1) I have an older model but I hope my info is still valid here. Fit and finish was exactely what was expected. It ranks about par withmany of the professional ranges I have seen. Wolf is clearly superior in this area and I'd say the bench mark to compare by. It looks like a product that has a lot of hand and manual labor (love) put into it :). Most certainly non of these "sharp edges" that churn out of the rumor mill. I'd say 7.5/10 when comparing it to other ranges in its class.
2)Ovens work well. I have a 48" and use the small oven a lot more than I thought I would. Cooks and bakes evenly. Racks are well placed (although I would like to see all the racks roller racks). Ovens are very large, even the "small" oven accomodates a half sheet. Broiler works well but is fairly small in size. Oven doors do get hot. Takes longer to preheat and temp to stabalize than an electric oven. 9.5/10
3)The grill is something I use alllll the time. Takes a while to preheat and it does have hot spots. I wish I got a double grill. I'd love to see an infrared grill. 8.5/10
4) I do not use the griddle often. I don't find it has a lot of space. 6/10
5)All standard burners and would not change a thing. I have 2x22k 1x15k and 1x8k grill and griddle. Love the performance of the burners. Low and high. Burners 10/10
6)Easy to level because I rebuilt that part of the floor and I am a darn good carpenter. 100% level. As for install? Well there were no tricky connections or funky things to deal with BUT trying to get a range that is probably 600+ lbs and 4 feet wide into an opening that is about 4 feet plus 1/4" at best with wood floors that you have to worry about scratching into the mix makes it something you don't want to have to do often. 9/10
7) I adjusted the simmer on all burners. They all came high from the factory. 7/10
8) Not sure what words to use here. I'm gonna go with HELL YEAH! :). 11/10

We've had our Bluestar 36" 6 burner since October 2010.
The fit and finish are good.
That is to say I haven't come accross any sharp edges and everything lines up the way it is supposed to.
The oven is great, although it does take longer to heat up than my previous oven, a Caloric that I could not wait to toss.
The rollong oven racks are wonderful.
The infrared broiler is fantastic, but took some getting used to as it heats up to 1850 degrees.
So you need to pay close attention.
Our burners are in the factory configuration and this works fine for us.
As part of our agreement with our retailer, we had the service company come out after installation to check and adjust the burners as well as the oven.
Since then everything has been running well.
No grill or griddle.
As 'tyguy' indicates, installation is not difficult except that the range weighs in at something like 400 lbs.
Although, that was our contractors problem.
The gas and electrical specs provided in the installation manual are accurate.
If you'll stick to them your install should go smoothly.
Would I purchase this range again?
In a nano-second!!

1. The overall fit and finish (newer models)

48" Frenchtop range.

I had zero issues. All stainless steel scratch free, everything aligned properly, powder coating job was flawless.

2. The operation and performance of the oven or ovens.

Echo what tyguy said. Both are well above my expectations. The main oven with convection continues to impress me with it's performance from cookies to roasts to roasted vegetables.

3. The grill if you have one
4. The griddle if you have one.

Don't have either.

5. The burners that were provided or any that you changed and why?

Standard config.

6. The ease of installation and leveling

The fact that the BS is on legs makes leveling WAY simple. The contractor should have a pallet jack or similar to help.

My contractor did not level my range properly so I had to do it myself. How did I gently lift the right side of my 600 pound range? Went to my car and grabbed the jack. Hey, if it works for a 3000 pound vehicle... worked like a champ. I jacked it up a smidge, reached under and twisted the feet until they contacted the floor.

Try that with a range that doesn't have any floor clearance.

7. Gas and electrical specs accurate or field modified

No issues. Gas an electric supplied as spec'd, 20A dedicated non-GFI outlet and 3/4" gas line with 7 water column. (Range asks for 5-10).

8. Would you purchase again.

Without question.

-Stooxie

It seems as if owners of this brand have little or no major issues to complain about. It might be they knew going into the purchase what they were getting and that's what they got. We are replacing a 22 year old 30" slide-in range that works perfect. Not near as powerful or as large , but has fed us for many years. When I approached the store which sold us this range, Miele DW, compactor and supplied many high-end jobs we have done he suggested the BS for us. They sell every brand with the exception of the french stoves. Your comments reinforce what he suggested. He is a straight shooter and has been in the business his whole life. He was the one who gave me the history of BS before I even researched into the products they make. Basically we are looking for an upgrade that will last us for years and yes any piece of equipment can have a problem. The store knows who services them and said that if anything happens locally it can be serviced. From reading tyguy's post I was pleased that he didn't give all 10's in rating the range. If it got all 10's then there would be no competition and no room to improve. We will go and inspect a BS range again and decide if it will meet our needs and fit into what we are planing to do.

>It seems as if owners of this brand have little or no major issues to complain about. It might be they knew going into the purchase what they were getting and that's what they got

To be fair you got a small sample of us which doesn't really represent owners on the whole. Based on about 5 yrs being on this forum I would say bs does have a good following. Bs also used to have a pretty spotty customer service record with some people reporting amazing service, others reporting very poor service. I am glad to say tho, that this issue has been completely resolved and I would say their cs is now second to none. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said the difference is bs issues have been exposed on here for a very long time. I would bet anyone who is not happy with their bs purchace had not done their research before hand.

