Your fridge isn’t cold, and you’re doing the math on what’s inside it and what fixing it will cost. Here’s the short answer from techs’ own price lists. A service visit runs from about seventy-five to a couple of hundred dollars. A repair on the gas or electric side is often a part and an hour. A dead cooling unit is the expensive repair, starting around eight hundred dollars installed on the rate cards we found, and a whole new refrigerator usually costs more than that before anyone installs it.
Before you pay for any of it, though, check the things that cost nothing. The refrigerator not working guide walks through them. Most absorption fridges that “stopped working” are off level, sealing badly, iced up, or packed so full the air can’t move.
Every price below comes from a tech or shop that publishes it, with the date we read it.
One warning before the prices
If you smell ammonia near the fridge, or see yellow powder or staining behind it, the sealed cooling loop has leaked. Turn the fridge off, on gas and electric both. Dometic tells owners to stop using it and have it inspected. That’s not a repair to put off, and it’s not one to diagnose by switching it back on to see what happens.
What a fridge service costs
A yearly service on an absorption fridge means cleaning the burner and flue, checking the flame, testing it on gas and on electric, and looking at the vents and the cooling fins. It’s the visit that keeps a fridge from becoming a repair.
Published prices:
- Mobile Craft in Davenport, Iowa: $75 plus tax.
- Ranger RV Services in Texas: $99 for preventive maintenance. i75 RV in Kentucky: $99. Done Rite RV Mobile Repair in Montana: $99.95.
- Safe Travels RV Services in California: $100 for an absorption refrigerator cleaning and safety check.
- Tidewater RV & Trailer Services in Virginia: $110.
- Airstream of Albany in New York: $119.99.
- Ratliff Mobile RV Repair in Texas: $160.
- 3R RV Service Center in Missouri: $165 for an absorption refrigerator, and $82.50 to check a residential refrigerator.
- Open Roads RV Center in Kentucky: starting at $253.
Mobile prices usually have a trip fee on top. The mobile repair cost guide explains how those work.
What a diagnosis costs
When the fridge has quit and you don’t know why, somebody has to find the fault before anyone can price a fix. Adventure RV Rentals’ service shop in Michigan lists a refrigerator diagnosis at $70. Many mobile techs charge their trip fee plus their hourly rate instead. Ask whether the diagnosis counts toward the repair if you go ahead.
What a repair on the gas or electric side costs
If the fridge cools on one power source and not the other, the cooling unit is fine and the problem is in how heat gets to it. On propane it’s often a dirty burner, a weak igniter, or a thermocouple. On electric it’s often the heating element or a fuse. Those are inexpensive parts.
The Roaming Wrench in Wyoming lists refrigerator repair, gas or electric, at $150 plus parts. That’s a fair picture of what this kind of job costs: a visit, an hour or so, and a part.
What a new cooling unit costs
The cooling unit is the sealed loop on the back of the fridge that does the actual cooling. When it fails, the fridge doesn’t cool on either power source, and nothing on the gas or electric side will bring it back. It can be replaced without replacing the whole refrigerator.
On published rate cards:
- An Oak Grove, Minnesota shop that works only on RV refrigeration installs reconditioned cooling units for $790.
- Bud’s Total RV Care in Texas lists cooling unit replacement starting at $800.
Those are starting prices. Larger two-door refrigerators cost more to do, and the job usually means pulling the fridge out of its cabinet. Ask whether the price includes removal and reinstallation, and what warranty comes with the unit.
What a new RV refrigerator costs
For a sense of the other side of the decision, a new 8 cubic foot Norcold 12V compressor refrigerator was listed at $1,339.95 at Nomadic Supply on the day we checked, before shipping and installation. Bigger and two-door models cost more.
Installing a new one is rarely just a swap. A different model may need the cabinet opening trimmed or filled, and switching from an absorption fridge to a 12V or residential compressor fridge changes what it needs from your batteries and your charging. Ask the tech to price the install, not just the unit.
Should I repair it or replace it?
A few plain rules most techs work by.
It cools on one power source but not the other. Repair. The cooling unit is fine.
It doesn’t cool on either, and the free checks all pass. It’s likely the cooling unit. Price a replacement cooling unit and a new refrigerator side by side.
The fridge is old, the cabinet is cracked, the door seals are gone, or the controls are failing too. A new fridge often makes more sense than putting a new cooling unit in a tired box.
You boondock, or you’re on shore power most of the time. That changes which kind of new fridge suits you. Absorption runs on propane off grid. A compressor fridge needs battery and charging capacity. Tell the tech how you camp before they quote.
What to ask before you book
- Is the price for a service, a diagnosis, or the repair?
- For a cooling unit, is it new or reconditioned, what’s the warranty, and does the price include pulling and reinstalling the fridge?
- For a new fridge, is installation included, and will the cabinet need work?
- Is there a trip fee on top?
The next step
Check level, check the door seal, and look for frost on the fins and for ammonia smell or yellow residue at the back. If it still won’t cool, write down whether it fails on gas, on electric, or both, and give a tech that. To see what mobile techs in your state charge to come out, the mobile RV repair cost pages list every published trip fee and hourly rate by state.