caper11
Member
I gave CS another try today, what a disaster! So the CS agent wanted to do another cook, after spending 4 hours cleaning it and a trip to the car wash to clean the grease pan and the grills I was a bit worked up when I called.
I started the grill, and before the grill got over ambient temp while on the vid I decided to wire in my Fluke meter to show, both them showed the same up until the point where the grill heated up. We got to 300f and the agent said she seen enough and decided to even the vid. Hang on a sec I want to show you something, my fluke meter showed 170deg and the grill showed 300f. I had my phone setup on both temp readings for the whole vid. If the grill was at a true 300f I should not see this much smoke coming out nor should the lid be this cold, and I held my hand on the lid. Now half way through the vid I noticed the fan speed drop right off to nothing, she also noticed the same.
Fast forward a bit, I tried to explain how ohms and how thermocouples read because she wanted to replace the thermocouple again, I said there was nothing wrong with the old one because the old and the new ohmed the same. She said she could not used the third party thermometer die to company policy, and I explained how come when I use my third party meter on my 885 it’s within 20-30deg. My grill is experiencing lots of grease and creosote buildup which is due to cold grill box temps. It took two hours lastnight from startup to finish, cooking small chicken breasts, at 500f. Still no response but they cannot use the third party thermometer. Again I explained, how come my meater probe and fluke meter read the same, your controller temp scale is off. She replied that i am opening the lid to many times during warmup. Didn’t think of it at the time, but I thought of past instances where the temp stalled at warm up and I opened the lid to fool the controller that it need to feed more pellets which worked but after a bit she hung up on me.
I was going to leave it alone but said screw it I called right back and asked for the supervisor, she was very stand offish with me, saying the grill is larger and it will take longer to heat up. I replied this grill is so inconsistent I do not trust it, why does it heat up to 450 in 20 min and other times it takes over 40min at the same ambient start temp something is wrong.
She barked back that I open the lid to many times on a warmup, explained the same thing I explained to the other agent and she said you had to do that 9 times today. Woah wait a minute here! What did you say, she repeated that I opened the lid 9 times and some of the times it was over a min. I laughed and said “well now we are getting somewhere”! (Interesting note on the hopper lid in the above comment) That supposed cook your accusing me of opening the lid was during a recorded vid with one of your agents. I only lifted the lid once at 69deg to put in my third party temp probe. The vid is there watch it. Long pause, no answer from her, so I asked how many lid openings have you seen in, The last three months on warm up. I have been accused of this lots in the past, and I have not been opening the lid, but when I do open the lid I notice the fan speed slow right down. She is sending me a new lid sensor.
Now I follow a bunch of traeger grill masters and decided to get in touch with a few about these new grills being a pain to clean, and the slow warmup times. One replied, those XL grills do not get used as much as the older grills just for the reason you mentioned, he gave me a tip on how to line the grease pan with foil, which I already did to my grill.
Long story short guys and gals, I believe that traeger knows they have a issue with their grills and are falling back on the grill is much larger than the old ones message.
I started the grill, and before the grill got over ambient temp while on the vid I decided to wire in my Fluke meter to show, both them showed the same up until the point where the grill heated up. We got to 300f and the agent said she seen enough and decided to even the vid. Hang on a sec I want to show you something, my fluke meter showed 170deg and the grill showed 300f. I had my phone setup on both temp readings for the whole vid. If the grill was at a true 300f I should not see this much smoke coming out nor should the lid be this cold, and I held my hand on the lid. Now half way through the vid I noticed the fan speed drop right off to nothing, she also noticed the same.
Fast forward a bit, I tried to explain how ohms and how thermocouples read because she wanted to replace the thermocouple again, I said there was nothing wrong with the old one because the old and the new ohmed the same. She said she could not used the third party thermometer die to company policy, and I explained how come when I use my third party meter on my 885 it’s within 20-30deg. My grill is experiencing lots of grease and creosote buildup which is due to cold grill box temps. It took two hours lastnight from startup to finish, cooking small chicken breasts, at 500f. Still no response but they cannot use the third party thermometer. Again I explained, how come my meater probe and fluke meter read the same, your controller temp scale is off. She replied that i am opening the lid to many times during warmup. Didn’t think of it at the time, but I thought of past instances where the temp stalled at warm up and I opened the lid to fool the controller that it need to feed more pellets which worked but after a bit she hung up on me.
I was going to leave it alone but said screw it I called right back and asked for the supervisor, she was very stand offish with me, saying the grill is larger and it will take longer to heat up. I replied this grill is so inconsistent I do not trust it, why does it heat up to 450 in 20 min and other times it takes over 40min at the same ambient start temp something is wrong.
She barked back that I open the lid to many times on a warmup, explained the same thing I explained to the other agent and she said you had to do that 9 times today. Woah wait a minute here! What did you say, she repeated that I opened the lid 9 times and some of the times it was over a min. I laughed and said “well now we are getting somewhere”! (Interesting note on the hopper lid in the above comment) That supposed cook your accusing me of opening the lid was during a recorded vid with one of your agents. I only lifted the lid once at 69deg to put in my third party temp probe. The vid is there watch it. Long pause, no answer from her, so I asked how many lid openings have you seen in, The last three months on warm up. I have been accused of this lots in the past, and I have not been opening the lid, but when I do open the lid I notice the fan speed slow right down. She is sending me a new lid sensor.
Now I follow a bunch of traeger grill masters and decided to get in touch with a few about these new grills being a pain to clean, and the slow warmup times. One replied, those XL grills do not get used as much as the older grills just for the reason you mentioned, he gave me a tip on how to line the grease pan with foil, which I already did to my grill.
Long story short guys and gals, I believe that traeger knows they have a issue with their grills and are falling back on the grill is much larger than the old ones message.
