I can understand how this can happen. I take an oil panting class I coaxed this info out of a fellow student. He was the original owner of an old time appliance store over 40 years in business still going strong. The big box stores are his most hated competition to his business yet with increase of population his sales are basically all he can handle. Sales are supported by service, delivery, set up, warranty, repair, and in his case home style local tech support. Think he told me it took 16 full time people and 8 trucks for supporting his store. I am going to use you LG refrigerator as an example. He might sell 2 a week. He probably going to deliver it and set it up for a flat fee. (I just happened to recently buy a LG delivered 55$ they had to remove my front door pull both door off the refrigerator took 4 people over 1.5 hours to deliver and set it up ) it was from another store not his but it was a appliance store not a builder supply store . This is where big box stores and appliance stores collide. Lot of the big box stores does not actually have repair technicians. Someone who runs an appliance store with full service does not want to support the big box stores sales (say 10 a week per store) who usually only offer delivery. There no way he could maintain all the appliances sold in his area and he doesnÂt want to. They canÂt make him do it. All LG could do is pull dealership and they wont because they canÂt force him to increase his support fleet to 100 vehicles. This is not just an issue with LG but with all appliance manufactures and warranty. He told me if you buy from a big box store think of the extended warranty like you would as a retainer for a lawyer but in this case as to have a repair technician that would actually come to your house because he not going to send his out . He could be sweet talked but it takes a while.

Look at the discussion of the constituent parts. Look at cooktops and rangetops. Six better than average sealed burners. Xtra low simmer of 100 degrees but clicks and clacks to maintain that low temp. Raise it to 130 and the igniters don't click. Claims tops in the industry 22k btu burners but Capital has 23k btu. Evenness not as good as Bluestar or Capital Culinarian. Plus an aggressively mediocre 1300 watt electric griddle. Electric Ovens. Most discussion centers around the quality problems they had a few years ago and if they resolved it. Thermador and salesman swears it has been resolved not a lot confirmation from owners. Almost no one claims best in class precision. Thermador steam oven. Almost no discussion. Steam oven discussion centers around Gaggenau vs Wolf and sometimes Miele. Warming drawer. Like most warming drawers nothing great nothing bad. All that for a very large premium of $14k. About the price of a Sub Zero Pro 48. A few owners and quite a bit of discussion. A lot of singing it's praises. After researching and researching vast majority of people shopping for a range in the $14k class don't buy the Thermador Pro Grand steam range. Take a guess why?

MFatt, I chose this one because I thought it was $3,500 worth of cool. I had a portable induction unit first and loved it, and I even had a loaner from Thermador with the black surface while this mirrored one was on backorder. I had no problems with it. I *suspect* that something is new and different about the mirrored finishes made this year based on a couple of things I overheard. A new material perhaps, or a different manufacturer? I'm just guessing. I liked the zoneless one too, but I always try to get products that have been around awhile and had the kinks worked out. Ha! 2LittleFishies, I'm impressed that you got a mirrored one 5 months ago. We ordered our appliances early this year and learned in March that the mirrored cooktop was on backorder. I called a few other appliance stores in town, and they too said none were available. Perhaps you had one of the cooktops from the "last batch". Glad it's working for you! You probably don't want to trade, do you?

Thank you so much for your review. I am currently choosing appliances and Thermador is having a great promotion (free range hood with fridge, free dishwasher with range), but I will stick to tried and true subzero and wolf!!! It's hard to find unbiased reviews of thermador, but most are similar to yours: don't buy the fridge!