SmokeFire issues on YouTube.


 
Jon Tofte said:
That all said, this start for Weber looks to be turning into a debacle. While I don't like private equity groups (I know , I worked under one for several years:cautious:), I still have an affection for Weber and hate to see this happening. These issues throw the selling price out the window for any comparison.
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I also worked for private equity groups in the past finished up with a big blue company and I will agree with Larry to his point its the bean counters running the show and it has been that way for the last 10 years or longer. But my experience and only mine is the reason you become private is generally your out of the spotlight of being a public company.

That does a lot of things for you as you don't have to tip your hand anymore in quarterly reports on breaking down product sales by product or what you are working on for the future. Will anyone ever know whether the Summit Charcoal was a disaster regarding the amount they sold or the Red LE which I think we all know was a disaster and if you have a brand to protect you certainly don't want that information coming out.

IMO Weber sold out at the right time they probably did not have the capital or and maybe the management expertise to take it any further and the cheap grills were moving in. However Jon and many smarter people on here know sooner or later private equity has to get out and make money did they push to get this thing out the door against Weber technical people who were against that because the product was not ready? Pretty hard to miss another grilling season with no offering in the pellet grill market for another year.

That group has been here for 10 years, how profitable is Weber nobody knows always the goal for private equity is to take it back out and go public. Not seen any rumors of that at all but that is the goal but in this market your going to have to show your sales and profits to do that.

Sorry for rambling.
 
I am a CPA, so I guess would be called a "bean counter." However, just like I know that the accountants destroyed Chrylser and GM, I also know enough to understand that products are what make a company. You can have great minds and incredible financial reporting systems, but if you turn out crummy cars (or grills) the market will sooner or later pay you back.

My experience with private equity in the home health field was that they only cared about numbers, not about our patient clients or what the once really unique company I worked for back then stood for. They merged us with a competitor that offered only cheap, cut-rate home care with no regard for quality of caregivers. A total 180 from who we were...When it came to employees, they just looked at us as numbers, except we were one number they didn't care much about. Certainly not as human individuals. They thought the only thing that motivates people is money. Our company had been built on a deep care for clients and a strong family-like relationship among fellow employees. I don't even recognize the place anymore and stopped going back to visit.

I am sure that Weber no longer looks like the family business it once was. Even so, I still hate that this is happening. It is not inconceivable to me that if this unfolding nightmare gets much worse that it could ultimately knock Weber out altogether. That would be an unbelievable loss to the grill world. Probably not many of you noticed, but Holland Grills recently folded. Their product (another I would love to add an example of to my collection😆) was different and maybe not a "true grill" in some opinions. Still, the loss of another American grill company - and a unique product - is a loss.

I really hope Weber can pull this mess out of the ditch.
 
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Wow just wow, these videos are really scary. Feel sorry for Weber and their engineers.
I remember in college when i had a dishwasher job there was a very long conveyor belt maybe 40 feet or so on which the students put their plates after they eat. The plates were transported to the dishwasher room. If i was not fast enough the plates would keep coming and pile up 2 to 3 feet high. As you can imagine it was food everywhere, silverware, napkins, fat, it was absolutely terrible, total mess.
Same with the pellets they have to come in and be burned at a perfect time and rate else the fire will go out or have way too many pellets and create a fire.
Automation which is what this is, is not easy to master.
Hope Weber can fix it.
 
RyanS_MN said:
I can tell you this much, I went from being ready to drop $1000 on one to not even wanting a Weber gasser given their lack of response
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Same. But I am not really surprised at the lack of response...yet. I would think it wouldn't be until next week until they say something. The thing I am completely disappointed with is them selling this in the first place. There is NO WAY they didn't know about these issues before selling them to customers. There is no way, no how they didn't know. It is extremely disappointing because it makes me wonder what they thought would happen? People would be so in love with Weber that they would just be okay? I am really disappointed at them taking their customers for granted like this.
 
