Why don't you do your due diligence and decide for yourself? here are the steps:

1. Check the BBB for complaints. A major appliance company should have a rating of A+ and very few complaints, none that are unresolved.

A BBB complaint arises only after the consumer has failed to get satisfaction from the company itself, and many BBB complaints, even if resolved, are an indication of problems with warranty claims.

Zline, for example, generated 22 resolved complaints with the BBB in the last 12 months.-- far to many for such a small company.

2. Read the warranty. An appliance company can trumpet ad nauseam the wonderful features and benefits of its products, but what it truly thinks about their quality, durability, and longevity is contained in the appliance's warranty.

The shorter and stingier the warranty, the less confidence company management has in its appliance.

Here, for example, is our appliance table for upscale residential ranges:

• Fulgor Milano Made in: Italy Warranty 2 year parts and service; 30 days cosmetic defects.
• Thermador Made in Tenn. Warranty: 730 days parts and service.
• Viking Made in Miss. Warranty: 1 year parts and service; 1-year, 5-year, and lifetime parts . only depending on the part.
• Wolf Made in Wisc. Warranty: 2-year parts and service; 5-year parts on certain components. No warranty after 2 years on other parts.
• Zline Made in China Warranty: 1 Year parts and service; lifetime on burners. No warranty on other parts after 1 year.

Do not just read the blurb on the company website extolling a "worry free" parts and service warranty, read the actual warranty itself to see what's excluded from warranty coverage. You may well find that not much is actually covered.

3. Finally, read the customer reviews of the actual range you are thinking about buying. Every company makes a clinker every once in a while, and that particular range may be one of those. Disregard reviews from "I just bought it" customers. They tell you nothing but how nice it look just out of the box. Concentrate on reviews from customers who have owned the range for few years.

For my money, however, I'd probably forgo the "pro-style" range built for home use. It is nothing more than a typical household range in a fancy stainless steel shell.

I'd go for an actual professional restaurant range like a Vulcan. Eight burners with s 30,000 BTU/hr output each, 35,000 BTU/hr. convection oven. That, my friends, is a true cooker, and I just saved $10,000 on the price compared to a Wolf or Thermador.

Thank you, StarCraft….we have been reading lots, trust me!

For performance - Bluestar RNB.

More: https://bamasotan.us/the-kitchen/

The commercial recommendation above from @StarCraft Custom Builders is exceptionally ignorant and irresponsible, especially to have come from a builder.

Thanks for the tips! The hood is already in place, ”infrastructure” done…it’s now just down to the range decision. I’ll keep reading and looking…..I’m finding this so difficult because A, no brand really stands out as ”really great”, B. CR says most of these brands enjoy very low consumer satisfaction, and C. literally every person out there has a different opinion! in the end, you can’t know what you’re going to get…. a great, lasting product (appliance repair people laugh at this), or a lemon. (I enjoyed reading Bamasota’s blog, but I think they’ve got a lot more $$ lying around than we do!☹️)

Sorry folks. My remarks about the pro range were intended to be tongue-in-cheek. Obviously they did not come off that way.

I believe the RNB is the same price range as those you originally mentioned.

I looked up the BlueStar….not bad. It definitely has more BTU output than Wolf, FM and many others, allows more customization…..for a price, of course. One thing I don’t like: only one simmer burner. I‘lol definitely think about it, so thanks.

@coray The burners on the RNB can be swapped out. If yout wanted a second simmer burner, they would be able to do that for you.

Also, don't get too hung up on BTU's. It's where RNB burners put the heat and how evenly that's the most important. The griddle makes a great 'linear french top' for simmering and sauces.

Thanks, y’all! That’s where we like the FM…..seems to have better burners for more even heat than Wolf. All their burners go from high to simmer, with a larger outer and smaller inner ring, all brass. My current range (we inherited with the house) has ONE “high” burner of 14000 BTUs…..boiling a pot of water for pasta takes 22 minutes +!!! I hate that range for several reasons, but that’s why I’m concerned with BTUs a bit. At this point anything will be an improvement!

I know our distributer in MN will turn on their stoves for demos if you want to see them in action. I'm sure your local distributer will as well.

We were at a “recommended” showroom yesterday…..they had sold a lot of floor models, what they did have was not hooked up, and they did not have Blue Star. I wish we had been able to see more, and in action, but we live in a somewhat remote area and have to drive a min of 2 hours for anything like that.

