Thermadore Reliability

Thanks Textoner.

Your advise is quite practical. I have also done additional consumer research since I posted my inquirery and in the latest research by Consumer Reports publications and their on-line site ratings, they rated the Thermadore as "tops" in performance of major brand wall ovens. However.......they also noted that they have the highest rate of repairs......4 times higher than middle brands like Kenmore or GE. One other problem with Thermadore, and other high end specialty appliances in general, is that when they discontinue a line it can become quite difficult to find service parts later. They don't carry as many models in general and they have less of a tendency to carry over parts from a discontinued line into their new or replacment designs. One last detail I discovered by accident. I went searching for a blog about customer satisfaction with Thermadore and stumbled across one with a lot, and I do mean a lot, of unhappy customers. It was not so much that their ranges or ovens had problems, most agreed that can happen with any product regardless of price, but rather with Thermadore as a company itself. The customer relations and service department, located in Huntington Beach, California, was not as attentive in their pursuit of customer satisfaction as one would expect after spending upwards of $5000 for a range. Many of these customers went several weeks waiting for parts on newly purchased ranges and meanwhile were left unable to use part or all of their purchase. When you have a range or oven that can't operate it's very difficult to bypass this inconveinance unlike a dishwasher. A large part of the blame on this poor service record rests with the German parent company, Seimans. In either case, waht really sets a great company apart from a not so great company is not just the product but the after sale and after warrenty service. It would appear that Thermadore falls drastically short on this critcal point.