Had to go in for a new fridge as my steady and sturdy LG 285 ltr that had stood by me silently n efficiently through 3 house changes, was inadequate to support the needs of a growing family. and the Whirlpool 450L professional elite seemed to be the only fridge of its capacity to fit the available width space of 29".
Impressed by the review of astrofreak, we went ahead and purchased the 450L prof elite model.
The power cord seems to be of standard length for all whirlpool fridges of all capacities. despite this one being extra tall. just abt managed to fix it to the voltage stabilizer placed on top of the fridge, close to the back edge and it cant be moved even a mm fwd now.
The compressor would make quite a lot of noise every time it started [which was quite frequent], sometimes even wake us out of sound sleep in the middle of the night.the guy who had come for "installation" 2 days after the fridge was delivered n set into operation said the fan belt was loose/ tight, would settle down in a few months.[btw, this guy was all set to move the fridge all the way in front, when fully loaded, in order to get the product id, which we showed was already mentioned and a sticker stuck on the user guide, didnt bother to fill in the installation report n checklist n take it with him!].
When we got a call from the company abt a week later asking for feedback, and when we mentioned the noise, they said it was coz of the compressor being new, and would settle down in a couple of months. it has to an extent or maybe we r just used to it!
The fridge started smelling a few days later.an unpleasant garlicky odor, whenever the fridge door was opened, that could be smelled even 20 ft away! had never experienced anything of this sort in all the yrs of fridge usage-be it my LG frost-free of 6 yrs or the direct cool refrigerators of the last few decades that my family had used!
Our lifestyle or food habits had not changed in any way since, and couldn't understand what was causing it. Finally, when I could take it no more, [and found the time to call up the service help], realized that the phone number printed in the user guide [non toll free no. for my city] was incorrect n lead nowhere.Finally had to call up the dealer we bought the fridge from, and lodge the complaint thru' them.
They said the service guy would come over after taking an appointment. but to our shock, he arrived at our door next evening at 8pm, without any prior notice!
He knew abt the odor prob [the job sheet he had brought along read that]. He said the deodoriser wud cost us Rs.160 [he said it was a paid accessory and didn't come pre-installed with the fridge as I had thot it does in every basic fridge too!].
When we gave our nod, he opened a small box n took out a cartridge of some sort and proceeded to fit it inside the vegetable crisper! I stopped him saying that the the rest of the fridge was smelling and not the veg compartment- so he fixed the thing to the back of the top compartment of the fridge, below the chill tray, took our signature, the 160 bucks n was gone in less than 2 min!
When I recovered from the daze and looked at the opened case, I realised that it was a Freshonizer that he had fitted and not a deodoriser [I knew that the 2 were not the same- having read the user manual before n after buying the fridge and also from basic knowledge of the English language and some common sense! but the service guy was long gone, and we didnt have his Cell no, since he hadn't called before coming. This time, went to Whirlpool website and got the correct helpline no, and to my horror, got a recorded msg saying it was functional only on weekdays from 8 am to 8 pm! Sent an email in the meantime, to which I have got no response till date [10 days now].
Next morning, [Thurs] called up the helpline, which drew a blank. was a public holiday for Pongal.
Called up next day[Friday] and explained the situation to the lady there- she said she would send an engineer this time, who would come after calling only.
The fridge continued to smell, for obvious reasons!
Got a call finally on Monday afternoon, and the guy who came this time, wore a whirlpool t-shirt, but didnt look or behave like an engineer.even worse, looked into the fridge and told me that the deodorizer had been fitted and triumphantly pointed out the Freshonizer to me!
I lost my cool and shouted at him for not knowing the basic difference. asked him to call up his boss- he connected me to some woman- and she went on to try to convince me that nowadays, in the new models, deodorizer is called Freshonizer, and that both have the same function!
I had lost it by then, and gave her the basic definition of the two terms, as patiently and politely as I could in that frame of mind! she said her Manager would call me up by evening and look into the matter!
By then, I found the user manual, looked up the deodorizer page, and showed it to the confused service guy, the location and function [near the magic light]. he opened it up and realized that the deodorizer was indeed missing, and when he fished around with his finger, found it lodged in some corner deep inside. just a tiny 1"X1" flat strip of activated carbon in a 3"X2" slot! He sheepishly said that it must have got displaced during transportation. and that in other models of whirlpool fridges, it is located elsewhere, hence he didn't know.
But does that give him or his predecessor or the other woman he connected me to, the right to equate it to a Freshonizer, which has a totally different function, just on the basis that both the words end with "zer/ser"? Is it just a lack of knowledge of basic English in this country or just plain unprofessionalism of not knowing their job well enough?
The 1"X1" strip is doing its job now, albeit not to perfection.I presumed it maybe'coz of inadequate air circulation due to the glass shelves instead of wire racks as in my older fridges, so I have moved the shelves a bit forward [a few mm each] just to allow the cold air to circulate a bit better all around.
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Contd below in comments due to lack of space
