Portable Fridge

[dwaters]

G'day all, I am thinking about buying a portable fridge to mount in the back of my D3 on sliders.

Can anyone recommend a worthy fridge?

I know the engels are great and have been using them at work for the past 20 years but would like to hear of some other opinions.

Cheers
Darrem

[justinc]

i recognise engel as a great brand too, but i have 2 waeco, a cf50 litre and a cf80. apart from dodgy electrical plugs, they are now hard wired, they have been excellent.

jc

[SimonM]

I had Waeco, same as JC, and it was fine. I now have a fibreglass Evakool - made in Oz and love it.

[DoctorJ]

Totally agree with JC that the only problems I've had with my Waeco have been the electrical plugs my solution is to use the Merritt plugs

Cheers
Julian

PS if you look at all the reviews the Waeco is consistently on top with the Engel and ARB fridges, choose from one of those and you will be fine

[dirtdawg]

I've had my evakool for a few months now hard wired I to the disco so it's always on its a great fridge I paid 650 for the 60l with the cover and all leads can't fault it for the money and its identical to te waeco except that this says 60l and it is 60l the one thi g amount the Engels and waecos that annoyed me was the sizing they are mostly around 5ltrs less than what they say like the waeco cf50 is only 45 Ltrs inside

[Ashes]

I have an Engel MT45 and it has operated perfectly for 2 years. I don't have experience with any other brands so can't comment on them. You don't hear too many stories of the better brands failing. Avoid the 3 way 240v/12v/Gas jobs as these don't work well on 12v in the car.

Size is important! Fridges can take up quite a lot of boot space so bigger isn't always better. Carefully work out your needs here. Big fridges take up space, are heavy to lift and use more power especially if they aren't full. If you have kids, look to build a box around your fridge/slide so you can still use space on top of your fridge for gear (with a cargo barrier installed of course). If we are touring, the box and slide go in. Day trips near home or supermarket runs on a hot day, just the fridge tied to the anchor points.

[connock]

I Had a engel running in my Defener and roll lux befor that and it ran 24/7 for 11 years ( had sola panel on roof hard wired) So came the time to get a new one (sold last one with car) and had to go for a new engel ( the best IMHO)
When off roading with a not so full fridge place a beach towel in fridge to stop everything bouncing about;)

connock

[komodo]

My suggestion is 40L or smaller.

40L is more than enough for a weekend trip.
40L is also a great freezer size and you can keep an esky cold by rotating out ice packs or frozen water bottles from the "freezer" on longer trips.
Beer is better out of an esky than a fridge ;)

I had an 80L and whilst its great its just too big. I'm actually getting two smaller fridges to replace it. This gives me flexibility to have one in the trailer one in the car or two in the trailer one as a fridge one as a freezer etc.

The other thing is that it works out nearly the same $$.
Oh and "theoretically" two smaller waecos will draw less for the same cabinet space as a single larger fridge.

[BigBlueOne]

I have a 40l Waeco which has been running either in the back of the 90 or in the house full time since i bought it in March. Great fridge.

[~Rich~]

I have a really old 29ltr Engel, I made up a lid which extended the capacity to the same as a 39ltr Engel.

On my recent Simpson trip we managed easily to fit all the food in for 2 weeks in the bush for 2 adult men.

Some points though:
Cryovac meat packed in meal lots, packed into shallow flat plastic storage containers and stacked.
Cheese & dips also fitted in these containers.
Only have enough beer or other cans in the fridge for that evening, restock as you take them out.
Use heat treated milk in 250ml popper packs which does not have to be stored in the fridge.

Be smart on what has to be in the fridge and you do not need a huge one!

[Gords]

I've got a 60l ARB and it's great. Fixed a lot of faults of all other brands- its got great power usage, has a drain to clean out, lid pops off without breaking, electric temp set, low power cut out, etc etc.

I've got a good fridge comparison article which compares every make I can email you if you pm me your email addy.

Cheers,
Rob

[Ashes]

Drain plug would be nice on the Engel. Much easier to clean.

[scarry]

Old Engle,39l lives permanently in the D4,coupled to a Traxide dual battery system.

As said,always use a merrit plug,sometimes called a hella plug and you can't go wrong.:)

Don't have a slide,it just sits in the right hand rear corner behind the cargo barrier.

[komodo]

Personally I think the Engel is the pick for a fridge that "just works"
The ARB is an Engel (or at least the early versions were)

The waecos are IMO a damn fine fridge but they are let down by a really bad control board. You can bypass this...

All of them hate a lot of water ;)

The engels use their own motor (sawa fuji) most other name brands use a danfoss which is also used in most domestic fridges. The cheaper clones use a chinese copy of the danfoss.

All of these fridges benefit from fitting a small (80mm) fan to recirc the air around (like most modern domestic fridges), you can choose to make this come on with the compressor of run all the time.
They also work better when filled as it is easier to chill "thermal mass" than to chill air. A towel of the bladder from a cask of wine works well to fill space and stop things bouncing around and smashing up on corrigated roads - nothing worse than pulling into camp to find you beers busted and you jar of jalapeno smashed with glass and pickled chillis everywhere.

