The unit should have started cooling with in an hour. It normally takes 12+ hours for the temperatures to stabilize. We tell customers to not worry about checking the temperature until the next day.
But your case is different if you have absolutely no cooling and the unit has been running for several hours.
It could be just a wire harness disconnected or in a worse case a sealed system leak.

If they can get a tech out today to check the unit and its only a disconnected wire keep the unit. If they can't get someone out until next week ask them to take it back. A DOA refrigerator is a different situation than a refer that has works for serveral months and then quit.

yea they are clueless or lying...However typical wisdom is to give a refrigerator 24hrs to reach a normal 38/0F arrangement

This will normally happen faster with cold food in the refrigerator but not with room temperatur food in there

You might have put it in Demo mode by accident. Some appliances have a special mode incase they are used for a demo in a store. Call back and ask someone how to get it out of demo mode. If anything this question may push you up the chain to someone who can help.

That is the same thing that happened to me with my GE. And they do not know what they are talking about. They told me the same crap.

Go and get an ice chest, you are going to need it.

Now that you have experienced the quality level of the help available and have the chance to get rid of the dud without a lot of hassle, it might be wise to do so. Anyone who would suggest putting perishable food in a defective appliance should be the subject of a letter to the CEO. A bowl of water in the fridge with a thermometer check at the beginning and then again after a few hours with no obvious signs of cooling apparent should be your maximum contribution to the farce.

RF still warm. No surprise there, I guess. It does seem like it's in some sort of demo/showroom mode though. That was a smart call.

As soon as they open, I'll the retailer and ask them about demo mode - how to get in/out. If that doesn't get anywhere, I'll call GE with the same question. If that fails, I suppose I could try unplugging the RF for a half hour or so to see if that will reset the motherboard.

If anyone has any more advice, I'm eager to hear it. For now, we have a service call scheduled in 6 days. Will post my progress.

Was your unit tipped on its side during delivery? Some fridges get the coolant in the wrong spot. I believe the usual cure, assuming do damage was done by running it, it to leave it off and upright for 24 hours.

I'd guess it is DOA, though. Could be a simple repair, which could be a lot easier than redelivering a new one.

Also, no need for the bowl of water -- the thermometer will read the air temp just fine, without the delay that chilling the water would have.

That is the same thing that happened to me with my GE. And they do not know what they are talking about. They told me the same crap.

Go and get an ice chest, you are going to need it.

I went thru this little song and dance about 20 years ago with a DOA fridge. 6 days for a service call is not right. Get on the phone with the retailer and don't take no for an answer. Be a pest. The idea of "demo mode" is just as loopy. Don't let this delay you getting a new and fully functioning fridge ASAP.

Yeah, it might be a simple repair, but waiting 6 days for a NEW fridge to work is not right.

Give me your address and I'll come over and together we'll go down to the retailer and make a LOT of noise. ;-)

Most retailers have a limited time frame for "delivery damage" or "defective on delivery" is reported, after which they won't take back the merchandise. After that time frame, (48-72 hours) the only way you can have a problem addressed is through the manufacturer's service channel. Call the original retailer back and demand a new one NOW. If you don't take this step, you'll be in parts replacement "tech" hell as there are very few actual real appliance repairment left. Most just guess and throw parts at it until it is fixed.

Sorry for the double post

Note: Do not close your laptop to quickly before the post is complete.

Anywho, You are now experiencing GE's fabulous custom service.

My GE arrived DOA. They told me the exact same thing. After many hours on the line with their technical service in India they eventually replaced my refrigerator. That took two weeks. They were so screwed up, I told them I wanted a replacement immediately and they sent a truck from San Jose to pick it up....WITHOUT a new one! The delivery guy says to me "Yeah dude, we get a lot a returns of their stuff. Sigh.

They continued to tell me a service tech was on his way...every day was another excuse. Finally when I received my new refrigerator and I lived with it with 5 years...absolute garbage at so many levels.

