I love this thread. I have been searching high and low for information on Thermador since the few I found on Facebook were primarily negative. I want to buy the Thermador Freedom 36 inch cooktop and reading at all the reviews is very positive, well except for the connectivity with the hood and long wait times. Also, i am assuming here that cooktop can be used without the hood as well? The last comment on this was a year ago. Any further comments/reviews/experiences would be highly appreciated. I am in NJ and everywhere I call I am told there will be a 5-7 month wait time (Designer Appliances, Reno's etc). Anyone know of any appliance stores where this would be in stock? Thanks again. Glad I found this thread.

You can get the cookware... just call thermador and they can email you the form(That's what I did)- also some vendors (AJ madison is one of them ) have the form online. I believe the deadline is Sept 1st... Here is a link that might be useful: AJ madison (just click on info and guides tab to download the form)

Demeyere and Le Creuset for us. We have quite a bit of Le Creuset. My first pieces were from my grandmother's house. They were given to her over 60 years ago by her sea captain brother who brought them back from a voyage to France. I purchased more Le Creuset when I lived in Europe during the 90s. It performs wonderfully and lasts forever with minimal care. We put a 36 inch Thermador induction cooktop in during our remodel and got the free Demeyere cookware (Apollo) that came with it. We love it and will be ordering a couple of more pieces in the near future - a larger stock pot and a stove top smoker for DH. The skillet is large capacity and I love the straighter sides. It gets a real workout at our house. We use the Demeyere and LeCreuset for different things and are very pleased with the performance of both on our induction cooktop. Our very large Le Creuset pot takes a while to heat water to boiling. I'm no electrical engineer but would guess it it due to the energy required to heat the large mass of cast iron. It works fine for soups, etc where I'm not looking to bring a large quantity of liquid to a boil. The Demeyere stock pot brings water to boil in an amazingly short period of time and we expect similar performance from the larger one we'll be getting soon.

Thanks for the detailed write-up. My wife and I have a 10 y.o. Thermador range, and recently looked at their 36" rangetop for our kitchen renovation. The star-shaped burners were a big selling point to me. Ultimately, we ruled it out because the salesman said it doesn't have an option for an integrated grill. I just looked at the Thermador website though, and it sounds like they'll be offering a grill soon. Other than that, I don't like the Extra-Low burners for simmering (although we can can a great simmer from the normal burners on our range). The biggest problem we're having is deciding whether to replace our 25 y.o refrigerator. Every model I've looked at seems to have complaints about noise. As you said, it seems to be the luck of the draw. It also seems to me that, in order to comply with energy efficiency standards, manufacturers end up making noisier products as well.