Refrigerator failure

[NN5I]

Phooey, my fridge has failed. Doesn't cool, at all, on either AC or propane. I've thrown away all perishable food.

It's a Norcold 682, which is a primitive gas fridge with an AC heater in addition to the propane flame. I think probably all the refrigerant -- which may be hydrogen gas -- has suddenly leaked.

I can buy a new (rebuilt) cooling unit for about five hundred bucks, and it shouldn't be too difficult to install; but RV fridges basically don't work worth a flip even when in good shape, so I'm considering just buying an apartment-size fridge that will fit in the same space. It'll cost about the same, or perhaps a bit less.

I've always hated this fridge! In hot weather the fridge part only gets down to about 36 (after several hours when it's been opened to put something in or take something out) and the freezer never goes below 15 degrees. In cold weather the freezer gets down to about 6, and liquids freeze in the fridge where they shouldn't. Really crummy temp control. I like compressor-type fridges with real thermostats that will maintain 32 degrees in the fridge and zero in the freezer in any weather, as basically any of them will do.

Also it doesn't have any provision for defrost -- gotta do it with a hair dryer. Then it takes hours to cool back down.

Rant: Why are RV appliances such inferior junk, and why so expensive? RV fridges, for example, are vastly inferior to even the cheapest stick-house fridges of the same size, and cost three to five times as much, and are as primitive as what we had in the 1950s (or late 1940s) when I was a kid. When I bought the Diesel Pusher, it was the first time in 50 years that I had to defrost a fridge manually.

Anyway, that's why I'm thinking of giving up gas operation n order to have a modern, self-defrosting, compressor-type fridge. When driving, I'd just run the generator when I needed to.

Comments? Advice?