From personal experience, and the comments on the web, I've come to conclude
that the Dometic refrigerator exists solely to fight boredom on long camping
trips. It seems that the German engineers felt that Westfalia owners would go
crazy without something to tinker with on camping trips, so they purposely
selected the Dometic refrigerator.

In addition, it gave the Westfalia owner something to brag about. Rarely do
you hear discussion of how fast a Vanagon owner was able to travel on the
freeway, more often you will hear stories of how low a temperature their
Dometic refrigerator. <g>

Rumor has it that some people have reported making ice cubes in a Dometic
refrigerator but wiser minds believe that this is the stuff of urban legend -
or a product of winter operation of the fridge.

Humorously,
Todd
'88 Westfalia with Dometic food warmer

Marty Wallace wrote:

> Just bought a '84 Westy; Everything works perfectly, with one exception.
>
> The refrigerator works fine on A/C (when the van is hooked up to 120VAC),
> but effectively does not work at all on 12VDC (battery) or gas.
>
> We started our weekend (Friday) with the van plugged in (at home) and the
> 'frig' nice and cold.  We then spent the weekend camping ('frig' on gas
> mode when parked and battery mode when driving around).  By the end of
> the weekend, the 'frig' was no cooler than the inside of the van.  The
> pilot light was on (I could see it in the view port and by the light in
> the panel).
>
> Is this typical of this model refrigerator?  What have your experiences
> been?
>
> Thanks,
> Marty Wallace (1984 Westy)
> Chico, California
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