Our ice maker caught on fire!

4 years ago

So we recently had a little scare... when our ice maker caught on fire. It had stopped making ice so we called a repair tech. He came verified it needed to be replaced. The parts were on order. While we were waiting.. the old ice maker started to work again one day. So I called the tech & canceled our order. We would call again when it it quit. No one warned us it could cause a fire... 😳🙄. Nothing but the ice maker itself was damaged. Just some smoke residue & horrible burnt plastic smell to clean up. I called Maytag & they sent a tech out again. Long story short... Maytag wouldn’t replace it. It was going to cost $300-500 to fix it. Thanks Maytag... you suck. Lol. After all this I had gotten the part number we needed. I checked on amazon $80-100 for ice maker & wire harness. We would install it ourselves.

Well.... the ice maker went in just fine. It’s the darn plug that doesn’t snap in place

& wire harness that seems just a smidge too short. I’ve included photos of the old & new. I guess it’s rather a common issue. Is there anyway to make this work? Can I swap the male ends? Or will it just shorten the already too short new one?

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Comments (9)

dadoes
4 years ago
Are you sure you have the correct replacement ice maker? Confirmed it via parts look up for your specific refrigerator model?
HU-867564120
4 years ago
Splice the new good connector into the old harness in place of the old burnt connector.
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wsea
4 years ago
We had the same thing with our kitchenaide fridge. the amazon part was the same number but the wires were just ever so slightly too short. we ended up buying another replacement part from a repair company. wires were perfect.
tmountainhigh
Original Author
4 years ago
@dadoes Yes I’m sure the part number is correct. The number actually came directly via the tech Maytag sent out. Thnx
dadoes
4 years ago
last modified: 4 years ago
Some parts sold on Amazon are after-market, not OEM items, even if sold under the same P/N.
tmountainhigh
Original Author
4 years ago
@HU-876564120 I would like to splice them. I can use the old wire? Even though there clearly was a short of some kind. That resulted in a fire. The wire hasn’t been compromised?

I was thinking to swap the male ends ... but onto the new wire strand. It may work if I can get the plug to lock in place. But I don’t know how to take it apart? Without destroying the plug.
tmountainhigh
Original Author
4 years ago
@wsea After I received the parts & found the problems. I read further down into the reviews. It seems that this is a common issue 🙄 I was hoping to learn I could swap the ends & avoid the reorder hassle . We’ve been buying bags of Sonic ice.. we are so spoiled now! Lol. But it would be nice to have it fixed & working again. Thanks for sharing your experience. I’ll do that ...next. HAGD
dadoes
4 years ago
Some length of the wires on the burned end of the original harness would need to be cut off due to the possibility of internal damage from the overheating. The metal terminals inside the connectors are anchored to the wires, they're not part of the plugs. Easiest and probably best you could do is cut the burned connector off the original harness far enough back to insure there's no remaining damage to the wires, cut the connector off the new harness with a workable length of the wires remaining on it, and splice them together.
w0lley32
4 years ago
Yes, splicing the good portion of the old harness onto the new harness will work just fine. However, keep in mind that the connector on the fridge that mates with the burn connector might be compromised as well.

The issue with the burnt connector is known as arcing, the connector either was loose and had a bad connection, or some water got in there causing some arcing.