peasblog has inspired me to check in as well about my experience with my Capital range.

I can't remember, truthfully, how long I've had this range now because it does not feel a long while; I'm of that Ouroboritic age, apparently. But it's been long-enough that I should be able to weigh in and the experience may be helpful.

Maybe, because clearly the wares offered nowadays from Capital have drifted, and seemingly for the better.

I want to weigh in about their "customer service" and also the function of the salesman.

I believe it was explauren in this thread also complained about Capital CS; Houzz' search engine pulls up: 24,151 'capital customer service' discussions - it's an issue.

Trevor, the ever-present salesman from the NE on this site, has often acknowledged how lame they can be at Capital. I would like to point out this part of their charm as attractiveness as well. Blink and they're insufficiently professional, blink again and they're not officious and accessible.

There are times I have rued not buying a more commercial range with a well-defined problems-resolution setup. But I, personally, never *would* have bought such a range, and so the "market position", if you will, of Capital as uber-functional-professional-type-range-without-the-branding-bs has its own value. And downside, to be sure.

Today, Capital kindly made good on a long-standing problem I have had with the burners' flame drifting and clicking, and just generally not behaving as promised. This is not the first time they have responded whole-heartedly. But know that this resolution comes .... just one day shy of 7 months after I initially re-contacted them in frustration. Actually, maybe a day or two into that seventh month. It was just before July 4 because I acknowledged that actually addressing the problem right then and there might be problematic due to the holiday (but of course I was hoping they could. Hah!). It's not as if they have been completely awol all this time. But by conventional CS standards, they would have fallen down over and over and over again, flat.

I want to repeat, though, that this transaction from beginning, middle and through to the present which I suspect is not the "end", has never been conventional.

As Trevor says, repeatedly, this is a company peopled by engineers. Why they can't hire a PR or CS expert on the side as accessory, no one really knows. But they haven't and in all these years, still haven't. It's still the same CS people on the phone that I first engaged years ago: same ones. With all the same flaws. They are nice, not immaculately competent, but sincere, reachable and the sort of persons you'd be happy to have as inlaws. Not best friends perhaps, but really fine associates.

This sounds, perhaps, like it doesn't belong in a review of a range's functionality. But in fact there is a lot of discussion about what CS one has a right to expect when buying a high-end range. These guys will not be slick and they won't be as attentive without Trevor's prodding, perhaps, as you may have a right to expect. But they are out there and they do care about your experience. Is it possible to facetime with the head engineer at Wolf? I doubt it. This is a real-deal small time small business. FBOW.

All that said, the caution often repeated around here with growing exasperation for folks who didn't somehow know this already, ought to be taken close to heart: if you want to buy this machine, you will be better off doing so via Trevor.

I am guessing Trevor is loathe to acknowledge how relatively rare he is as a Purveyor Who Cares. But in my 50-something years worth of life experience, I don't think I can think of another appliance salesman who has been anything but a placeholder between factory and my life. Trevor keeps saying, and others as well Have you contacted the person who sold you this machine? They should have known, they should have helped you.... And I always feel badly for the person thus mildly reprimanded. Because how the heck could a person possibly have known this? If I went back to any of the others who have ever sold me an appliance firstly, I wouldn't really be able to find them. Second, from among those small long-time outfits -- well, they're all out of business, but prior to that even they took zero responsibility whatsoever for anything they have sold.

I'm sure there's some variation and some salesmen somewhere take special pride in their sales. But few of us have received that as a life's lesson and would have known to look for or expect it. We've been trained to understand the purchase of even a multi-thousand dollar hunk of equipment, to be as faceless as buying baking soda.

So. Purchasing this range, through Trevor, has amounted to important insurance of a personal sort that is hard to explain if you haven't experienced it already. It's possible this is all true only, importantly, in the context of this public forum (GW) as well. And the last critical ingredient has been patience. Dealing with this whole chain has not been like dealing with any other transaction I have ever known.

