Anyone considering Monogram appliance? Beware.

13 years ago

Wanted to share my experience with GE monogram. Hopefully to help guide anyone on the fence about choosing a high end range.

We purchased a ZDP486LDPSS.
48" Dual-Fuel Professional Range with 6 Burners and Griddle (Liquid Propane).

We have been plauged with issues. Our original griddle had a large hot spot. The technician checked the flame and everything was even, so he ordered us another griddle.

That griddle was better, but also had a hot spot in a different place on the griddle. So the technician ordered us another griddle unit.

The next griddle came in and was HORRIBLE. Huge hot spot on the front left. WARM down the middle. HOT on the right.

I lay strips of bacon across and it burns black on the left side, raw in the middle, cooked normally on the right side. So we are on to griddle number 5 and will see what happens.

The issue is in manufacturing of the griddles, it is a stainless steel top with aluminum bottom. Inconsistencies in the aluminum end up giving you hot spots. 4 bad griddles indicates a manufacturing problem, not an isolated incident. Monogram support leaves us wishing we had better customer care and a company dedicated to fixing the issue... we just haven't seen that.

So if your considering high end range, look elsewhere.

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Comments (8)

palomalou
13 years ago
I had an expensive Monogram dishwasher. Never cleaned the dishes, despite service calls. Got lucky--it fried in a lightning strike. We got a Kitchenaid again.
jakvis
13 years ago
Hi Tomwatx, It looks like your issues center only around the griddle and a hot spot. With most griddles you need to pre-heat them for awhile before using them and the longer the preheat the more even the griddle temps are.
The units that use cold rolled steel take the longest to heat and even out. The aluminum griddles heat faster but they still take awhile to even out their hot spots.

For thick steel griddles I recommend to my customers to let them preheat for at least 10 minutes before using them. In some cases that might be even longer.
Physics dictate how fast the heat spreads through a material and even a small BTU output burner can heat a griddle evenly with enough time.

The GE pro units are not too bad of range. They are not the best but they certainly are not the worst.

This post was edited by jakvis on Wed, Jul 31, 13 at 17:40
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eurekachef
13 years ago
I agree with jakvis. I don't have a range, so I can't comment specifically on that, but I have a GE monogram oven and Advantium. Love the Advantium. Oven has been great too. Glide out racks work great. Others have complained about uneveness of heat, but I haven't found that to be a problem. But I don't cook 3 sheets of cookies at a time either.
attofarad
13 years ago
My wife has the 48" side by side, and the wine fridge. 12 years or so,
no problem.
eve72
13 years ago
Seems the fact that you actually got a technician to come out puts GE way ahead of the other players.
tomwatx
Original Author
13 years ago
Pre-heating has no affect. I am using a non-contact thermometer gun to demonstrate the exact areas with hotspots. The temperature variations are large despite pre-heating.
llaatt22
13 years ago
Stainless steel clad aluminum griddle presumably specified to be explosive bonded or using something just as good.
The hot spots are the only areas working right.
Obviously bad quality control now or item being faked by a supplier.
The temperature doesn't need to be exactly the same everywhere on a good griddle but there should be a uniform temperature circle above the burner and a fairly even decrease away from that area in all directions.
caitlinmagner
13 years ago
I'm sorry you're having problems. I just purchased the 36 inch df with 6 burners, no griddle. Hopefully (for both of our sakes) it is just a griddle problem, and that it can be resolved.