@coray did you decode on anything? I am struggling myself with a decision- I'm looking at just a rangetop and go between Wolf, Thermador and have recently added Fulgor Milano (which is significantly less $).

Thompsoc75: Well, after much back and forth, we decided to go with the FM range, as well as their microwave/conv/speed oven. Price was a factor, but not the deciding one. If Wolf had been a clear leader when I was doing my research, we would have gone with it, despite the higher price, but that wasn’t the case. The best we ever heard about Wolf was “well, you can’t go wrong with a W”, or “it’s good to have a W for resale”. I’m not buying a range to impress a potential buyer, and the FM had really good stats, so we went with it. I also don’t need a true professional range, and the Thermador with the better BTUs was even higher than Wolf. I hope we made the right decision, so🤞! Product reliability is not what it used to be, and that goes for almost all brands, so spending more won’t necessarily get you a better-made appliance, unfortunately.

coray: it’s been a while. Did you get the FM, and do you like it?

Hi Tony….Oh, I wish!! Absolutely ZERO has happened in our kitchen yet, though everything has been ordered (except for tile). I did get a call from our appliance store, however, and the FM has arrived safely in one piece…or so she thinks. We are still waiting for the FM mic/convection/speed oven, and the Zephyr undercounter bev fridge. As far as the kitchen (as a whole) is concerned, we probably won’t have everything in place until the end of July….and we started the process in December! And even our late July finish time is only tentative, because it all depends on shipping delays, contractor availability etc….🤞🤞🤞🤞

@coray, once you've been up and running for a while, would greatly appreciate your review of your appliances.

Ok, will do, but but it’ll likely be end of this year, or early 2023.

I’m waiting to hear about FM as well… so hard to find reviews on them!

I’ll certainly share whatever experiences we will have with the Sofia, but it will be at least mid to late July before the new kitchen would be up and running. (And of course we hope to have no issues for a good while😉)

@coray, thank you! I'm looking forward to your future posts.

👍Will do, JJ! Currently battling a bit of Covid (courtesy of DH being on a business trip last week)) and feeling a bit tired and light-headed (likely due to all the coughing), but I sure hope I’ll be back to normal soon and ready for our kitchen mess.😱

Coray, Hows the FM? Are you happy with it? We got the 6 burner rangetop but our builder didnt install a larger hoodfan so am now looking for that. Hence we haven’t really used the FM ( have a second kitchen where Im making things work right now).

So far, so good! We got the 48” dual fuel, and we’re finding that we’re mostly using the smaller oven, except for large cookie sheets or when we did the turkey for Thanksgiving. The burners have plenty of power, and the simmer setting also works well. (I did get a simmer plate for extra low simmer or delicate things.) What we have not yet done is really study all the features and use “specialty settings”, but I’m sure we will. One thing we’ve noticed: the knobs can be turned when brushing up against them, by walking by too closely. When we had the cabinet folks working on the kitchen, or electricians, they often brushed up against the front of the range, turning knobs. The range realizes the mistake and you’ll get an error code. The best way to clear this is to turn the breaker off for a few seconds, then wait for the range to reset, done. This does not normally happen, although my husband once inadvertently turned the oven knob, turning it down without noticing, then wondered why is cake was soupy after “baking” it for 30 minutes! Hope you’ll like yours! (Longevity remains to be seen…..)

Okay, thank you so much for the update. Good to hear. I cant figure out what type of hood fan to get for this.

We have a Vent-a-hood….Magic Lung….they are great to clean, very easy. You should get at least 900 cfms, I think….you can look this up online.

Coray, thanks for the info, very helpful. You mentioned in a post that you also ordered the FM micro/conv/speed oven. Did you end up getting that combo and if so, do you like it?

Yes, we did get the FM speed/mic/conv oven. The oven works well, but it’s not one of those “quick minute” or “set time and push start” kind of machines. It doesn’t bother us, but when our kids come to visit they make fun of it. (You need to push a series of buttons to get to the microwave function, then go from there.) There are tons of settings that can be pre-programmed and so forth, but we’ve yet to do any of that☹️😬. Not very helpful, I’m sure, sorry.🤷‍♀️

Hello to everyone,

I designed my dream kitchen 2 years ago. Purchasing the FM Sofia 48” dual range, 36” fridge, and the combi steamer. Other than having to familiarize with the appliances from time to time my cooking experiences have been successful. I also have the Wolfe Speed Oven that my family uses all day everyday. i have no regrets at all. I am selling my home and relocate to Dallas and purchase everything all over again. I hope everyone that decided on the FM is as happy as I am.