Derrick H said:
I am not really surprised at the lack of response...yet. I would think it wouldn't be until next week until they say something.
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I have a feeling they're trying to get a handle on what the real issues are from customers and having some pretty serious meetings on what to say and how to proceed.
 
Chris Allingham said:
I have a feeling they're trying to get a handle on what the real issues are from customers and having some pretty serious meetings on what to say and how to proceed.
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I've seen a lot more videos I haven't shared. I think Weber should probably issue a stop sale to all retailers that are selling, do a full recall/buyback and take their lumps. Some of the things I've come across are just plain dangerous. It's appalling what's going on at this point.
 
I've seen two cases now, one a photo in an Amazon review and another in a YouTube video, where guys are lining the bottom of the cooking chamber with aluminum foil. Who says that's a good idea to promote grease drainage?
 
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Chris Allingham said:
I've seen two cases now, one a photo in an Amazon review and another in a YouTube video, where guys are lining the bottom of the cooking chamber with aluminum foil. Who says that's a good idea to promote grease drainage?
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Well, I do that in my offset stick burner, but that smoker drains away from the firebox. I don't think any grease drain that goes toward the fire, is a good idea. That said, Aaron Franklin's backyard pit drains toward the firebox but there's still a lot of steel between grease and fire.
 
Chris Allingham said:
I have a feeling they're trying to get a handle on what the real issues are from customers and having some pretty serious meetings on what to say and how to proceed.
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I would suspect that any meetings they're having also involve a lot of finger pointing and blame avoidance. It's VERY hard to believe these problems weren't known but I suspect somebody decided to proceed with the rollout in spite of the issues.

Can you imagine the conversations around the water coolers at the competitors?
 
The worst part of all is that while yes, I understand they want to investigate, that's no excuse to not do a response, even if it's as simple as "we've seen some reported issues and are investigating." a literal tweet could save their face.
 
Phil S said:
I would suspect that any meetings they're having also involve a lot of finger pointing and blame avoidance. It's VERY hard to believe these problems weren't known but I suspect somebody decided to proceed with the rollout in spite of the issues.

Can you imagine the conversations around the water coolers at the competitors?
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I hate to keep beating the same drum, but the fact Weber knew about these issues and still decided to release the product is what gets me. At the minimum, put out some precautions or helpful tips at release to help minimize the issues. To put out a flawed product like this really shakes alot of my trust in the company.
 
Maybe just maybe could it be the pellets themselves ? Maybe what Weber was using did not have this issue ? What you guys think ?
 
Chris in GA said:
Maybe just maybe could it be the pellets themselves ? Maybe what Weber was using did not have this issue ? What you guys think ?
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I've used two different kinds of pellets (Weber and Cookinpellets.com), both had the same feed issues. Might have been a tad worse with the larger pellets. Weber's pellets are smaller than average, close or matching something like the Lumberjack brand.
 
DWambolt said:
I've used two different kinds of pellets (Weber and Cookinpellets.com), both had the same feed issues. Might have been a tad worse with the larger pellets. Weber's pellets are smaller than average, close or matching something like the Lumberjack brand.
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The pellet thing is what really boggles my mind too. Either the test units were built with a different design that got massively cheapened for production, or someone really lied about the capability of the units. regardless, these youtube reviews look like way different machines than weber had at headquarters and it's embarassing.
 
Not really anything new here. To me the most interesting part was his comments about when he called Weber and what their response was.

 
Jason in CA said:
Not really anything new here. To me the most interesting part was his comments about when he called Weber and what their response was.

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Not sure were the edit button went.

But I figured for those that don't want to watch the whole thing,

Weber basically asked him a bunch of questions and said we'll get back to you in 72 hours. That has me thinking they are compiling (what's probably an overwhelming volume of pissed of caller's) all the info and trying to come up with a solution. Possibly in some form of press release.

At the very least I believe Weber should issue a stop sale on these things until some of this gets sorted. That would at least prevent more of them in the wild while they figure it out, and possibly prevent something more (heaven forbid) catastrophic from happening to somebody.
 
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