Considering the excellent performance and longevity of the Gaggenau appliances that I have owned, it should be a no brainer to continue to buy them. However, since I last purchased a Gaggenau appliance in 1989, the company has been acquired by BSH Home Appliance Corporation, which also manufactures Bosch & Thermador appliances, so there is no guarantee that a current model will perform the same as my old Gaggenau appliances. Since I have had such a bad experience with Thermador appliances and after reading so many negative reviews on the web concerning the failure of many different oven brands, I am convinced that appliances are not being manufactured with the same level of quality as in the past. Thus, regardless of cost, it is doubtful that any oven purchased today will have as long a service life as an oven made years ago. Miele has an edge for continuity, as it is still a small family-owned company. I purchased a Gaggenau convection wall oven, low profile ventilation hood, two burner ceran hob and a four burner gas cooktop in 1989. After 26 years, the hood still works great as does my ceran cooktop, which I moved to my basement kitchen three years ago when I replaced it and my Gaggenau four burner gas cooktop with a Thermador five burner gas cooktop. When we had to replace our kitchen counters three years ago, I decided to also replace my Gaggenau cooktop because the grates were not made very sturdy back then, so they would move if you tried to slide a pot from one burner to another. A royal pain when you are cooking several items for a dinner party! I was unable to consider another Gaggenau cooktop because the BTU output of the burners had increased in the ensuing years and the configuration of the burners put the strongest burner too near my existing wood cabinets to meet code. The Thermador gas cooktop met my city's code because the highest BTU burner was at the center of the cooktop, so it was directly under the hood and not near any of my cabinets. Although my Gaggenau gas cooktop was then 23 years old, it worked perfectly and the stainless steel top and grates, despite heavy use, were in mint condition, so I was able to donate it to Habitat for Humanity. In contrast, my three year old Thermador stainless steel cooktop is very difficult to keep clean, especially between the star burners. The quality of the stainless steel and the grates seems to be of a lower quality than my previous Gaggenau had, so anything splashed or spilled on it adheres to the surface and bakes on. It takes a lot of elbow grease to clean the stainless steel surface or the grates, regardless of what type of cleaning product is employed. Thus, my three year old Thermador cooktop looks older than the 23 year old Gaggenau that it replaced! Another push toward buying a Miele oven. As far as my Gaggenau convection wall oven, which finally died on Christmas Eve after 26 years of flawless performance, the only service call that it ever required was two years ago to replace the bulb that illuminated the temperature display. (It is impossible to access without service help.) My Gaggenau oven outperformed and outlasted a GE convection wall oven that quit after 7 years and a Thermador convection wall oven that I have had for only 6 years. My Thermador oven, which began reporting fault codes almost immediately after installation that prompted numerous service calls, now requires an estimated $1000.00 worth of repairs with no guarantee that those repairs will correct the problem. In fact, the service technicians, after consultation with Thermador's tech support, advised me to purchase a new oven! Apparently, Thermador ovens have issues with their door hinges, so although the oven door appears to be closed, it is not closed sufficiently to prevent heat from adversely affecting its various smart boards. Currently, the repair people and Thermador's tech support advise that I can replace the EOC board in my oven, replace the hinges, and replace the gasket around the door that has been singed because of exposure to the heat from the door not closing properly, but they cannot guarantee that doing so will prevent the oven from tripping fault codes! Per Thermador's instructions, each time that my oven trips a fault code and shuts off, I have to go down the basement to shut off the circuit breaker, wait five minutes and then turn the circuit breaker back on and hope that the process has cleared the fault code. Try having your cakes turn out properly with an oven that works like that! A vote for my old Gaggenau in the longevity department, but a minus because they are now made by the same company as Thermador. Another edge toward the Miele. A further complication that I have encountered in trying to replace my two broken ovens is that most companies have discontinued their 27" replacement models, so I must reconfigure my kitchen to accommodate the installation of two 30" ovens. Thus, aside from the fact that I am a gourmet cook who needs reliable and accurate ovens, replacing my ovens is going to require a sizeable expense for the ovens and the construction that will be necessary to accommodate them. Thus, I appreciate hearing about your experiences with either Gaggenau, Miele or Blue Star convection ovens. I have not considered a Wolf or Viking because they were rated lower in baking quality by a leading consumer magazine and there are a ton of negative consumer comments about them on the web. My kitchen cannot accommodate a free standing or slide in range with ovens. Thank you for whatever help you can provide toward helping me to make a wise oven choice. This post was edited by perovskia6 on Tue, Jan 20, 15 at 12:29

