Hi BIFL, I bought a Weber Summit 470 5 years ago and while I appreciate the way it cooks, I've gone through 3 grill covers (all warrantied by Weber which is nice but frustrating that covers only seem to last a year or two), and this year my manifold went out. (RIGHT after the warrenty expired - which is also frustrating)
I order the replacement part from Weber and attempted the repair myself and accidentally broke the propane sensor wire, and one of the LED lights behind the burner. (I can deal with the fact I broke the wires - my fault although I will say design definitely played a role in me breaking those wires). The cherry on the sundae was after installing the new manifold, I discovered that I've got a leak somewhere either in the new manifold or along the connections (although I did use soapy water after I hooked everything up along connections and everything appeared tight). The leaking gas caught fire behind the burner assembly and burned the wires leading to the LED lights).
I got nervous after the leak, (flames behind the burners - which required a hose to extinguish), so I decided I'd just pay someone to service the grill correctly. I called Weber and they gave me three service centers. Two were Ace Hardwares and they no longer do service. One is a speciality fireplace store who has one part-time guy that does service - and he's VERY part time.
So the short version is I'm frustrated by all of this and if my Summit costs too much to repair (the fire may have damaged the circuitry behinds the burners), I may buy a new grill.
Trust me - I went all in on Weber - bought a bunch of accessories etc, but at the moment I'm frustrated. I looked at a few archived threads so I have a few ideas but I wanted to ask specifically if you didn't have Weber as a choice - what would you suggest as a real BIFL Grill?
I spent about 2K on the Summit 5 years ago and at this point I'm reluctant to spend anywhere near that amount again. (But I'm interested in all suggestions regardless).
Submitted April 24, 2017 at 04:53PM by JingJang http://ift.tt/2oFMqmq
