myCOOLMAN Fridge Review 2023 (30L/44L/60L/85L/105L)

Are you thinking of picking up one of the myCOOLMAN fridges but not sure whether it lives up to the hype? According to them, this is a car fridge designed specifically for 4W drivers. But is it really worth as good as they say? And is it worth the price tag?

Well, in this myCOOLMAN fridge review, I will show you the main pros & cons, the key features that set it apart from the competition, what users are actually saying about these units and finally, whether I think it’s a good buy or not!

Sound good? Let’s get into it!

To begin with, let's do a quick comparison of some of the most popular fridges in this range!

Pros & Cons

Now that we’ve taken a look at these pros and cons, let’s take a look at how the fridge actually works.

Design

Housed in a durable gunmetal-gray polypropylene case, the myCOOLMAN portable fridges look great. They are sleek and smooth with an embossed design that gives a nice tactile feel.

The corners are finished with reinforced plastic to protect them from bumps, dents and scratches. Overall, they look and feel very solid. They genuinely seem to be designed to handle the rough and tumble of a regular Aussie camping trip.

The 30L/36L/44L/60L/73L/105L units are all single zone, meaning that they can only be operated as a fridge or freezer, not both. The 69L/85L/96L units are dual zone, meaning that they have two separate compartments with individual temperature control, allowing for simultaneous fridge/freezer operation.

The fridges have a number of features that are non-existent or rare on pretty much all of the other car fridges out there.

The first one is the carry handles. They are very strong yet sit flush with the fridge case. This means that they don’t stick out and that the unit takes up less space overall.

The lid can be opened in either direction, which means that you can access your food and drink regardless of the orientation of your fridge. The inside of the lid has a thick (probably 10mm wide) seal which helps make sure that no cool air escapes while the lid is closed.

The insulation (made of polyurethane foam) which runs around the unit is 60mm thick. In conjunction with the lid and seal, the insulation does a good job of keeping ambient heat out.

A 12V power connection is present on both ends of the fridge too, which makes wiring it up in any orientation very easy. Following up on this theme is a built-in bottle opener on both ends of the fridge.

The 100-240V connection is only present on one end of the fridge, along with the temperature controls, display, mode control, emergency override switch and a 5V/3A USB port for charging your mobile devices.

All of the fridges come with an internal light as well as removable wire baskets for organising your food.

Temperature Settings

These units can be set at temperatures ranging from -22°C to +10°C, which is cooler than most other fridge/freezers, which usually have a lower limit of -18°C or -20°C.

They also have a TURBO mode, which allows you to temporarily increase the compressor speed, which means that the fridge will reach the set temperature faster. This is great for when the unit is at ambient temperature and you need to rapidly cool it down.

There’s also an emergency override switch near the temperature controls. This override switch is designed to only be used in the event the temperature controls/display fails and become non-operational.

In this situation, the emergency override will force the fridge to run at full compressor speed, without any regard to the internal or ambient temperatures. It will continue doing this for 8 hours, whereupon it will go into hibernation mode.

Presumably, you can re-enable cooling by activating the emergency override once more. This is just a stopgap solution until you can get the unit looked at by a technician, however.

I really like this emergency override feature, it’s something that almost no other camping fridge has. It allows you to fully bypass the electronics in the event that they are throwing up codes or otherwise faulting.

Power Specs

As you would expect, the myCOOLMAN portable fridges can all run off either 100-240V AC power or 12/24V DC power. There are separate cables for both AC and DC power, although they are only 1.2m long, which might be too short for some situations.

Have a think about your setup and consider buying some longer/extension cables if necessary.

As I mentioned earlier, the fridges in this range have dual 12V power input points - one on each end of the unit. This means that you can pack your fridge in any orientation and you will have no problem hooking it up to power.

It has a dedicated AC power input point, rather than some cheaper fridges which step down the AC power via an external transformer, before delivering DC power to the portable fridge.

The table below shows the estimated power consumption for some of the myCOOLMAN fridges, along with their rated current draw. There’s quite a few fridges in this range, so I haven’t included them all here. For the full details, check out the user manual.

* Based on set temp of 5°C and ambient temp of 32°C
** Based on fridge set temp of 3°C, freezer set temp of -15°C and ambient temp of 32°C

These numbers are pretty standard and similar to what you will find with most other portable, compressor-driven fridges. As you can, running a dual zone unit with a freezer consumes considerably more power than a single zone fridge.