There won't be many reviews of the Benchmark series because they didn't come out very long ago. I do know at least one person on this forum has one though, and they love it. Cooktop: To be honest I don't really like gas cooktops so I'm not too familiar with the different offerings out there. If I had to buy one I would get Bluestar or Thermador because I believe they have the best burner designs (most powerful and most even). There are other factors to consider though like grates and burner/control layout and unfortunately I think both of those have center controls. I think the best thing you can do here is go to a showroom and maybe bring your pans. Personally I prefer induction cooktops, or, if it has to be gas, a rangetop. Hood: It's a fan in a metal box. Not much to go wrong. Buy the one that you like the looks, features and price of. Stay away from the no-name, obviously made in China ones that are only available online. Dishwasher: Bosch vs. Miele is a tossup. They are both good quality, Miele slightly more so but with a price to match. Again pick the one with the looks and features you want with a price you can afford. Make sure to bring your dishes to the showroom and make sure the racks will work for you. Fridge: What type do you need? Freestanding/built in/integrated? What width? French door/single door? (I'm assuming bottom mount since you mention drawers) This post was edited by hvtech42 on Wed, Jan 28, 15 at 11:23

POSSIBLE HACK FOR DOUBLE OVEN USERS!!! Might help de-Grinch your Christmas if you need both ovens. I've been having the same double oven issues as many others. You try to start the second oven (doesn't matter which you start first), and the whole thing shuts off and reboots. First, possible solution, then background. Start one oven on bake. Then try starting the other oven on broil. If that works, shut it all off, then try bake on one, roast on the other. Experiment with the modes a little. Mine was NOT working. Now it is, but I don't know for how long. And I don't know if repeating this will work again if it fails. Just something to try. I've had multiple control board replacements like many others. Bluestar has a new control board in the pipeline, but they are having supply chain issues like everybody else. They switched suppliers from Quantem Corp, to somebody else. Quantem is a big supplier for HVAC control systems, among other things. I have a technical background and can do some very basic electronic repairs. We'll need both ovens for Christmas dinner, so I decided to see what I could do. I took the boards out to check for basic stuff like scorched components and bad solder joints. No smoking gun. I put it back together and tested it. FAIL, same as usual. The moment you select the temp on the second oven, you can hear a relay click, then the oven dies. Like a momentary overload condition. Preheating for bake or roast involves using all the oven's elements. Big load. I researched what elements activate for the various modes. I decided to try starting bake on the top oven at 200, then BROIL on the bottom on Low. Broil only uses the top element. IT WORKED! Then I did the same test, reversing top and bottom. Still worked. I flipped the breaker on and off and tried again. Still worked. After a couple more tests, I tried what would ALWAYS make it fail before, bake on the top and bake on the bottom. STILL WORKED. Something about this process seems to have slapped the control board upside the head to get it working. Hopefully, this solution is durable enough to last until the revised control board is installed. We'll see. And I hope this works for somebody besides ME! Regarding Bluestar and the oven, we do like the oven. Yeah, it's a little noisy, but we knew what we were getting into. FYI, the noise comes from a fan deep behind the control panel. All that fan does is cool the electronics. That fan doesn't need to work as hard when you use the bottom oven, so it's quieter then. Yes, it's been real nuisance to have all the failures. There have been adventures with the repair company to add to all this. But through it all I feel that Bluestar has had my back on this. They have been accessible and responsive, going beyond the call of duty at times. Huge kudos to Bluestar customer service and their management. Thank you, and I look forward to finally putting this to bed with the new, improved components!

Just a couple points. Check your favorite cookie sheets to make sure they fit in the ovens, don't assume that just because capacity specs seem large that your things will fit (Bosh didn't fit my extra large cookie sheets that my former Thermador double oven always did). Sometimes rack rails get in the way with some ovens (new Thermador), and the Bosh oven rack has a bit of a lip on the back that kept my sheets from going all the way back.This may not be an issue based on the size of the baking sheets you use...but always do the test. Also, and this is most important, check -warranty differences between your options -make sure you have an authorized repair place available that services the brand you go with -call and see how quickly service can be at your house (took me 3 weeks for an LG refrigerator to get repaired ....and a TON$ to rebuild it after only 3 years owning it....never again will I try LG or Samsung or any other company that takes forever to get parts. Also, I was still in the "covered parts" of the warranty but it still cost me $800 in labor!! I knew when I bought it I would regret it one day but I was a sucker for capacity) -speak with an actual repair tech if either brand has any consistent issues with their ovens, cooktops, etc -ask about the amount of times both ovens are not working in a repair situation -ask the tech which one he would buy Finally, in the few times I had service on my Thermador double oven, it was never the "whole oven" being out of commission. It would be the door of one, or the temperature of the other, etc...never both. In the end, an outdated control panel is why I had to replace it, and in the end I was down to one oven working/hanging...I was never without both. That's not to say it can't happen, but I think that a good double oven is built to take this risk into account. I have a new double-oven being installed on Tuesday and am getting another double-oven, not two separate. Maybe I was lucky, but thought it was worth mentioning because I like my ovens having just one control panel at eye level.