Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I seriously wanted to love this smoker. And for about a month and a half, I did. Today that all changed. Let me start by saying I’m not a dumb man. Yes I read the instructions and yes I followed them. I’ve used the grill maybe 10 times, I’ve also used my father in laws larger GMG a hand full of times, but today didn’t go like it had every other time. Today I pulled the grill out just like I normally would have, set it up on my aluminum table checked the hopper, pulled out the plate and grills and cleaned them from their last use, reassembled them, turned the grill on and waited for it to come to 150 degrees. I stepped inside to wait for my phone to tell me it was at temp, and I started seasoning my steaks. About ten minutes later, I realized that it hadn’t come up to temp, it had stalled at about 75 degrees. I stepped outside and saw that it was in fact smoking, so I was about to inspect the grill when it erupted with a large boom. The lid blew up and backwards, and a fireball erupted to the sky. Luckily I was far enough back still to not have been hurt. What I find interesting is that the moment it erupted, the temp shot up to over 600 degrees. At this point smoke was pouring out of the hopper and flames were rising from the fire box. I unplugged the unit, and began attempting to disassemble the grates and grills to try and stop the fire. For fear that the fire was spreading through the auger into the full hopper, I began scooping the pellets back into a container while being certain that none being scooped out where hot or igniting. I was able to get most of them out and eventually the fire died down, about an hour later. I don’t know what caused the issue, my assumption is the grills logic is flawed and allowed the auger to push more fuel pellets into the fire box than it actually needed, which suffocated the fire until it had enough potential energy to blow the top and erupt into flames with the new rush of air. Either the explosion, or the fire itself was strong enough to break the fan free and it’s now dangling into the grate in the bottom of the hopper box. This,I believe, is why I was seeing smoke come up through the hopper before I unplugged it from the power source. Once the initial emergency was handled, I decided to look into my warranty information. I have only had this grill for about a month and a half, but apparently missed the Amazon return date by a couple weeks. The grill does have a 3 year warranty through the manufacturer, GMG. So I looked up their number and gave them a call, fully expecting to either not get an answer, or have to leave a VM because it was a Sunday afternoon after all. To my surprise I only had to select one option in the automated system in order to talk to a real person. The young woman was very pleasant to speak with. I explained what happened and what happened next really took me aback. She acted as if this happens all the time and was perfectly normal. She tells me to wait for the fire to be out, vacuum out the fire box, inspect the unit, and let them know what parts I need to fix it. Are you F’ing kidding me? I paid a lot of money for this smoker, and it tried to kill me! You want me to disassemble it, use my “wealth of experience in engineering” to determine what is wrong with it, and then have you send me the parts so that I can fix it. That’s ridiculous! It was assembled by supposed experts in Your factory, had barely been used by me, and it exploded. And now you think it’s smart to have some guy off the street(me) just figure out what’s wrong with it, rebuild it, and not have it explode in my face again! What is wrong with you people? This is simply not acceptable to me, and shouldn’t be acceptable to you either. You need to figure out what’s wrong with you processor logic and ensure you have a patch put in place to prevent the auger from pushing excessive fuel into the fire box when the temp is not reacting to the fuel as you would expect it to. This is a huge safety flaw, you should be ashamed of your lack of concern for your users, and hope that someone with a lot more money than I have doesn’t come at you with a lawsuit. This is not a responsible company, not a safe grill, and I certainly don’t recommend anyone purchasing this grill. Buyer beware!