I put a pot of water on and just had walked away when there was an explosion; the cooktop had exploded . Glass was everywhere. I am very fortunate no one was close by. I have to replace the cooktop at my expense as I cannot get any response from KitchenAid.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
My oven was excellent, but when I used the 'Self-Clean' feature, the oven doesn't work at all. After some online research, I found this was a common problem. I was told by the customer service department that they won't cover it, since it is out of warranty. A way to stand by your product.
We purchased a Kitchenaid Gas Sealed Burner cooktop in early 2000 and had it installed in a slab granite countertop over an oven. This was model #KGCS166GSS - a 5 burner model with cast iron (I was told) burner grates. We cleaned the grates appropriately as per instructions and never even put them in the dishwasher or dropped them but after about a year (after ther 1 yr. warranty on parts expired), a crack developed in one of the grates.
We switched it for another matching grate on the cooktop so as not to stress it any further. About 8 months later, the 2nd grate developed a crack as well in the same place the first had developed! The burner the crack appears at is the 14,000BTU burner only. This seemed quite unusual and certainly not what I would expect from this manufacturer or the caliber of cooktop we purchased.
I've asked Customer Service if these grates may be on a recall list or if there is some other way of having them replaced but I was told that, unless I could provide the Serial # (located underneath the already installed cooktop), they could not help me - even though they have the model number. In order find this "hidden" serial number, a consumer would have to uninstall the oven in order access the underside of the cooktop!
I have had to order the 2 grates for a total of $171.24. The customer service representative would not give me the name of her supervisor but did suggest I contact the CEO of KitchenAid instead. When I insisted on a supervisors name, she said that she has many and would leave a message for one of them to call me back. Under the circumstances, I feel that KitchenAid has made it all but impossible to locate the serial number once the product is installed and is being of no help to remedy these defective grates.
