Stay away from Char Broil Grills

I like to cook. I love to grill too.  Down here in Florida with the warm weather we grill year round. I probably grill 2 to 3 times a week when I am home.  For most of my adult life I have always had Weber grills.  Weber makes a fine product and on average my Weber grill lasts 6 or 7 years. In fact since moving to Florida I have only had one grill, a Weber.  Finally about 15 months ago my trusty old Weber gave up the ghost. I was sad, but knew it didn’t owe me any money, I had gotten more than my fair share out of it. 

I forgot what happened but I wound up in Lowes instead of Home Depot looking for my next grill. The sales person at Lowes did a masterful job of showing me the shiny new Char Broil commercial series grill.  All stainless steel, 4 burners and a side burner.  It was just a little over half the price of the Weber. The sales guy told me they were built to last and he had one himself.  You would think I know better than to listen to a sales guy.

Anyway here I am about 14 months later. The shiny stainless steel is still shiny. But the guts inside the grill, the burner, ignitions, heat shields, etc are all rotted and rusted hulks.  This in spite of the fact that I bought the custom grill cover and keep the grill covered whenever its not in use.

I called Char Broil to see if it paid to buy the replacement parts or better yet if they would do anything for me as a customer. After punching through a few dial 1 for this, 2 for thats, I was able to get a live person on the phone and she spoke English natively. I thought wow their customer service seems to be better than their products (I know a few companies like that). 

Unfortunately that is where the good story  ends.  The rep on the phone told me these are actually very high maintenance grills (now they tell me).  Every few months you are supposed to take apart the whole bowl of the grill and soak the parts in soapy water (are they kidding me?).  You need to put a coating on the heat shields to keep them from rusting out. Then she tells me that if you close the cover when grilling it causes carbon to build up on the interior parts which accelerate the rust.  Sorry, but the warranty is just 12 months, you are two months out of warranty and by the way to replace all of these parts would cost more than a new grill.  Thanks for using Char Broil!

Yeah right.  Char Broil grills suck and if any sales person tries to sell you one, run as fast and as far as you can!