Someone was telling me that lots of people are turning back to charcoal grills once again. I don't know if this is true. It doesn't surprise me because the taste just isn't there with most all grills offered these days. I love the charcoal grilled taste. Now here's a question: What ever happened to the old gas grills the big natural gas companies sold. We had one years ago. It was a big grill, made of stainless steel, had volcanic rock, and used no charcoal. The taste was great and there was no messy ashes to clean up afterwards. It seems that the gas grill industry has gone backwards in effectiveness when the old volcanic rock grills were absolutely PERFECT!

Reply to budhm, Call the customer service. 1-800-913-8999. Since your grill is new, And I trust the you still have the receipt, They will send you a new igniter at no cost. But be warned, You may be on hold for a long time. And you will need to fax the receipt. I hope all works out for you.

I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.

>>"Their YouTube videos are great" You're kidding, right? They struck me as rather stilted and amateurish infomercial fare. I think they could use Vince the Sham-Wow guy to spice them up. Billy Mays is rolling over ... Do you want to replace your home grill with one of these things? One would probably be pretty cool so long as you have electrical power available outside where you grill. Being able to set the thermostat and walk away for 5 hours while your ribs cook at 190º is pretty awesome, but having to keep bags of wood pellets around is not. I am not sure that there is enough advantage to that to induce me to give up on my gas grill. Plus, I am not a fan of overly smoked meats; there is enough flavor in the smoking a haunch gets over the course of a few hours in the grill to suit me. What I wonder is what is the quality control of wood pellet ingredients? Aren't they designed for use as heating fuel? Do they use bizarre chemicals in the manufacturing process that could get into the food? Selenium Burgers!