Why does punching an appliance sometimes seem to fix it?

Question

So I live in military barracks and i have a shitty fridge in my room. It started making this horrible noise, and out of desperation I landed a solid right hook to the side of it. Like magic, the noise stopped. This has happened numerous times in my life. Something is broken, and some brute force fixes it. What happens inside that could solve the problem from percussive force?

In: 239

Answer 1

I had s terrible loud fridge. Apparently the problem was a small plastic thing touching the Motorpumpe which caused the noise. Could have been fixed with a kick (;