The answer in three sentences
An ice maker on an ABL AREF cabinet is the last link in a chain that starts at a tap, and the chain fails far more often than the link. Ice needs three things: water delivered, a compartment cold enough to freeze it, and a harvest that drops the cubes clear. Look at the mould and you can usually tell which of the three has stopped before touching anything. The table below names four models under this family key. They are near enough alike that the fault presents the same way on each; the divergence is in part numbers rather than in how you find it.
What the mould looks like
- The mould is bone dry — No water is arriving, so everything downstream of the supply is irrelevant.
- The mould holds a single frozen slab — Water arrived and froze; the harvest did not run, or the cubes refroze on their way out.
- Cubes are small, hollow or misshapen — Short fills, which means flow is restricted rather than absent.
- The bin holds one fused lump rather than loose cubes — Melting and refreezing, which points at freezer temperature or a door that is not sealing.
- NEAR MISS — no ice, and the freezer is not really cold either — The cooling is the fault and the ice is only its symptom; read the cooling page for this family.
Where the chain breaks, most likely first on the AREF line
- The inlet valve failed closed — It is electrically operated and fails shut far more often than open, which produces exactly the dry mould a closed tap gives and is only separable once the tap is proven. All four models under the AREF key are built the same way here, so an ordering that fits one of them fits the rest.
- A water filter at the end of its life — Restriction builds gradually, so the first sign is small and hollow cubes rather than no ice at all, and owners rarely connect the two.
- The freezer running warmer than it should — The ice maker waits for its thermostat point before it will cycle at all, so a compartment a few degrees warm produces no ice rather than less ice.
- The ice maker module, motor or thermostat — The part everyone reaches for first, and it does fail — but it sits at the end of the chain, and replacing it while the water is restricted changes nothing at all.
The order to work through on these models
- Listen for a short buzz at the rear of the cabinet when a fill is due — Only meaningful once the supply itself has been confirmed.
- Use the dispenser if one is fitted and judge the flow — A weak dispenser alongside poor ice points at the filter and skips the rest of the list.
- Confirm the freezer is at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, which is minus 18 degrees Celsius, or below — Decides whether this is an ice fault or a cooling fault wearing its clothes.
Models in the AREF family
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| AREF18** | abl:refrigerator:aref |
| AREF18B | abl:refrigerator:aref |
| AREF18S | abl:refrigerator:aref |
| AREF18W | abl:refrigerator:aref |
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel — a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Close the water shut-off valve before disconnecting any line, and have a towel ready because the line stays charged after the valve is shut. Do not thaw a frozen fill tube with an open flame or a heat gun; warm water is slower and will not melt the plastic it runs through.
The line between an owner check and a service call
Call a technician when the supply, the filter and the freezer temperature are all proven and the mould still will not fill or will not release. Do it sooner if there is any water on the floor or in the cabinet base: a weeping inlet valve or a split line does not recover on its own, and a slow leak behind a refrigerator reaches the floor covering long before anyone sees it.
The rest of this family, fault by fault
Read next
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
