Good Oven, Fine Print and Excellent Customer Service
Written: Nov 14 '06 (Updated Nov 17 '06)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
 |
|
| Ease of Cleaning: |
 |
|
| Style: |
 |
|
|
Pros: High BTU burner, simmer burner, programmable, lots of settings, excellent customer service.
Cons: Tough to clean grates, one high output burner, Electronics controls failed at 5 years.
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this range to others, particularly in light of the excellent product support by Kitchen Aid.
|
|
|
| galczak's Full Review: KitchenAid Slide-In Gas Range |
My wife and I moved into our new home last fall. We were delighted that a relatively new range was in our new kitchen. We were graduating from a non-programmable oven without convection so were very pleased with the upgrade. We like all of the functions offered. Agree with another reviewer who noted a second higher BTU burner would have been a plus rather than two simmer burners but this is a mild flaw. High output burner brings large pot of water to boil very quickly, and simmer burner does well on delicate sauces and melting butter.
I do a lot of baking from cookies to breads to pizzas. The oven seems to heat and cook everything evenly. I have not had to rotate bake goods to brown evenly. On convection, I have noticed that the cooking times suggested in the translation are a little short - chickens, and roasts need more time to reach target temp than suggested. Convection does remarkable improve browning in our view providing crisp beautiful skin on a roast chicken and makes over roasted french fries crispier.
Broiler works well. I like it in the top of the oven which makes it easier to get too. just need to be sure the oven rack is at right level for broiling. Included Broiler pan and tray is a bonus and good value. Also having broiler in oven enables us to keep many of our frequently used pans (2 - twelve inch fry pans, baking sheets, crepe pan and stove top grill) handy.
Electronic controls and functions are not difficult to master. For cleaning and for safety (we have small children with active fingers) the control panel can be easily locked and then unlocked.
Speaking of the electronic controls, we recently had a problem with the electronic controls. I called Kitchen Aid who have been simply outstanding in terms of responsiveness and ease in dealing with to resolve the problem. One issue however is that when all of this started they told me that the Range was still under warranty but that labor was not covered. After a few weeks and a service call (during which I feel like we were ripped off) I dug up the warranty and low and behold the warranty COVERS labor. When I called Kitchen Aid our document control numbers for our warranty documents matched but they said theirs did not say labor was covered. I faxed them my warranty and to their credit they have honored it. Seems a funny discrepancy - CHECK your warranty. I am curious to know if anyone else has this "typo" in their warranty.
Incidentally, I feel very fortunate that we had this electronic control failure only weeks before the warranty expired. Clearly my view of this product would be vastly different if this problem had occurred out of warranty and this is why its durability rating takes a hit.
I also echo the comments of others re: cleaning the grates - impossible. Cleaning the cooktop is easy if done frequently and when cleaned up is still attractive even after 5 years - though would look better if grates cleaned up more easily.
Overall a good range and excellent support from Kitchen Aid.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
galczak
|
|
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.