The saga of our oven
Mar. 28th, 2010 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuTen years ago, we gutted, expanded, and remodeled our kitchen. Among our new appliances was a Thermador C302US double wall oven. Unfortunately, it gave us trouble almost immediately -- our first service call was literally within the first week, and Thanksgiving Day eighteen months later the oven control panel shorted out completely and the oven was unusable. We bundled the turkey and a six-month-old Tani into the car and went to the house of a friend who was out of town to cook Thanksgiving dinner.
To cut a long saga somewhat shorter, in the past ten years the control panel has shorted out four times. We have always been suspicious that it was the self-cleaning mode or other high-temperature uses that caused the damage, perhaps because of a design flaw in the gaskets or insulation. So we started to use the lower oven exclusively, avoided using the oven except when absolutely necessary, and so on. Repairs were getting expensive and replacing the unit would be even more so. Sometimes when it failed, if we left the circuit breaker off for a few days to a few weeks, it would reboot, but eventually even that wouldn't be enough.
A few months ago it completely failed yet again, and we decided to replace it. I promised Heather that we'd have a new oven in time for Pesach, because the alternative would be miserable. We assumed that a ten-year-old oven would be so far out of warranty that there would be no point in contacting Thermador to ask what they would do for us.
So we did our research, went to Yale Appliance, and decided on a Kitchen-Aid.
In doing that research, I also learned that model years 2004-2007 of the C302 oven were recently recalled because insufficient insulation had led to a number of kitchen fires when the oven was put into self-cleaning mode. Yikes!
The next morning I tweeted: "Throwing in the towel on our piece-of-junk never-worked-right @ThermadorHome oven. That was an expensive mistake I won't make again." I was mad as hell, and I was going to start telling the world how unhappy we were with that oven.
Within hours, the head (I think) of Thermador's Twitter PR company contacted me via Twitter asking what was wrong. They pulled up our service records, and offered to send a technician out at their expense to see how to repair the unit. I wrote back:
I appreciate your efforts on our behalf. Frankly, at this point, we've repaired the unit enough times that we're convinced that merely repairing it again is simply buying time until the next failure, fighting against some sort of design flaw that will keep coming back and, we're afraid, eventually damaging more than just the oven.
So if we're just talking about Thermador paying for another round of repairs, thanks but no thanks.
If Thermador is offering to replace our unit with the equivalent model of the current line at your expense, then please feel free to call us at....
Within a day of that email exchange, Thermador called with the offer of a free replacement oven, equivalent model, installed at their expense, and restarting the warranty as of the date of installation. I asked if it would be installed before Passover and they said the installer had an appointment available on Friday.
(I also asked if they could do it through Yale Appliance, so that the commission at least could go to the salesperson, Sonya, who had helped us choose the Kitchen-Aid. Unfortunately, Yale didn't have this model in stock, and we didn't have any time to spare.)
So Friday comes, and I see an item on the Newton Tab blog: "Appliance Delivery Truck Overturns on Comm. Ave." Needless to say, I went into a panic. But when I checked in with Heather, she told me that the oven had just been installed. It may have come down to the wire, but when I promised her a new oven in time for Pesach, I meant it! :-)
Thank you to Thermador for surprising us by doing the right thing instead of hiding behind the written warranty. I was all set to let the Internet know how unhappy I was, but you've turned me into a happy customer, and now I'm pleased to tell everyone how you came through for us. I think this is also a textbook case of how a company can and should monitor and use social media to reach out to their customer base and build relationships.
I hope that whatever problems there were with the earlier models have now been solved, and we are very much looking forward to enjoying our new oven.
In fact, the first product is about to come out --- Passover popover rolls. Yum!
To cut a long saga somewhat shorter, in the past ten years the control panel has shorted out four times. We have always been suspicious that it was the self-cleaning mode or other high-temperature uses that caused the damage, perhaps because of a design flaw in the gaskets or insulation. So we started to use the lower oven exclusively, avoided using the oven except when absolutely necessary, and so on. Repairs were getting expensive and replacing the unit would be even more so. Sometimes when it failed, if we left the circuit breaker off for a few days to a few weeks, it would reboot, but eventually even that wouldn't be enough.
A few months ago it completely failed yet again, and we decided to replace it. I promised Heather that we'd have a new oven in time for Pesach, because the alternative would be miserable. We assumed that a ten-year-old oven would be so far out of warranty that there would be no point in contacting Thermador to ask what they would do for us.
So we did our research, went to Yale Appliance, and decided on a Kitchen-Aid.
In doing that research, I also learned that model years 2004-2007 of the C302 oven were recently recalled because insufficient insulation had led to a number of kitchen fires when the oven was put into self-cleaning mode. Yikes!
The next morning I tweeted: "Throwing in the towel on our piece-of-junk never-worked-right @ThermadorHome oven. That was an expensive mistake I won't make again." I was mad as hell, and I was going to start telling the world how unhappy we were with that oven.
Within hours, the head (I think) of Thermador's Twitter PR company contacted me via Twitter asking what was wrong. They pulled up our service records, and offered to send a technician out at their expense to see how to repair the unit. I wrote back:
I appreciate your efforts on our behalf. Frankly, at this point, we've repaired the unit enough times that we're convinced that merely repairing it again is simply buying time until the next failure, fighting against some sort of design flaw that will keep coming back and, we're afraid, eventually damaging more than just the oven.
So if we're just talking about Thermador paying for another round of repairs, thanks but no thanks.
If Thermador is offering to replace our unit with the equivalent model of the current line at your expense, then please feel free to call us at....
Within a day of that email exchange, Thermador called with the offer of a free replacement oven, equivalent model, installed at their expense, and restarting the warranty as of the date of installation. I asked if it would be installed before Passover and they said the installer had an appointment available on Friday.
(I also asked if they could do it through Yale Appliance, so that the commission at least could go to the salesperson, Sonya, who had helped us choose the Kitchen-Aid. Unfortunately, Yale didn't have this model in stock, and we didn't have any time to spare.)
So Friday comes, and I see an item on the Newton Tab blog: "Appliance Delivery Truck Overturns on Comm. Ave." Needless to say, I went into a panic. But when I checked in with Heather, she told me that the oven had just been installed. It may have come down to the wire, but when I promised her a new oven in time for Pesach, I meant it! :-)
Thank you to Thermador for surprising us by doing the right thing instead of hiding behind the written warranty. I was all set to let the Internet know how unhappy I was, but you've turned me into a happy customer, and now I'm pleased to tell everyone how you came through for us. I think this is also a textbook case of how a company can and should monitor and use social media to reach out to their customer base and build relationships.
I hope that whatever problems there were with the earlier models have now been solved, and we are very much looking forward to enjoying our new oven.
In fact, the first product is about to come out --- Passover popover rolls. Yum!