Masterbuilt Smokehouses

After a couple of days, they responded and asked me to decommission the unit by cutting the power cord and sending a picture before they could honor the warranty. They said don't throw any components away, they would only replace the damaged parts. They sent me a replacement Body, with no Door. So I never took it out of the box. Several days later, I received a door. But it was damaged too. I finally got a good door on the fourth Door.

So, when I went to assemble it, (with no instructions) I saw that the replacement Body was also damaged, on the side. Bad enough that I had to force the shelf to slide in. The dent was along the opening of the door, pushed in about a half inch. This also made it so the door would not completely seal. I reported this over a month ago, and they still have not responded. They have apparently closed this claim. Now, I have an original unit with a cut cord, and a replacement unit with worse damage so that the shelves don't fit properly, and smoke would leak if I tried to use it.

And now I have zero Customer Support. This is the most frustrating part of all. Absolutely worse Customer Service I have ever received on anything. I would not recommend Masterbuilt Smokers, especially buying one from their website. Had I got one from a retailer where I could inspect it when I picked it up, it may be a different story.

I like Masterbuilt but I can no longer deal with them due to that fact! My smoker started falling apart within less than a year, it no longer would hold the temperature after a year! That's when I had it broke off to me that I'm last that I don't matter! I have a good friend that's gone through 5 units and finally gave up and went to pitboss after my experience with customer service I decided to do the same! To be honest with you, I'm terribly vexed! I just wish Masterbuilt would do the right thing. It's not going to happen. I'm convinced. I'm tired of wasting my time, insanity you know the cliche!

I had the old 30 inch model that lasted me seven years without a problem! I was excited to get the 40 inch stainless steel, sadly it did not make it a year! Once customer service finally got to me two weeks later then a month later I get a heating element which did not resolve the issue. Plus while changing out the heating element, I noticed the horrible poor craftsmanship!

After that no contact, in a fury I just went and bought a Pit Boss pellet smoker: Pit Boss Competition Series Gen 2 Vertical 5 Pellet Smoker. Truth be told I have not even used it yet! Reason being I was sharing my story with a friend. He totally forgot he had an unused 30 inch Masterbuilt on his porch. He let me take it and I have been using that! The one thing I like is that you don't have to keep the chip tray full all the time and the heating element will maintain a constant temperature, whereas with the pellet grills the hopper has stay full all the time! I like electric smokers! I like Masterbilt however the customer service is a deal breaker. End of statement!!!

This 3-month old unit had instructions all through the manual to call (telephone) the company, so I did. The recording that answered basically said: "Use our website", then hung up. Website gives a "robo-chatbot" (not artificial intelligence, but just artificial). It asked a few questions and I did finally "text chat" to a person briefly, who told me they'd send me a new heating element. I have no idea why they decided it was the heating element.

In my mind it could have also been a thermostat or control module. No discussion, no human contact, no "sorry this happened with your new smoker." And no expectation of delivery time. I emailed back to ask about delivery and they said it could be up to 6 weeks. The only good news in this story is that it actually arrived about 8 days later. But needless to say I lost the fish (almost half the cost of the smoker) and disappointed a lot of people.

The new part arrived. It had an instruction sheet that did not match my smoker, which was annoying. But the parts looked identical, and I was able to change it with only minor frustration. I plugged it in, ran it a few minutes and it heated! Today I have another load of fish in the smoker. Guess what - same problem as I had Dec 9 - it heated and smoked for about 45 minutes, and when I went out at about an hour to check the chips... it was cold. I'm starting the so-called-warranty process again. I have no idea what will happen as I'm promised that someone will get back to me in 3-5 business days. At this point I have lost as much cost in food (let alone disappointment to family and friends), that I could have bought 2nd new smoker.

By the way, I registered my smoker on their website when purchased. I uploaded my purchase receipt at that time as well. When I contacted them Dec 9, they required me to upload a photo of the unit, the serial number, and the purchase receipt. I asked why they could not get this from my registration, but got no answer. I expect that I'll have to dig our that receipt again in 3-5 days to get this second warranty request processed.

I really expected better after my first Masterbuilt experience. I understand that problems do occur, but the post-sales support is less than junior league. It's Keystone Kops. 5 minutes on the phone and a more caring person on their keyboard might have solved the real problem and saved me a 2nd failure on this brand new unit. Their website even makes it hard to find and initiate a service issue. Normally I'd contact the company and give them a chance to respond and work with me privately. But there is no way I can see to do that. I can only submit issues if I upload a photograph of the problem. This is not the company I talked to 10 years ago.

Here I am November 2 with no tracking number for anything being sent out to me yet. Is it really going to take 2 total months from buying a grill to actually grilling? Oh, and if you ask for some sort of a discount for the inconvenience of this whole process which includes time, and having to store all the extra parts for the grill, and disposal of the heavy, bulky, damaged product that came in you are going to get told that that’s not in the contract. I did receive a couple “I’m truly sorries” though. It shames me to think I supported a business that doesn’t have an urgency to correct its wrong.