Refrigerator repair options. (how much, home, buying)

[marchalimbu]

Have a 5+ year old GE refrigerator that ran perfectly well until a few weeks back. First the cooling is gone. I am a bit technical oriented and figured that the condenser fan was not running. Ordered and replaced it and the fridge works fine. After two weeks, again same problem, so replaced the circuit board. But now again, the fridge is not cooling good.
Any suggestion? Had called a professional (seemed so) who came and "observed" the fridge from 3 ft distance and said you should replace it.
He charged $55 for that .

If buying new is the only option, which brand is the best?

Thanks

[captne76]

What is probably happening is if you call a pro for repair, the repair charges add up rather quickly and then if it keeps on breaking down you would've been better off buying a new fridge.
Other than that I would suggest searching online to see if its a common problem which may have an easy fix.

[marchalimbu]

An Update,
The Sears technician came to home and diagnosed that the Defrost Cycle was not running due to heater gone bad.
He was very nice and explained every thing and even suggested that I could do it my self since I have already done other changes. It was worth spending the 75 bucks and I am taking up the repairs my self. All I need is to replace the Heater and Temperature sensor cap.

[TechGromit]

Originally Posted by marchalimbu

... It was worth spending the 75 bucks and I am taking up the repairs my self. All I need is to replace the Heater and Temperature sensor cap.

I tried the route once. Refrigerator stopped working, had to toss a frig worth of food. I fixed it myself, got it going again, two weeks later it failed again and had to toss all the food again. I found it cheaper to just buy a new one. if it was anything else, like a dishwasher or range where I could try this or that is see if it fixes the issue, I'd do it, but when you have to toss hundreds of dollars of food away each time, your better off you replacing the damn thing. Including the cost of the compressor, circuit board, two service calls and now a heater and temperature sensor cap, how much did you spend on this thing so far?

[marchalimbu]

Well, lets see. First service call was not worth the $50. Without checking much, he gave a wrong diagnosis.
Then out of our own research we spent 6 bucks and replaced a capacitor on the circuit board. Then another 25 to replace the conductor fan. Another 125 for circuit board. Another 75 for second service call from Sears.
Another 40 for the heater and temp sensor.
So total is 50+6+25+125+75+40 = 321. Luckily we had a spare refrigerator so we didn't have to throw any food etc.
I would say if the ref works for another 2 years without any issues, I will buy new one after that. The current one is 8 years old.

Thanks for your advise and interest.

Take care.

[marchalimbu]

Two weeks since changing Heater and Temperature sensor. Ref works absolutely fine. No issues so far.