Burning smell followed by failure to freeze/chill...

Question

this unit had a burning hot metal-plastic smell that could have choked a horse! The next afternoon I found everything had defrosted in the freezer and it totally stopped cooling. When I'd left in the morning it still had the cold that was present when "it" blew....
this is a 3 year old unit - really disappointed that I'm having to deal with this mess. I've been on bagged ice for a week and found my papers tonight that have a 2-5 year warranty --what's the chances this is going to be something outside of the warranty? I've got an option to purchase a warranty repair service and have them fix it or give me $$ toward a new one if it exceeds $500....trying to hedge my bet at this stage.