By CHRIS DANIELS consumer reporter
Thousands of Westinghouse freezer owners have been told the freezers could contain a potentially dangerous device that needs to be fixed.
General manager of Email Appliances New Zealand, Ray Hughes, said about 2300 of the freezers had been sold here.
All had been made in Australia by Email Appliances between November 1996 and September 2000.
Most were sold through the Bond and Bond or Noel Leeming retail chains.
The faulty freezers were either sold separately or with a matching refrigerator.
Mr Hughes said the problem was a faulty timer unit which, when exposed to dust or moisture, could fail.
This could mean the freezer would not freeze food properly, and there was also the risk of a short-circuit or "arcing" from the unit.
Though there had been cases reported of the freezers failing, there had been no examples of fires starting as a result of the fault.
Owners of the freezers should ring the company during working hours on 0800-277-542 to arrange for a contractor to replace the timer.
Mr Hughes said the job would take about 20 minutes.
Contractors could be called out on weekends, or after hours.
The Noel Leeming and Bond and Bond chains had customer databases, and would send letters to the people it knew had bought one of the freezers.
The freezers are model FJ303, serial numbers 00252603 to 03351412 and 64443156 to 9524332, and model FJ383, serial numbers 00251165 to 03054003 and 64244656 to 95241694. The model and serial numbers are printed on a plate inside the freezer on the left-hand side.
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