Merit plugs or anderson plugs to replace the crappy cigar plugs supplied on most fridges is also a good option - and use good cable! voltage drop caused by drawing too much current over too small a cable will cause issues

[Phoenix12]

Or why not go for the best...... (IMHO of course !).....
and try National Luna............

Sure they cost more, but from personal experience with other fridge brands (including waeco and arb), the NL Gear is a cut above.

Cheers

[Tombie]

Personally I think the Engel is the pick for a fridge that "just works"
The ARB is an Engel (or at least the early versions were)

The waecos are IMO a damn fine fridge but they are let down by a really bad control board. You can bypass this...

All of them hate a lot of water ;)

The engels use their own motor (sawa fuji) most other name brands use a danfoss which is also used in most domestic fridges. The cheaper clones use a chinese copy of the danfoss.

All of these fridges benefit from fitting a small (80mm) fan to recirc the air around (like most modern domestic fridges), you can choose to make this come on with the compressor of run all the time.
They also work better when filled as it is easier to chill "thermal mass" than to chill air. A towel of the bladder from a cask of wine works well to fill space and stop things bouncing around and smashing up on corrigated roads - nothing worse than pulling into camp to find you beers busted and you jar of jalapeno smashed with glass and pickled chillis everywhere.

Merit plugs or anderson plugs to replace the crappy cigar plugs supplied on most fridges is also a good option - and use good cable! voltage drop caused by drawing too much current over too small a cable will cause issues

The recent Engels all have 2 fans already mounted.

A smaller unit up high (this is the one that ends up making a lot of noise) and a larger unit on the compressor unit.

[vnx205]

I have a really old 29ltr Engel, I made up a lid which extended the capacity to the same as a 39ltr Engel.
... .... ....
..... ... ...

Be smart on what has to be in the fridge and you do not need a huge one!

I agree.

I suspect that it doesn't matter how big the fridge is, you can still fill it if you aren't careful.

I did a trip to the NT with 2 adults and 2 children and a trip to Broome with 2 adults. Our fridge on both trips was a 15 litre Engel that we borrowed from a friend. On the second trip we fitted all the fillets from a 71cm barramundi in with all the usual food. We never felt the need for anything bigger.

I am convinced that part of the secret is the shape of the containers. I refused to let my wife put anything in a round container in the fridge; it had to be a square container. The amount of space wasted by round, tapered or oddly shaped containers can easily halve the usable volume.

I'm not suggesting that you should look at a 15 litre, but I am convinced that a lot of people buy a fridge that is bigger than they need, pack it inefficiently, complain that it isn't big enough and at the same time complain about how much space the fridge occupies in the back of the vehicle.

[komodo]

Inside the cabinet I'm talking.
I know the big engel combi unit has a fan internally but none of the others to my knowledge. Happy to stand corrected

[dirtdawg]

The only reason I went the 60l evakool over a 40l was that its the same width and length only taller so why not go the extra and it was only $50 more than the 50l

[Gords]

The ARB is an Engel (or at least the early versions were)


Correct, the old ARB fridges were made by Engel. however the current generation ARB's are made in the Waeco factory to ARB's specs.

[DoctorJ]

Waeco have just released a new model range with some neat features, putting it in my mind at the top of the list it also gets rid of any defincies the previous models had if you are in the market definitely worthwhile to look at

Cheers
Julian

[discotwinturbo]

I have a large FF70 waeco purchased new in 1995. 17 years old and has never missed a beat. Danfos bdf50 compressor. Was a big risk spending that kind of money then when no one had ever heard of waeco.
It's aluminum sided, plastic lid. Plastic lid did warp a little, so used engel clips to lock it. Base inside fridge has small cracks, but for 17 years of crap in the back of a ute, 3 discos and a patrol, it still has plenty of life left. Key seems to be, is to use them all the time....it's rarely turned off.
Brett.....

[sniegy]

I have a large FF70 waeco purchased new in 1995. 17 years old and has never missed a beat. Danfos bdf50 compressor. Was a big risk spending that kind of money then when no one had ever heard of waeco.
It's aluminum sided, plastic lid. Plastic lid did warp a little, so used engel clips to lock it. Base inside fridge has small cracks, but for 17 years of crap in the back of a ute, 3 discos and a patrol, it still has plenty of life left. Key seems to be, is to use them all the time....it's rarely turned off.
Brett.....

I agree,
I have an Engel that is the same age & did think about the Waeco when purchasing my 2nd Engel, but as you said, no one had ever heard of them &/or their reliability.
Good tip is to keep using them.

Cheers

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner

[DoctorJ]

Good tip is to keep using them.
Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner

If your not using them you are not getting out there enough:p

Cheers
Julian