This KitchenAid Refrigerator was put into service in 2007. I thought it died 5 years ago when all it needed was a couple of days to defrost some ice build up in the walls between the freezer and refrigerator sections. At that time we bought a smaller new backup refrigerator thinking we'd also be needing a new main refrigerator, but it was really fine after the thaw out. So we kept it!
Then, the other day, it just stopped cooling. I noticed food starting to get soft in the freezer, but the refrigerator section remained cool until after I unloaded the food from the freezer. I checked everything, reset it, and cleaned off the coils. No luck so I rushed out and bought a 7 cubic foot top load freezer to salvage our frozen goods. Then I went to refrigerator shopping. Once I saw how cheaply the new refrigerators are made as compared to what we had I decided to continue to troubleshoot it. I had the capacitor tested and then decided it must be the Start Device. A quick conversation with AppliancePartsPros.com confirmed the possibility so I ordered the part. I upgraded to the standard shipping and the part was at my house by noon THE NEXT DAY! I already had the refrigerator pulled out and the repair (replacement of the part) took less than 10 minutes. Within a couple of hours the freezer was at zero and the refrigerator was back to normal. After reading the reviews on new refrigerators I was happy to not have to purchase a new one, plus it saved me $2-3000 on a purchase. The refrigerator is all cleaned out and restocked. I get to keep the heavy duty adjustable shelves and bins that all pull out on quality made metal drawer slides. It's running just like new. Hopefully it will continue to provide good service for a few more years.