Common fault
Why is my wine cooler not holding temperature?
Short answer
Put a thermometer in among the bottles, because that number and the one on the front panel are frequently not the same number.
The reasoning behind that
Wine cabinets fail quietly. The display sits contentedly on its set point while the wine a few inches away is warmer, since the sensor is placed where the air still circulates and the racks are not. On a dual-zone cabinet, one zone holding while the other climbs clears the compressor and points at the evaporator, fan or damper serving the zone that drifts. In Mission Hills there is a question to ask before any of that, which is whether the cabinet has anywhere to put its heat. These are nearly always retrofits, built into pantry or dining room cabinetry by a cabinetmaker rather than an appliance installer.
How the diagnosis goes
The ventilation check takes a minute and it can change the whole diagnosis. Find the grille, usually along the bottom of the door or across the toe-kick, and hold your hand in front of it while the compressor is running. If nothing is moving, or the air coming out has nowhere to go because the cabinet is closed on every side, the unit is recycling its own heat. No component replacement fixes that. It is one of the few faults where the answer is carpentry, and it is worth knowing before you pay for refrigeration work.
If the air path is clear, we go zone by zone. A single drifting zone points at its own evaporator, its fan or the damper feeding it, all ordinary parts. Both zones climbing while the compressor runs is a sealed system or condenser question. Both zones climbing with the compressor not running at all is control or power. We confirm with a probe at bottle level in each zone, because that is the temperature your wine is actually at, and it is routinely some way off what the front panel is claiming.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Reviews
What Mission Hills customers say
Viking oven took forever to light and then thumped when it did. He measured the igniter, said it was drawing low, put a new one in. Parked on a tight street and hauled everything up our front steps without a word. Lights right away now.
The Wolf had been baking cool for months and I kept blaming myself and the recipes. He put a probe in the oven and it was running well under the dial, so the sensor had drifted. Bread comes out right again. Should have called last winter instead of buying more thermometers.
There was a rattle behind the grille you could hear from the next room, plaster walls carry everything in these old houses. He said debris off the canyon gets pulled into the condenser fan, which sounds much worse than it is. Cleared it out and it went quiet.
Rated 4.9 from 617 customer reviews.
Appliance down in Mission Hills?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Is a Sub-Zero from an early Mission Hills remodel still worth repairing?
Usually yes. This equipment runs for decades, and what stops it is discrete parts: an evaporator fan, a defrost heater, a thermistor, a door gasket, an ice maker module. Repair is usually cheaper than replacement, and any replacement has to match a cabinet opening and panel front made for the old unit. We work on the older mechanical models and the current integrated columns.