Maybe you can rent one while you are waiting for your refund and a refund is what I would highly recommend.

Good Luck.

When you talk to the retailer see if you can exchange it for another brand - GE fridges have a bad reputation.

Put food in it and will get cold...PLEASE! Is that tech a stand up comic as well?

I have heard the same thing evergreendan said about the fridge beig on its side and the remedy but that's been years ago and I seem to remember someone saying that this is not a problem with compressors today. I also remember when "they" said it was a problem, that if you ran the compressor before leaving it uprightfor 24 hours, it would burn up the compressor.

They plugged in my SZ 2 weeks ago and its been at 34 degrees since. No food in it bc we haven't moved in yet.

Next time you get the "put food in it" advice, tell them "That's a good one! I did fill it with frozen foods and that helped for a while until the food thawed!"

I called a different GE service number yesterday and talked to someone who walked me through how to get out of demo mode. Push two buttons for 3 sec, turn off breaker for a few minutes, turn back on and everything's supposed to work fine. . . .

Nope.

I called the retailer and was assured that they would take the fridge back if GE can't fix what's wrong within 48 hrs of a service visit. The earliest service visit they had was for the end of the week. So it will be 5 to 10 days before we have resolution. I totally agree with you, fairegold (and others). This is insanity. If we weren't feeling burnt out from the remodel we'd probably make a bigger stink. At this point, we're just happy if there's something we can laugh about. None of the other appliances are live, counters aren't in, etc. I trust the retailer will be true to his word and take the fridge back if we insist.

On the bright side, we have a little fridge in our laundry room we've been using during the remodel and will continue to until we have a good working one in our kitchen.

Will post updates as they occur. Thank you all for your input.

The weather is cooling but my fridge is not . . .

The GE repairman arrived this morning, poked around without conviction and decided my fridge didn't work and I needed a new one.

I'm not getting another GE, after that. I thought I'd save some money but it's just not worth it to buy an appliance with such poor quality control, etc.

I'm waiting for a Dacor now, which is made by KitchenAid. I hope I've made the right choice.

Well my KA SXS Architect series works great. It was cold within six hours! So hopefully the Dacor will work out for you.

Weissman you said:

"When you talk to the retailer see if you can exchange it for another brand - GE fridges have a bad reputation."

Ok since GE can't make a good fridge why are people buying Monograms...I mean wouldn't this also make them not so good?

Should we be staying away from Monograms also?

Actually Monogram is a different beast than Profile for most of the GE appliances. I was actually referring to GE Profile fridges having a bad reputation - I know of number of people who have had problems with them over the years and there was a big recall on one model a few years ago.

Many Monogram appliances are actually made by other manufacturers and have a completely different service department. I don't know who makes Monogram fridges but you're right, they do have a good reputation. Sorry for the confusion.

I had a similar experience with the new Bosch refrigerator. No cooling, song and dance from retailer. Went direct to Bosch, they replaced it, and the second one was the same. After a month of back and forth (and moving food around continuously), we finally got a GE Profile with FD. Despite all the bad GE Profile stories, it's been great so far...we love it. And it reached 35 degrees within a short time after plugging it in. I agree with everyone who says get rid of it. Of course, these things are never easy. We had many visits and phone conversations and it got a little ugly. But my food is now cold!

Glad to hear someone had a good experience with GE profile. I am really looking forward to having a working kitchen one day soon, complete with refrigeration!

I'd love to know what Dacor you are waiting for that is a kitchenaid?? their built-in's are Jade designed units(shriek) and the freestanding bottom freezers are jenn-air sourced units(so are kitchenaid so thats the similarity) which have been a mixed bag in terms of reliability

Ah, the quest for a reliable fridge . . .

The Dacor fridge I've ordered is a 42" built in side x side with dispenser - EF42BDCB. I'm open to hearing from anyone with experience with this or similar. My retailer said it's made by KitchenAid, but he could be wrong of course.

If I don't go with the Dacor, I'm looking at Thermador or SubZero, each of which is more money still. I've always had good experience with SZ, just didn't want to spend so much this time around.

