I called KitchenAid’s customer service line and asked for their parts department. This actually doesn’t make me feel special… My “high-end” fridge had cost thousands of dollars… and was barely seven years old! KitchenAid’s website, however, still showed the part priced at $225.79 as a “Special Order” item: My search results included a number of major online appliance parts outlets that listed the control board’s part number… but all of them showed it as “Out of Stock.” After 20 minutes of searching through parts providers’ websites and owner DIY forum posts, I was shocked to discover that I was far from the first to have these types of problems with a KitchenAid, Whirlpool, Maytag, Kenmore, or JennAir fridge - all of which used this exact same Whirlpool control board with part number 2220398, W10219463, AP4411082, 2307028, W10185291, 2307005, 2303934, 2252111, or 2223443 (depending on the brand).īut the kicker was that all sources reported the same thing: that part is discontinued, and Whirlpool Corporation (who owns KitchenAid and all those other brands) doesn’t make it any more! I figured there’s no way that could be true. The service sheet showed the main circuit board’s part number was 2307028. I looked up that part number, figuring I’d able to quickly get my hands on one for decent price, especially since my fridge was only 7 years old, right? It may not be a treasure map, but it’s still got what you’re looking for! Here’s a close-up of the slightly melted water tube: Every time the ice maker called for water to make more ice cubes, water would spray out of the hole, forming a puddle on the floor. That tube was hot (due to the fan not working), and it had melted a small hole in the ice maker supply tube. I also noticed that the small plastic tube feeding water to the ice maker was resting against one of the copper heat-exchanging tubes. That’s explains why the mullion strip (which houses some of those heat-exchanging tubes inside the fridge) was warm, and why the the unit wasn’t able to keep things cool. To oversimplify it a bit, that means that while the compressor was circulating coolant through the metal tubes inside the fridge (to absorb heat) and through the tubes attached to the condenser coils outside the fridge (to release that heat and cool off), the condenser fan wasn’t drawing any air from the front of the fridge and across the coils to help them cool off. I could hear the compressor running, but I could see that the condenser fan wasn’t spinning. Removing the rear panel to access the condenser fan I removed the vented plastic cover on the bottom of the fridge, where air is supposed to come in, and inspected the coils. If not cleaned regularly, they can get clogged with dust and prevent airflow from cooling the coils as the condenser fan tries to draw air through them. One of the most common causes of a fridge not being able to keep temperature (as well as a warm mullion strip) is dirty condenser coils. I decided to attack the temperature and mullion strip problem first. Upon further investigation, I also noticed that the unit wasn’t able to keep the freezer below 0° F or the fridge below 38° F, and and that the metal divider between the fridge and freezer (which is called a mullion strip) was warm enough to make the rubber door seal give off a faint melting/burning odor. I guessed that all the problems might be related, but I wasn’t sure how. It worked great for almost 7 years, until two months ago… when I noticed a small puddle of water coming from under the fridge. In 2007, I purchased a brand new, stainless steel, side-by-side KitchenAid refrigerator for our Utah house. I recommend you try my extremely cheap and affective (read the comments to see how many people it’s worked for) approach first, before you spend big money on a new Whirlpool part. The letter states “ Due to the failed ACU board W10219463 and the complexity of the control boards function the only resolution is to replace the entire control assembly with a service kit.” I have no idea about the price of this new “service kit,” but I’m confident that the process I explain below is just as effective as it’s always been in solving the control board issue. They published this Class Code 91 Letter (though they never actually explain what “class code 91” means and Google wasn’t any help) with a list of all the model numbers that use the control board discussed in this article… and there are a lot. UPDATE: Whirlpool has finally publicly admitted (kind of) that they’ve left their customers “high and dry” with this control board issue. This entry was posted in DIY Reference and tagged 2307028 capacitor control board CoreCentric DIY fix FixYourBoard fridge JennAir Kenmore KitchenAid Maytag refrigerator relay Repair replace W10219463 Whirlpool on Maby Steve Jenkins (updated 2671 days ago)
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