@ HU-800182639 we are debaiting if we should buy the Frigidaire counterdepth Fridge or match all of our appliances to FM since we will be buying the range and dishwasher. The Frigidaire has good reviews and more cubic FT. There are not many reviews on the FM refrigerator. How is the refrigerator working out for you?

We have been following this post closely as we are ready to replace our horrible GE Cafe with either the Wolf or Fulgor Milano Sophia and would love an update on the FM Range. Appreciate any guidance you can provide!

Leigh, we’ve had our 36” Sofia induction range for about a year and a half now. We’re mostly happy with it. Operationally it’s fantastic. The hobs work beautifully. The oven is very nice. The one disappointment was with self clean. We did it twice. The first time we used the default shorter self clean time and it worked well. The second time, since we’d done a lot of fat-laden cooking, we tried the longer self-clean time. That was a bad move. The heat burned out two components (the thermal breaker and I think the oven thermostat), so that the oven was dead. No damage to the induction top, but I had to call for a repair. It was repaired fine, but the Fulgor trained technician who works for the appliance place where it was purchased said to never use self clean on any of the new ovens. Said they all eventually cause similar damage depending on the brand. That could all be a load of B.S., but my Fulgor at least seemed to be in line with what he said. My previous 20+ year old KitchenAid 30” gas range was self cleaned dozens of times with nary a hiccup.

Leigh, we also like our FM 48” dual fuel range….no issues at all. I did quite a bit of research before we chose ours (it beat out the Wolf mainly due to long lead time, and it was about $4500 cheaper) and I read many times that while ranges/ovens do have self-cleaning functions, it is a killer! (Our last oven actually died because of it.) I have decided not to use the self-clean cycle anymore, period. Of course the FM does not have red knobs and doesn’t say Wolf, so the ooh factor isn’t quite there.😉 (We still think it’s beautiful and performs well.) Good luck!

I agree with coray - performance wise the FM is fantastic.

Coray, thank you for your follow up! I am so pleased to see that the FM is performing well. Candidly, we are not concerned with the "red knobs" and actually believe the FM is a beautiful piece of industrial sculpture. However, performance IS our number one criteria and we are thrilled to hear from actual users. It sounds like you have a beautiful kitchen and we hope you will have years of enjoyment! Appreciate ditto from Tony P as well! We are going next Thursday to place our order for the FM Sophia and will share our experiences once we get a bit of time under our belt. Thanks again!!

Leigh, I hope you will be pleased. The appliance industry has let many of us down for years now, and most people say that a cheaper appliance made many years ago still often performs better than more expensive pieces manufactured in recent years….sad, but true, even among the top brands. I actually had an appliance seller once tell me that manufacturers know they don’t need to produce great “work horses” any longer because so many people redo their kitchens every 5 years or so!

coray, before we got our FM I was looking for a new fridge. KitchenAid, Bosch, GE Cafe, etc. I went to two different appliance stores that carry so called better stuff. We looked at a Bosch at one of the stores and I asked how long it is expected to last. He said “you’ll be lucky if you get 7 years out of it”. 😲 He said it was due to a combination of stricter waste restrictions in manufacturing - they can no longer use apparently the depleted plutonium they must have used in the old days (I’m being sarcastic) to make them so tough, plus the higher efficiency standards also played together to result in designs that just aren’t as durable. I went to the second store in another town and asked basically the same question. Got the same answer with more or less the same rationale. I decided to keep my almost 30 year old Amana bottom freezer even though it doesn’t really go with the rest of my new kitchen (that I don’t ever plan to re-do in my lifetime!).

Incredible…..With newer waste restrictions one should think making appliances last longer would mean less waste down the road… My father has a Miele washer that has lasted almost 30 years now….w/o any service calls. My Miele vacuum is still going strong after 22 years, (although we’ve had a few parts replaced here and there) and I have been very pleased with my Bosch dishwashers; I have read that their refrigerators are not great, though. Yes, it’s a crapshoot……