There’s also a 5V/3A USB port for mobile device charging. I like the fact that it is 3A rather than the standard 2A, you will be able to feasibly charge 2 devices with a hub, or get faster charging on a single device.

Lastly, there is also a low-voltage battery protection system. This is designed to prevent your fridge from being able to entirely drain your car battery if it is still hooked up while your car is off. It has 3 different modes, and you can see the corresponding voltages for each mode in the table below.

I recommend that you set this to MED or HI while running the fridge off your car battery, and LO if you are running it off a dedicated second battery.

Extras

There’s a ton of extras that you can add onto these fridges to make them even better. However, these extras aren’t necessary and they aren’t cheap, so I only recommend them if you spend plenty of time on the road with your fridge.

Power Pack

Want to run your fridge away from the car but don’t want to lug around a heavy dual battery setup along with the fridge? Thankfully, myCOOLMAN manufactures a 15Ah power pack that works seamlessly with their units.

This makes your fridge much more portable and saves your car battery from being drained while it isn’t running.

It comes housed in its own separate body that attaches magnetically to the side of your fridge/freezer. The table below shows the estimated run time you can get with each of the fridges when using this battery on a full charge.

Table sourced from myCOOLMAN

It comes with a 1 year warranty.

Solar Panels

If you have a dual battery setup and won’t have access to mains power every evening, consider getting some solar panels which can keep your battery topped up during the day, so that it can run your 12V appliances overnight.

If you are going on short trips or have regular access to mains power, these aren’t necessary. However, if you plan on going bush and want to be off the grid, solar panels are a real lifesaver.

There’s a few different options out there, but I personally like the Dometic portable solar panels. They’re easy to transport thanks to their folding nature and they come in 2 sizes - 120W and 180W.

Insulating Cover

The myCOOLMAN fridges are robust and rugged on their own, but if you fancy giving them a bit of extra protection, consider getting an insulating cover.

A cover will keep the fridge from getting any knocks or scrapes, plus it reduces how much heat seeps into the fridge, meaning that the compressor doesn’t need to run as often to keep the contents cool.

This extends the life of the fridge and also means less power drained from your batteries.

myCOOLMAN sells specific covers for each of their fridges. Feel free to check out their range of insulating fridge covers.

Fridge Slide

Fridge slides are a useful way of accessing your food and drink without having to reach deep into your boot and hauling the whole unit out.

myCOOLMAN don’t manufacture fridge slides themselves, but they have a useful table which lets you see which popular slides their various fridges are compatible with.

Build Quality & Warranty

These fridge freezers are designed in Germany and manufactured in China. The build quality and workmanship seems good; everything from the carry handles to the control buttons feel sturdy.

There have been very few complaints about these fridges as far as I can tell. Almost all users seem to be having positive experiences with their units.

Known Problems

At the time of writing, I haven’t heard of any particular problems that are consistently cropping up with these units. If I hear anything later, I will make a note of it here.

Warranty

The entire myCOOLMAN range come with a base 3 year warranty. The compressors come with 5 year warranties.

This is much better than some of the cheaper brands and on par with the likes of Dometic and Engel.

Make sure that you register your unit with myCOOLMAN once you purchase it. This can be done on their warranty registration page.

Conclusion - myCOOLMAN Fridge Review

The myCOOLMAN fridge freezers are high quality, well built units that hold up well on a typical Aussie camping trip.

They are definitely priced towards the upper end of the market, but the quality is definitely good enough to warrant these prices in my opinion.

Dual 12V power input, flush carry handles, dual-opening lid design, an emergency override plus built in bottle openers are some of their unique features.

Combine that with Bluetooth app control, USB charging port and a 3/5 year warranty and you have an awesome fridge.

The only downsides of these units are their high price and relatively short power cables. Otherwise, I can’t fault them!

If these are out of your price range, I recommend that you take a look at my Brass Monkey fridge review. These are decent quality units for a fraction of what a myCOOLMAN will cost you! Otherwise, check out my list of the best camping fridge/freezers in Australia!

I hope that this myCOOLMAN review has helped you figure out whether these units are right for you! Did you end up getting one? Let me know below!