Customer Reviews

Wagan 6 Liter Thermo-Electric Cooler and Warmer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Studying for the CA bar exam I had to be at the law library for 10-12 hours everyday for two and a half weeks straight. Using the "hot" version, I was able to have my hot meals every day, without having to take off too much time from my studies. The food stayed nice and hot (great home-y feel) after approximately 5 hours from the time I heated it up in the morning. It probably would stay hot even longer than that, but I had to worry about draining my power system.

When it was time for the exam, which is 3 days in CA, the hotel that I was staying at had ran out of their refrigerators. So, I took this little cooler and set it in the "cold" version. My food stayed COLD the whole time, not cool, COLD. I had cold cuts, cheeses, and soup that never went bad during the period of time.

When I checked the temperature, when set as cold, it stayed consistently at 32 degrees (colder than my refrigerator), and when set as hot, it was 120 degrees. It really works well.

The whirling noice that the other reviewer mentioned is correct, but it is not annoying at all. Since it doesn't have a high pitch sound, it was just fine. Even when I had it in the hotel room right next to the bed. And when you take the bar exam, every little noise would annoy you - trust me on that.

Hopefully I passed the exam. I would then give credit to this little cooler for having kept me fed during the ordeal with little hassle.

It does cool to 40-41 degrees as advertised. There are two problems:

1. The AC adapter gets hot during use, almost too hot to hold. This is not good, and was alarming enough for me to send it back.
The adapter does not look like the pictures on the web, and is labeled 'Caution: For Use with Technology Equipment'. What? I don't think this is techology equipment! It *is* rated 12v 5 amps, however.

2. The fan operates continuously and emits a distinctive pitched tone (469 Hz), rather than whir. It is loud and can be easily heard indoors from a distance of 20-25 feet. I found it disturbing. No doubt it would be fine in a car, but I intended to use this mostly indoors.

I love the idea that this cooler will fit almost anywhere. It's especially nice that the Wagan cooler fits snugly, and relatively securely on the center console between the front seats in my Jeep Grand Cherokee (although I can't lift the door to the console, but you can't have everything).

The Wagan unit keeps things cool (as the name implies), but let's face it, this is no refridgerator, and for an electrically powered unit, I expect that it would keep drinks colder than using ice with a regular cooler, but it doesn't. Unless the Wagan cooler is left out in the snow in the middle of wintertime, it barely keeps things as cool as 40-42 degrees Farenheit when its about 72 degrees outside. WIth ice in a traditional cooler, you can expect to get things down to around 34-36 degrees, and in the summertime. And believe me this 4-8 degrees matters. In fact, the cooler performs much worse in hotter weather.

Also (and this is my biggest peeve), the cooler's AC power adapter died after less than one week of use---it's cheesy and probably not the stuff of power appliances like this Wagan cooler. Therefore, I would not suggest using the cooler as a full-time refridgerator/cooler in your office or den. The Wagan Cooler appliance package just isn't built tough enough for my relatively benign demands. Needs to keep the drinkies cool (I give it a "C-"), and needs to endure through typical (and specified I might add, by the manufacturer) use ("D-").

I bought this to keep my sodas cold while serving in Iraq. It runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week in the heat and the dust without any problems. I recommend this to anyone that travels or is in out of the way place. It is large enough to keep leftovers and other small items. I use it like a small fridge.

On first use (in our car), this unit first began to smell of burning, then began to smoke. At the point where the plastic top began to melt we managed to get off the highway we were on in order to get the unit out of our now smoky car. My two week old daughter was in the car also, this unit was supposed to keep her milk cool, not attempt to kill us.

One of my cohorts has this in their van, and I so badly want one for my own. It is so neat and does not get in the way.

I have only experienced it when used to keep Pop, fruit and sandwiches cold. So much better than a regular cooler that require ice that melts and gets things wet and squishy. They have used it when taking a long drive to someones house and they are taking a warm dish, they said it is great for that too.

I may break down soon and buy it. I live about an hour from my office and by the time I have gotten home with groceries they have gotten warm or are starting to melt/thaw. The markets are better on that side of the river, with this, I could do my shopping where I prefer and not worry about getting a speeding ticket racing home from the market.

They always keep this in the back of the van out of the way, yet convenient to get to. It would fit so nicely in the back of the Cruiser.

This product is horrible. I bought it for my office. It worked for about 45 days, and then stopped working. I couldn't return it to Amazon as it broke after 30 days. I tried contacting the manufacturer and they never returned my calls or emails. Completely horrible product and waste of money. I WOULD NOT BUY!!!!

We took our new Wagan cooler on a recent road trip and it worked very well keeping sodas, milk, and water exceptionally chilly. Like all thermo electric coolers the inside temperature is about 30-40 degrees cooler than the outside temperature. So, if the temperature on the floor behind the front seats is in the seventies then expect the temperature of the liquids in the cooler to be in the high thirties or low forties depending on how full the unit is packed. Wonderful on those hot summer vacation trips. However, if you are camping in the desert and the temperature around the cooler is ninety degrees don't expect the ice cream to freeze! This particular unit is very compact and fits nicely behind the seats of a typical sedan. We were able to put 3 cans of soda, two pint boxes of milk, and two half liter bottles of water inside the unit. You can not fit a quart of milk or a liter of water inside this unit but the smaller size containers work fine. Plan on several hours to initially cool a full load of bottles or cans but replacing one as you use one works just fine. The unit has a fan and you can hear the fan sound, however, the air conditioners in hotel rooms or automobiles totally drown out the sounds of this little fan and we found the fan sounds were not a problem. The multiple port car power adapter is great because you can charge that cell phone or run a CD player while cooling the refreshments. The wall AC power adapter did run warm but did not seem to cause any problems. The unit seemed to hold the cool temperature pretty well when the car was turned off during meals and shopping or sightseeing stops but be sure to keep the top snapped shut. All in all a great unit and very convenient.

I recently took this unit on a cross country trip and was pleasantly surprised. It chills cans rapidly, but is sort of an odd fit for bottles. I didn't feel the sound of the unit was at all a bother. It emitted a low whirring sound that I did not even notice when the radio was on. It came with a 3-in-1 12V converter which was incredibly convenient, but unfortunately broke on the last leg of the trip. The unit never failed, although!