

It does have some good points but they are negated mainly by poor reliability, poor quality fittings & expensive repairs.

The Danfoss Compressor is probably it's best point, seems to work fine & I have had no problem with that.

Waeco is made or assembled in China (enough said).

I believe the Danfos Compressor is German made & seems to be reliable.

When I went searching for a portable fridge freezer my intention was to buy an Engel but sticker shock set in when I found out they were much dearer & heavier than the Waeco.

Always thought Engels were the go because of reliability but read some stuff online that Engels fail to, so maybe newer Engel's are not as reliable as the older ones?

Apparantly Engel is now assembling some of their units in China but not all, as I have seen some sites on ebay advertising Japanese made units. That is actually Made in Japan.

The reasons I originally settled on the Waeco CF80 was that they were quite a bit lighter (essential when Caravaning or Camping as weight means a lot especially if you are retired & have to lift them.

The Waeco had a good internal design & I loved the idea of being able to use it in either freezer/fridge all freezer or all fridge combination.

It looked good, loved the design, It seemed to tick all the boxes. HOW WRONG WAS I.

THE NEGATIVES

1) Before the warranty expired mine stopped working correctly & the compressor never turned off.

This is a common fault with Waeco & is caused by the fact that a Thermistor failed.

The Thermistor regulates temperature it is a sort of thermostat.

This is a very common fault with all Waeco's & you never know when it is going to happen.

Apparently Waeco fit two thermistors so that when one fails you can then plug in the second one. That's if you are aware of it & how to do it.

Mine was fixed under warranty but It took some time & I think I was without the unit for nearly 4 weeks (Not happy).

If you happen to be out of warranty I think the cost can go as high as $400 (Definitely would not be happy).

Now you can buy a thermistor kit "on line" (You need the Long lead one) for about $30 delivered but then you have to replace the old one which is a long tedious task as they are buried in the insulation which means firstly trying to dismantle the Waeco then digging out the insulation to remove & replace the old one & replace the insulation afterwards.

Another one of my thermistors has failed again, of course mine is now outside the warranty so if I take it to a Waeco repairer I am up for a huge bill. (probably in Vicinity of around $400

As I said this is a very common fault so if you buy a Waeco expect it to happen to you.

The thermistor failures are huge worry considering how often they fail & the cost to repair.

If you intend keeping a Waeco for a long period I have visions of you spending as much money on thermistor repairs that it would come close to costing you the total of buying a new Waeco (very worrying) Probably the amount spent on recurring fault fixes would pay for the more expensive Engel Unit

But ....

There is Hope, I have repaired my Thermistor it is not hard & not complicated, wont cost you much at all, just a little time.

Considering the actual cost of just buying a replacement, after market thermistor (no lead or plug) from companies like Jaycar Electronics is about $1.75

If you want to know how to do it e-mail me at,

LRPE.MCC@ bigpond.com

I will email you back a file with some photo's on how to fix yours for a small outlay of probably around $10 depending on what stuff you may already have lying around.

2) It has not happened to me (yet) but my friend has same model as me and the 240 volt section of his has failed so it will now operate only on 12 Volt. He is not going to repair the 240 volt side as it is to expensive to fix.

3) Another common complaint & fault is that the door latchs & hinges are plastic, light weight, not very strong & durable.

Numerous complaints about them breaking & having to be replaced.

You can buy better quality metal replacements on line from other sources but they are not cheap.

4) It would appear that the internal wiring may be underated from articles I have read.

Also there are quite a few reports that the displays cause problems, as well as the up & down buttons can fail requiring replacement.

5) Now you can use the waeco in an all freezer function by removing the two slide baffles.

Just be aware that this is only partly successful as the freezing elements are at one end of the unit only, so if you have it stacked fairly full you will have to move your frozen food around otherwise the opposite end to the freezer elements never get frozen completely. The best option is to freeze everything before you put it in the Waeco as it could take days to freeze, if it will freeze them at all if the whole unit is to be used as a freezer

It is a good idea to try & leave some room so the cold can distribute a little more evenly between each end.

This of course reduces the amount of storage space.

Conclusion & Comments.

Waeco must surely aware of the complaints about their units so why don't the upgrade & fix them?

Make it easier to completely replace the thermistor setup

Considering the amount they cost the warranty should be upgraded to two years.

Maybe they are relying on more constant income from spare parts knowing full well that if a customer has spent about $1600 on buying one they really are forced to repair it rather than do their money by discarding it.

Must be a good money spinner for their repair agents.

A UNIT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING ................ YOUR MONEY TO THE REPAIRERS

I wish I had bought an Engel

If some one from Waeco reads this perhaps they could also modify or upgrade their units so the internal baskets are reversible, in other words instead of only being able to have a one third freezer basket, by making it reversible you can have a two thirds freezer basket, a choice of size.

Also could they redesign the carry handles so they can collapse to save on length of the unit rather than having to spend time unscrewing them so that the unit can fit into a smaller space.

Regards,

L. McCALLUM

Rubbish - Cheap and nasty! – We picked up the brand new cf80dz 2 days prior to our camping trip, came home pluged it in, set it to freeze for 48 hrs. It droped from 26c to 18c. Called waeco and they didn't care or want to help. The compressor ran cooling fans ran but no cooling either somone forgot to gas it or it had a leak. Poor quality backed by even worse customer service!! Cheap, flimsy, bad latches, dosent even work from brand new.