949. Maytag now on my S--- List

After the GE refrigerator mess (see previous posts) I thought I couldn't possibly hit a worse one. Step in Maytag and a freezer I bought about 10 years ago. Seems the 'frostless" freezer never did properly defrost automatically and we had to unplug and manually defrost. Since it was out of warranty, we settled on that until a few days ago when during our manual defrost work I decided to remove the inside back panel to check out the inside. There hung the evaporator coils by two bolts on top and no other securing. Well, that was NOT the issue that concerned me. Below it the back panel, the one the evaporator coils were attached to, had a hole at the bottom as if someone had tried to secure the coils at the bottom. But instead the panel was both cracked and had a hole. Think maybe that's why my freezer was frosting up and not defrosting properly? Actually there was about a 4 inch long by 1/2 inch gouge out of the panel and the center of it was eroded with at least one hole all the way though. Another crack and hole was on the left side facing the evaporator coils. The appearance suggested that the back panel was damaged during manufacture and patched p with something that did not last. I wish I had taken a picture to add to this post! Just imagine it is a 4" x 1/2 tooth with a large cavity. Of course a patched hole would not be recognizable when purchased since it was covered with another panel on the inside of the freezer. Thus, a major flaw was covered up and warranty period not adequate to catch it. Nice work Maytag. Thanks a lot.

I repaired the "cavity" and other hole/crack with a plastic bonding glue and Flex-Seal and covered it with thermal tape. Hopefully this should do the job and we might see the defrosting actually work. If not, no loss, it is old and a manual defrost every 2-3 years can be tolerated.

This illustrates again the poor workmanship of America's workers. Certainly not like 40-50 years ago when you could depend on quality. I guess I just have to ignore the quality problems and act like a 20-30 year old and just throw it out and buy a new one. My parents who lived through the Depression years couldn't afford this and I, despite being able to, still have their expectations.