Freezer not freezing? About eighty percent of the time it’s one of four things, and three of them are free to check. Go down the list in order and stop at the first one that matches what you’re seeing.
Arizona is different from most of the country here. Heat and dust are harder on condenser coils than anything else we deal with, and a garage freezer gets the worst of it. If you only do one thing on this list, clean the coils.
Tip A freezer that’s packed full holds its temperature a lot better than a half-empty one, because the frozen food itself holds the cold. If you’re running a garage freezer through an Arizona summer and it’s half empty, fill the space with jugs of water. They cost nothing and they help. It won’t fix a broken part, but it takes some load off a compressor that’s already working harder than it was built to.
And if you’re buying a freezer for the garage, get one rated for the heat out there. It costs a little more than a standard unit, and that’s a lot less than replacing a standard unit twice.