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Can anyone help???  The Electrolux RM212F fridge in our caravan works fine on mains and gas, but has stopped working on 12V when towed behind the car.  It used to work, and would chill so much it would keep ice cream solid ... and has done many times. 

First diagnosis was a failed element - so there is a new element in.  On 12V, the new element does heat the fluid, but not enough to circulate it round the system.  The fluid gets hot so I can just about hold the pipe, but nowhere near as hot as the mains gets it. 

The car is pushing out 13.4V or more, measured at the connector in the wires below the fridge.  Switch the 12V element on and the voltage drops to about 12 at the same point, so there is some load going into the element. 

To try and eliminate earth or corrosion problems, I've fitted a brand new plug to the grey cable on the van, made sure the grey socket on the car is clean, wired the fridge earth to the centre pin so it doesn't share any other earth load, and given the car earth wire a good seat on a shiny bolt. 

And now I've run out of ideas!  Can anyone suggest anything else I can try?  Holiday to France is looming and I'd like to get there with a cold fridge ... 

hi i may be wrong but i always thought that the fridge would not cool of the 12volt supply.  It will only cool of  the 240 mains or the gas.  The 12volt only keeps the temrature when travelling.   I will keep my eye on this topic as i may be wrong

        Coljac

I always thought 12v kept firdge chilled cos you cannot regulate temperature with dials like you cna mains and gas.

We always chill fridge before setting off and it stays chilled when connected to car. As far as i know will not chill fridge from car if fridge is not cold before hand.

All we do is switch red switch that lights up when on car. Should only light up when car ignition on as well so it doesn't drain battery when stopped for a rest.

If you look at the original posting, Viragored said that it used to work fine on 12v, so I think it's safe to assume that there is now a fault.

I've never tried to chill mine from the car as I always pre-chill on main if possible & load fridge with pre-chilled food too. Anything to help lower the strain on the car battery....especially if you're driving an automatic you can't bump start!!!!!!

Ethel,

The fridge works flat out on car 12v - there is no regulation of temperature.  You will find reports elsewhere on here about frozen fridges after long trips.  I don't know where the pre-cooling idea comes from: if there's no temperature regulation on car 12v, there's no difference in load on the car's electrics all the time the engine and, by definition, the fridge is working.  I know I pre cool - I just don't know why !!

Nezza,

The fridge continues to work on gas and mains - So if it runs on gas and mains still - it maybe ain't the fridge: more likely a problem with supply eg. voltage drop for the reasons I posted earlier.  If it was a fridge problem then it wouldn't work at all in all likelyhood.................<shrug>  It could possibly be a 12v element replaced with a 240v one in error.  Still it's easy enough to eliminate using the tests I suggested.

Thanks DB for the suggestions.  I was beginning to wonder if the problem might be in the car, with not enough amps able to get through to the fridge supply on the grey socket.  But, the relay switches in a good (fat!) cable in a single run via a fuse at the battery to the relay; the relay output is direct onto the grey multi-core cable.  Anyone know of a way to test the amount of current it can pass?

But I've put a freshly charged leisure battery onto the connectors under the fridge - they are on the tails of the element's own wires.  The element reached the same temperature as when the car is on, it's hot but not so hold I can't hold the pipe and not hot enough to get the fluid circulating so I don't think the car is the problem. Wonder if the new element is itself duff??

At least the weather forecast for this weekend is good enough to get out and get under ... the van and run in a complete new cable with fat wires.