Buy part or new fridge? the 1600 dollar question

[linkmaster6]

Hi there, heres my sob story.

My wife and I bought a house last November that came with all the appliances, which was great. But last month we awoke to the fridge buzzing and clicking, got home from work later that day to find everything getting warm, carted out food to my parents house and proceeded to pull my fridge out.

My fridge is a Kenmore 970-C563493 side by side. Before this started my fridge had no issue at all getting cold, so thinking to myself this isn't a compressor problem. I did a little research online, found the the parts list for my fridge (ftp://ftp.electrolux-na.com/SearsCan...3-44-93-94.pdf look at page 12 parts 30 and 55) and alot of forums about either the starter-PTC or the run relay being at fault. But in all the forums I had read it talked about if the starter has a rattle to it then it is faulty. Mine doesn't have a rattle.

Today I decided to pull my fridge out and vacuum out the dust out of the coils and motor, I pulled the Starter-PTC and capacitor off to get the dust behind it. It was stupid. After I reconnected it and plugged the fridge back in, it went right to buzzing and clicking. So the thermal overload in the starter is kicking it.
After dicking around with it I got it going again.

My question is though can a Starter-PTC be bad without rattling and is the thermal overload kicking in a sign that the overload circuit is bad or that my compressor is beginning to die, keep in mind that when its running it runs strong.

Thanks in advance!

[jeff1]

Hi,

My question is though can a Starter-PTC be bad without rattling

Yes.

is the thermal overload kicking in a sign that the overload circuit is bad or that my compressor is beginning to die

More often than not, yes.

JMO!

jeff.