We have an upright fridge/freezer with the freezer on the top. It is probably more than 10 years old and was in a summer cabin before moving to the house. This is an Admiral NT 19J7 model.

The outside surface around the freezer part is hot to touch most of the time. Other than that, it seems to be working fine except for one thing. Today I found that a carton of ice cream had melted and re-frozen and the paper carton was squishy. It was sitting directly in front of the cold air vent. But maybe my mom left it on the counter too long...but that would have been over 12 hours ago.

Any Diagnosis? Should I quickly get a new fridge/freezer?

It is either low on coolant gasses, or the compressed gasses are unable to radiate heat quickly - such as dirty dust covered coils. Assuming you do not have exposed coils (you would see them on the back) that leaves the most likely issue to be loss of coolant gasses.

Being 10 years old I say its time for a new one. The heat issue is a dangerous sign; it means that your icebox is drawing far much more power and hard at work attempting to maintain the cold inside.

In the long run it is cheaper to buy a new energy efficient ice box than it is to fix and refill the old one.

Over the past 10 years many innovations and improvements in the efficiency of refrigeration (along with the switch from Freon) means that a new one will cost less to run. Many power companies offer rebates with the proof of purchase of a new energy efficient appliance.

With the purchase of our $1000.00 ice box we got a rebate of $250.00 from our power company. Even though our new one is larger that our old one, it uses less energy there is a pay back in the electric bill over time which makes a perchance of a new appliance worth the investment.

One more thing, NQ - place a small baggie of a few ice cubes in your freezer. If your freezer goes out for a while... then back on - you'll know, because those few ice cubes will not be "cubes" any longer.

Thanks, DvdGStwrt for the good advise. I printed your answer and gave it my mom and she has finally agreed to allow a new fridge/freezer in the house. It was the energy efficient bit that did it, I would have never thought to mention something like that to her.

Tree,neat trick, thanks for mentioning it.