But in the end I'm really OK with it, because and only because and when, I remember to stay patient. Because on the one hand waiting 7 months for resolution of a problem is pretty out-there. And on the other, I doubt another company or set of associates would have stuck with it all and "taken care of me" through it all. Because they didn't have to. They could have ditched me long, long ago. And they did not.

Someone on GW wondered about the factory and had trouble contacting them or corroborating their existence ... can't quite remember. They were miffed they couldn't see the range in a showroom and someone suggested they could visit the factory in Santa Fe southeast of LA a bit.

This made a big difference to me. I happened to find myself in their warehouse neighborhood one day, oddly enough, and decided to stop in. Being just normal ordinary people, they kindly-enough let me peek into their back where they were manufacturing this stuff. It's pretty impressive. And just there. It could be that somewhere in Wisconsin is a warehouse where you could see them making the competitor's stuff just right there. But as a measure of how plain-folks this outfit is, I was able to just see this for myself. And perhaps it informs my ability to take lots of long, deep breaths while in resolution-mode subsequently. They're just ordinary people.

Even while Trevor is an extraordinary salesman. At one point I called him out of the blue after several years of no contact because there was a Capital repairman in my house asking for a payment I had not expected and wondered if it was fair. Trevor left his customers to take my panicked phone call, listened, checked his records and endeavored to keep the exasperation from his voice in instructing: "...just pay it!". I trust him to know the fair way forward even blindly and on the spot. For someone I have never met, this was pretty remarkable.

Is anyone still buying my Culinarian? Will my observations of it matter to anyone now? It's a 6-burner bottom-end (no self-clean, no griddle, etc) version. The oven is *big*, but there are times, always, I wish it were bigger. But it's always absorbed my huge turkeys for too many. I wish it didn't have that sticky-outy metal box in the back, probably a fan housing? But I think everything can always be bigger. It fits all three cake rounds at once, no turning. It's still not perfect at even baking, but I'm pretty sure this is largely a function of preheating that big cavity. I think you should preheat that thing way, way, way longer than you'd wish to were you worrying about the planet's health. Even with the fan, I think it takes longer than you expect to really evenly distribute heat inside of there. And hence the occasional uneven cooking.

So while I often wish the oven were larger I even more often wish it were smaller because heating such a large cavity is wasteful for ordinary casserole-baking. Utilizing my electric wall speed oven helps in this regard and half the time I don't use the big gas oven. YMMV, I'm happy with the arrangement. But when considering which version of range to purchase, consider oven cavity size: I didn't think of this in advance.

One last comment about the oven: its racks buzz but I've learned to work around this by ensuring they are pulled away from the back wall. Oddly enough it is an issue more with a heavier load on the rack. I cannot understand this but it is definitively true. I have heard no one else complain of this but most seem to have the rolling racks. I wish I did but it wasn't worth thousands more to me! But that is an issue, the racks are sticky and a bit hard to slide out, and I wish there were one more height-adjustment level. You cannot set a custard on the rack and slide it in, you need big oven mitts and to reach that liquid back in there. But this is all stuff I've learned to live with fairly easily. I am satisfied.

My comments about the stovetop should perhaps wait until I've used the new burners for awhile. Since anyone thinking to buy a new stove would have these new burners, my older observations are likely irrelevant now. Plus, this post is too long.

The bottom line is: while I have known many moments of exasperation with Capital over these years, I am proud to own their equipment and grateful for the principal's "humanity" there at the company. I would recommend the range to anyone, but only if they have a high tolerance level for not-immediate CS satisfaction, and only if they have a ... good relationship with a trustworthy salesman! How funny that sounds....

I feel they (all) have "taken care of me well" and been responsive to my needs; my range really always does what I want it to in the end, though with tweaking. I don't have a restaurant to run, just a busy family. It's a really good tool in my kit box, and at less than its competition, it's at the very top range of what I could afford. I'm glad I made this decision years ago because it nets me far better equipment than I would have wound up with otherwise.