As with you, I have done a lot of high end kitchens so have had some exposure to these types of ranges (mostly viking, wolf, and thermador) before I got mine. I had a viking before my bs. I have never enjoyed an appliance as much as this.

We installed a 36" with the griddle two years ago (just before the newer version, I believe). This is my favorite part of our new kitchen! I would do it again in a heartbeat.

1. The overall fit and finish (newer models)
I have had no issues here.
2. The operation and performance of the oven or ovens.
Oven works well. I did have some convection noise when it was new, but BS sent someone out and it's been fine since.
3. The grill if you have one
NA
4. The griddle if you have one.
LOVE the griddle. It heats up very quickly and works well. We use it for breakfast food, reheating pizza (works like a charm), reheating food, sandwiches, quesadillas, etc.
5. The burners that were provided or any that you changed and why?
Use as they were configured. We tend to use the 28,000 BTU and the simmer burner the most frequently.
6. The ease of installation and leveling
Our installer had no issues.
7. Gas and electrical specs accurate or field modified
Specs were accurate.
8. Would you purchase again.
Definitely.

Best of luck in your decision process.

36" six burner range.

Fit and finish seem very good to me. The stainless is nicely finished and the color (ours is cobalt blue) very nicely done, both on the front and on the sides.

The oven is excellent. Very good dependable performance; excellent capacity; and the rolling rack is terrific. Pre-heating is not super-fast (maybe not for any large gas oven), so that's a consideration for some (and for some might prompt a second oven), but performance is very good. The broiler is great, IMO, although not huge (good-sized, but not huge).

Installation and setup -- the shop did it. I didn't notice any special problems, but they did a nice job and, frankly, I wasn't about to haul that thing up the stairs myself. The gas line was there already, electric was fine, so only minor tweaks were needed for the gas hookup itself -- we had those handled, per spec, by a plumber in advance.

Burners: I swapped the left-most burners front to rear, such that the two high-output burners are in the front right and rear left corners. I understand the reasoning behind the stock configuration, but in the end I felt that I'd prefer not to reach over a large pot or pan on high to get to the simmer/low-output burner. On balance, I'm glad we did the swap. The range -- the dynamic range on the burners, if you will -- is great. High heat is excellent for very high heat cooking, quick response, and also for things like getting a large pot to return quickly to a boil after you've added pasta. The intermediate burners are very versatile. All-in-all very pleased with burner performance from high to low.

No experience with the griddle or the grill. We do have a griddle pan, which covers two burners, and which I consider very handy for certain things -- as a matter of personal preference, I favored the six burners with a griddle pan handy (and a grill just the other side of the kitchen's sliding glass door), but that's personal preference, and balance of cooking interests, so I'm sorry that I cannot say anything about the griddle or grill options.

So, yeah, just one guy's experience, and to the best of my knowledge no major campaign candidates endorse this message, but, sure, I'd buy it again.

I have a V1 30 RNB. Many of your categories still apply so here's my response:
Fit and finish are excellent -- not a single problem. Center grates were chipped -- BS immediately sent new ones. Side panel of range was dinged during shipping. Got replacement skins for the entire range free of charge and was able to de-skin and resin ourselves (me and DH) with BS on the phone. If you can completely take apart a range and put it back together yourself, it has to be made to pretty strict tolerances, right?

I had the White Glove Service and BS has taken great care of me. Very responsive.

Love the oven -- the rolling racks are wonderful. You can't get rolling racks on the CC unless you get self clean which I didn't want. That alone was a deal breaker for the CC.

Love the burner. Can simmer on any of the burners and on the simmer burner you really have a low low temperature for very gentle long simmering.

We installed ourselves with help from our son. Then we took the range out when we re-skinned it and put it back ourselves.

Standard configuration on the burners.

We put a gas shutoff in the basement right below the range. If anything were to necessitate quickly stopping the flow of gas , would not want to have to rely on pulling out the range -- much easier to go downstairs and reach up and turn the gas off without having to move the range. Makes no sense to me to have a gas shutoff behind the range. Now that the counters are in it would be very challenging to pull the range!

Have been using the range since April. Love it. Nearly didn't get it because of anxiety over the early problems. I have had no problems. So glad I got it.

And it looks wonderful in our kitchen -- it is just the right look for what we were trying to achieve in our 1927 "vintage" kitchen.

There are so many things that went wrong and gave us problems along the way. But the Blue Star, which I was so nervous about, seriously exceeded all of our expectations and has been just a joy.

Mine is 36" V1 purchased in March 2011. Had the Garland 36" (the pre BS made by Prizer Painter) for about 10 years (we moved). The Garland needed two repairs, oven igniter and broiler igniter in those 10 years.

1. Arrived in perfect condition with good fit and finish.

2. Same comments as others; oven keeps good, consistent temperature. Oven takes a while to preheat, broiler is terrific, but small.

3. N/A

4. N/A

5. We kept the standard installation. The Garland had the two high powered burners in front, left and back, right. I'm indifferent between the two set ups. Advantages and disadvantages to each.

6. Someone else did it.

7. Worked fine from day 1. I've thought about lowering the simmer burner flame, but it would just to keep things warm. It keeps a very low simmer already.

8. Yes.