Had a week where every fridge compressor I touched was a whirlpool from 2011

Last Tuesday I rolled up to a job and the guy's fridge was making this weird clicking noise. I popped the back panel and sure enough, it was a Whirlpool compressor from 2011 with a bad start relay. That was the third one that week, all the same model year range. Then Thursday I had another call, same noise, same age Whirlpool. The customer said the fridge ran fine until it didn't, which is exactly what the other two said too. I replaced the relay and capacitor on all three and they fired right up, but it got me wondering if there was a bad batch of parts that year. Anyone else seeing a pattern with 2011 era Whirlpool compressors going out the same way?

2 comments

2 Comments

blair_allen14d ago

Ngl I had the exact same run of bad luck with those 2011 Whirlpools about two years ago. What worked for me was swapping out the start relay and capacitor like you did, but I also started adding a hard start kit to them just to be safe. Those original relays are junk, they fail from heat fatigue around that age. I had one customer call me back two months later with the same issue because the new relay burned out again, so after that I started using a Supco RCO810 on every one of them. Tbh it costs a little more but I haven't had a single callback since I started doing that.

tara70014d ago

That Supco RCO810 is a game changer for those Whirlpools, I've started doing the same after getting burned on a callback too. @blair_allen nailed it, those stock relays just can't handle the heat long term.