Traeger vs....

[Pat Riot]

Long story short...I have had it with my new Traeger grill. I have used it 10 times since buying it. I have had problems 5 of those 10 times.

- It overheats and shuts off.

- The temp goes too high to properly smoke.

 

The final straw for me was Mother’s Day when I was making my wife and I two expensive bacon wrapped Fillet Mignon steaks. The grill overheated and shut itself off and I couldn’t reset it. I finished those 2 steaks in a &@$#ing skillet. $70 worth of skillet fried meat!

 

Anyway, I made several attempts to get Traeger’s help. They sure aren’t the company they were even 2 or 3 years ago. 

3 times I sat on hold for more than 15 minutes waiting only to end up hanging up. When I finally got a rep on the line I was treated like a moron. 

She asked a lot of questions and never listened to what I was saying. She kept breaking off to talk with someone else to get “authorizations” to send me different components yet never followed through after returning to the line. 

She kept going back to “Well, you bought the grill at the end of February so you are new to our grills and there is a learning curve”...

I won’t write what I think about this here...

I reminded her a number of times that I learned how Traeger’s worked over the past few years.

 

I finally told her I wanted to talk to “her”, the woman she kept putting me on hold to talk to. She told me that wasn’t happening. The she left the line to talk to “her” and when she came back her response sealed the fate of me ever buying their Chinese Crap again.

 

She told me my grill needed calibration and I could do it myself. I need to swap the leads on the RTD Temp Probe. That will solve the problem and if it does not I will need to call back so they can get a local Traeger rep to come and evaluate the grill and determine what I am doing wrong...Really?

I explained to her that swapping the leads on a temp probe that is made with fused thermocouple wire housed in a hollow stainless steel shaft is utterly useless. To me it’s “make work” to get me off the phone and make me feel like I am part of the “customer service solution experience”. 

She told me that I had no idea how their controls worked and that unless I did this step they could not help me. She said if this didn’t work I would have to call back and they get a rep to come out.

I asked who the local rep was and I would just go see them. She wouldn’t tell me. Why? Because there isn’t one and if they get someone they will want to be paid and Traeger doesn’t pay “local reps” to support their products. I know, I checked. And if you look on line there are tons of stories about these “Traeger Reps” that will not come without a work order to invoice. Traeger won’t give work orders.

 

Anyway, I am solving the problem by taking the grill back to Costco. 

Traeger in no longer American made, even though Traeger Fan websites won’t tell you this. I have a feeling they are losing money on the warranties do now they throw up road blocks to honoring their warranties.

 

After all the crap I have put up with regarding their grill I am moving on. I think I will buy a competitor’s grill. Costco has a Louisiana Grills LG900. It gets good reviews and it’s $499.00. $350-$400 less than on Amazon and elsewhere. They say they will take the Traeger back. I guess I will find out in a couple of hours...

 

 

[Calamity Kris]

Your experience is unfortunate.  I love my Traeger.  I wish I had  more time to use it.  Please let us know how the replacement works for you.

[Pat Riot]

7 minutes ago, Calamity Kris said:

Your experience is unfortunate.  I love my Traeger.  I wish I had  more time to use it.  Please let us know how the replacement works for you.

 

Thank you.

 

I think the problem is that Traeger started making their grills in China about 3 years ago. They also changed their customer service processes, where they once trusted their customers to figure out what was broke and shipping them the needed parts to having a call center system of flip book reading off information. 

The Chinese grills are inferior and Traeger’s QA isn’t up to snuff so they reap what they sow. 

[Yul Lose]

That’s to bad, Pat. I’ve had mine for 15 years or so and had very few problems. You are right about the customer service, it sucks. When the original Traeger guy sold out and left they went quickly downhill quality and customer service wise.

[Chief Rick]

I looked long and hard at the Traeger's about four years ago when I wanted a smoker.

 

I ended up going with a Kamado Joe (Big Green Egg-esque) grill.

 

I've had one firebox crack.  After sending a picture to Kamado Joe they sent me a new one - no questions asked.

 

There is definitely a learning curve with kamado style grills, but it's a rare week we don't use it at least once.

[Chief Rick]

ALso, Costco has Kamado Joe Roadshows periodically where you can get a grill and a pretty good discount.

[Pat Riot]

I bought a Louisiana Grill LG900 at Costco. They refunded my money for the Traeger and I walked right over and bought the Louisiana Grill. Cost me $499.00 for a grill that sells on Amazon, plus shipping, for $850.00. It goes for $899.00 everywhere else.

 

It took me almost 2 hours to assemble as I did it by myself. I don’t recommend that. Get a helper.

 

Right now I am burning it in. It is working exactly as it is supposed to and I hav the temp set at 360 and both temp probes say it is at 360...not 315, not 326, not 425...like the Traeger. So far it is just fine.

 

I forget to defrost my wings so we’ll be doing them tomorrow. Maybe I will do a pork loin too. Tonight it’s Jersey Mike’s.