When to upgrade... Cooler -> Fridge?

uncc civilengineer

uncc civilengineer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 28, 2006
Location
Pfafftown, NC
Trying to decide whether or not to pick up a good marine grade cooler or go ahead and pick up the new ARB Fridge... Luckily I have a pretty decent mileage check heading my way so I have the extra to spend if need be... This trip alone will be 3 weeks but obviously a cooler is still doable.. plan to cook most meals. Just curious to see what others are doing...

Looking into dry ice seems doable however I've heard it can be a toss up... too little and it evaporates very quickly... too much and everything's frozen. Also, not sure how readily available it will be..

Bacon/eggs, etc. floating around in ice water isnt too exciting either... but i guess frozen water bottles could solve that..
 
The 12V freezer/fridges are awesome. As far as I know, a little Japanese company makes them. Norcold, Engel, and ARB rebadge them.

Every once in a while, I'll check ebay for a used one, hoping to get lucky. But since we got the trailer and have a built-in propane fridge, it's less of a priority.

For keeping "food" long-term, a fridge can't be beat. They're fine for storing drinks and stuff too, but I think I'd still rather have a small cooler with ice for that sort of thing. You can chill a bunch of drinks in an hour by submerging them in a slurry of ice water. It takes half a day in a fridge. And every time you open the fridge, you're letting out some of the cold air.

But yeah, multi-week road trip, a 12V fridge would be great to have.
 
I was looking into coolers recently, the ice holding ability of yeti, Engel, igloo max-cold, and Coleman extreme were all fairly similar but the Engel lasted slightly longer. The Engel and yeti were much more durable and more expensive. I ended buying a cheaper cooler and adding insualtion to the lid, I didn't check before, but after it held ice for 6 days with one fishing on a 100+ day.

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ive had my 50q arb fridge for about 2 years now and during the summer i could not go back. It is grest to have frosty things ready and waiting. I always hated when cheese or other stuff got to soak in the water of the cooler or some tuperware contanier popped open and flooded. not trying to sell you one just trying to give you my 2 cent.
(i did make a nice steel cable lock down line so that i dont have to worry so much about it walking away, i never did that with my old cooler)
 
That's a three hundred dollar cooler.

I'll stick with $50 Coleman Xtremes. They last years, and they work just as well as a Yeti. The only goody about the Yeti is it's got a good rubber seal so that it keeps the cooler from turning into muddy slurry. Oh yeah, and they spend a lot of money on advertising. So, there's that.

 
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