My oven is not working, yet again. In less than two years, it has failed twice in major ways, and has a handful of little problems as well. This is super frustrating for me, especially since I was testing a fabulous pie recipe for you.
The major issue is that I have a very high end range, a Blue Star 36″ RNB Series with the grill. A few months after it was installed, the broiler was no longer turning on. Under the one year warranty, they did fix it, but it took two visits to fix and that means x amount of days/weeks that I could not use the broiler. Now, it’s about 22 months (less than two years) since it was installed, and now the oven is not reaching correct temperature and also not heating evenly. Come on, this is a convection oven! I understand that it is no longer under warranty but I called Blue Star voicing my concerns. I have used several ranges before, all cheaper than this one, that never had a problem. With back splash and tax, I paid over $5000 for this range! I thought I was getting a good product, worthy of the high price. They decided that they would not fix the problem and just gave me the phone number for a repair service. The repair service will be $150 plus any parts. Parts can end up being ultra expensive. Again, there’s the added frustration of not having a working oven for almost 2 weeks.
Aside from being deprived of major functions, my range annoys me the way a luxury product should not. When the oven is on, the knobs get hot. When some water or sauce spills on the burners, it starts making a terrible clicking noise as it tries to reignite unsuccessfully. You have to then shut off that burner and move to another one.
Basically, I’m telling you not to buy a Blue Star. Would you pay more for a BMW if it broke down before a Saturn?
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You have my sympathy. It’s difficult to make a choice among the high end home ranges like Blue Star, Dacor, Viking, Thermador and such. The biggest problem I had was trying to find any source of unbiased information…
The distributors all want to sell something. Anyone who has one in their home either loves it or has some sort of horror story to tell about it. All that’s available is anecdotal information.
On the other hand, why do people continue to buy Land Rover, Mercedes? Consumer Reports takes the heavy lifting out of your hands by doing ongoing reviews of automobiles. They do appliance reviews as well, but (unfortunately) Blue Star hasn’t been on the list of brands they review.
As you know, I am no fan of high end stoves. When I moved into this apartment it had a Viking which became dubbed (excuse the French) The F**king Viking. The burners are so large that they cook around the sides of the pans (unless you’re making huge batches and cooking in professional size cookware) instead of under them – and it’s impossible to simmer. The burners are so large they do not maintain a low enough heat to simmer. Of course, I can’t use a professional or high end stove because I must use the same type of stove as my readers (I write cookbooks). My other gripe about even medium price stoves is that they all have sealed burners. Although that does prevent stuff from fall under the burner, you need to have a gap in the ring of the flame so air can get to the fire (I’m talking about gas ranges, of course) so therefore the flame does not go in a complete circle and leaves some spots less hot than others. My next stove is going to have to be low end (which doesn’t matter as I have yet to use the convection or the self-cleaning features of my Frigidaire stove)and I’m going for a Magic Chef the only open burner brand I know of.
Carol Gelles
Does anyone have a suggestion for my next purchase…one day?
Hi oldest grandchild,
It is tough to find unbiased information but I did ask the repair guys today and they seem to be a fairly reliable source. They repair high ends way more often than regular ovens and they said every house they go to bitches the way I do about how expensive it is to be breaking constantly.
You had better luck than I did… When I asked around, all I could find was recommendations from the two stores in town that carried (and installed, and serviced) the high end brands.
I ended up with a Jenn-air 6-burner downdraft cooktop and a separate Whirlpool convection oven. They’re both at the high-ish end of the scale for consumer kitchen gear, but nowhere near the cost of Blue Star, Dacor, etc.
In eight years, I’ve had the oven serviced once. No other issues.
Don’t go by my experience, though. Check with Consumer Reports. They run regular reports on the full spectrum of consumer ranges, ovens, cooktops, etc. as well as some of the high-end non-commercial brands.
BTW, I really enjoy your blog!
When I was looking for a range, my first choice was a Wolfe. But the sales guy actually talked me out of it because he said too many customers were having issues with the Wolfe. So I ended up getting a Viking. Within my first year, the oven started making weird noises whenever it was on convention bake. It was fixed under the warranty, but yes, it is disappointing because it’s supposed to be a quality product. I’m now at my two year anniversary with my Viking and so far, nothing else has happened (yet?). So I’m neutral on the Viking range. The Viking hood with recirculating kit doesn’t work well at all. I had to buy an fan and turn it on to circulate the air, even for regular cooking.