Fridge switches off when car is running

The 12v system on a fridge will only work when the car engine is running and is only designed to keep the fridge at a temperature it was before you hooked up to the car.  i.e it wont chill from scratch, you would need to chill the fridge either on electric or gas for at least 24 hours and the car will try to keep the temperature to as close to this as it can but only if you have the live feed from the relevant pins on your trailer electric socket.  some tow bars wiring looms do not provide this feed, so you might need to check that.

Jazzy baby, to confuse matters even more, it depends on the vehicle manufacturer how power is supplied to the fridge, assuming it is wired to do so. My now sold Skoda Yeti would feed the fridge if the ignition was on and the engine not running. The norm is for the engine to be running to supply a feed, but with stop/start technology on modern cars this is not a given as it can depend upon battery state and may only kick in at higher revs.

Colin

Hi Jazzy, I am sure that previously the fridge worked when connected to the car with the toggle switch in the electric panel set as Car and not caravan.

A friend has come round to test to see if it was my car but his was the same.

The only way the fridge would work is if we set the toggle switch to van and let the car engine charge the battery.

At least it works one way

Thanks

Hi Colin, you are right about newer cars.

Apparently some have protection built in to the alternator and they will not charge a caravan battery.

Luckily my old volvo still does 

Just a query but how are you working out  the fridge doesn't work?

The control panel on the fridge goes completely blank as soon as I start the car up.

Just tried again and noticed that before engine starts the blue power light is flashing and there is a Fault code 10 indicated which is;

"No "engine running"signal is present and control is in Manual DC mode"

Not really sure what that means but when I start the car the whole control panel goes off

Cheers all for your input.

A sparky friend has been looking at it this afternoon and he is scratching his head too.

The main thing is that nothing is burning or anything deemed to be unsafe.

We are off on Sunday and for the drive down we will probably just chuck in some freezer blocks to keep it cool.

We could  flick the control panel switch to van and with the car running it does work, even though in my limited understanding the control panel should be flicked to Car?

When we get to the site we can simply hook up and let it run off that.

When we get back I will book it in at our local caravan service centre.

Thanks again

the car/caravan selector switch is usually just to select which battery is in use if you were to stop enroute for lighting/radio/etc. The selector switch for what supplies the fridge will generally have a battery symbol, something to represent 240v & a flame

This is where you are going wrong, you should NOT select car on the panel, leave it on caravan.

Car setting is only to provide power from the car to run say some lights or the water pump  if the van battery is flat, and if will only do so when the ignition is off/engine not running.

Easiest thing is just to leave the selector switch on caravan all the time, unless you really need to get power from the car.

The fridge will not take power from the caravan battery, it is powered from the car.

All the info on this should be in your handbook, but sometimes it is not easy to understand!