We recently got a Frigidaire. It was cold and down to 36 within four to five hours.

"The GE repairman arrived this morning, poked around without conviction and decided my fridge didn't work and I needed a new one."

I don't know why, but this made me laugh out loud.

I have a pickup. If it were me, I'd load that piece of junk into the truck and dump it at the dealer's front door and demand a refund.

Have you thought about the Liebherr? It gets good feedback.

weedmeister, full disclosure . . . I left out that the repair guy was pickled (at 9am!). When I smelled the kitchen I suspected no amount of poking on his part would produce the desired effect. I did let him go through the motions, rather dreading that by some magic the thing would begin to work. After that, of course, I'd be deep in GE hell with a lemon that went in and out. Luckily, I guess, things turned out as I expected.

goutgrec, I looked into Liebherr many months ago and, while I loved them, I thought they didn't make what I was after: 42", side by side, built in, with ice & water in the door. Maybe by now they do?

How long is a piece of string you will probably find these days not very long especially these newer appliances because of all the electronics and after all the manufacturers want you to pop to the store every couple of years to pick a new one up we nearly gave up on ours but finally after many emails the manufacturer gave us the contact details of agsrefrigeration.co.uk a service agent in London who came out and found the fault saving us forking out on a new appliance which would have cost us hundreds of pounds.

How long is a piece of string you will probably find these days not very long especially these newer appliances because of all the electronics and after all the manufacturers want you to pop to the store every couple of years to pick a new one up we nearly gave up on ours but finally after many emails the manufacturer gave us the contact details of agsrefrigeration.co.uk a service agent in London who came out and found the fault saving us forking out on a new appliance which would have cost us hundreds of pounds.

Actually there is merit to their answer, You need to have at least 3-4 gallons of water in the refrigerator side in jugs and at least 2 gallons in the freezer if nothing else such as perishables. If you have a completely empty unit, what is there to remove heat from? or be cold ? besides the air which falls out as soon as your door opens.

Unless you have a unit with a lid on top as in the market, cold falls and falls fast.

The room temperature air immediately replaces the cold air you had and the unit will not read a cold temperature unless you stick it to the wall, but box temps will not ever be cold empty with an open door. Google this yourself, I have 40 yrs doing this and many times I am not believed like when I tell them my $85 call was to set the dial to the middle setting, as they pegged both to coldest, which if you really check it out, gives you a colder freezer and starves the refrigerator side, all its cooling is from the freezer box, there is no separate coil or system, the way the air circulates into the reefer is by a tiny trap door, the other dial is the thermostat which controls the compressor.

Everytime my wife food shops ,for a 24 hour period , The fridge wil not get below 40F. No matter what temp I set. It is set to 34 and actual temp checked with 2 thermometers is 42. This 9 month old samsung has a power cool feature, to use after shopping. It does nil. One thermometer I have in the fridge is wireless so I can see temps rounded to the 1/10 .It has been at 41.7 for an hour. Email me newyyankees@hotmail.com

24 hours is a long time. The FDA says food over 40 F for 2 hours must be tossed. My wife buys too much food at once. Every inch of the fridge is blogged. I think the problem may be blocked airflow or maybe too much warm food at once, She fills fridge with $380 worth of food from Walmart a discount market.

Several weeks ago the door on the fresh food side of my GE SxS was blocked from closing completely by a pizza box for an overnight duration. Next morning the onboard controls' temp reading was in the mid 40°Fs ... at whatever position inside where the sensor is located. The freezer was 5°F. This with the unit running full-blast trying to cool to the normal (my "normal") set-temps of 35°F/34°F and 0°F.

Upon shutting the door, the fresh food temp dropped reasonably quickly to 38°F and continued to drop much more slowly from that point. It took a full 48 hrs to fully recover and stabilize the fresh food compartment to 35°F/34°F with the freezer section at 0°F ... I imagine one or two defrost cycles occurred in the interim.