SmokeFire Restore


 
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ChuckO

ChuckO

TVWBB 1-Star Olympian
It died back in March, finally got around to doing a massive restoration. It works pretty good now. I’m thinking the fan failed, which destroyed the glow plug assembly. Seems like the motherboard and power supply endured a hostile environment
 

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Bruno said:
My warranty is up, but my SmokeFire is running better than ever, be interesting to see how long that lasts.
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Mine is up on the 30th. Weber has been very good to me warrantee wise. My list of replacements under warranty:

Glow Plug Assembly (3)
Auger & Motor (3)
Fan (2)
Motherboard & Power Supply (1)
Thermocouple (1)

The auger was the part that was bad in all three cases, not the motor. As a result, I have 3 spare motors. People that cap on Weber here have no business doing so. Weber has been outstanding in standing behind their products
 
ChuckO said:
Mine is up on the 30th. Weber has been very good to me warrantee wise. My list of replacements under warranty:

Glow Plug Assembly (3)
Auger & Motor (3)
Fan (2)
Motherboard & Power Supply (1)
Thermocouple (1)

The auger was the part that was bad in all three cases, not the motor. As a result, I have 3 spare motors. People that cap on Weber here have no business doing so. Weber has been outstanding in standing behind their products
Click to expand...
A big part of my love for Weber is the excellent way customer service has treated me over the years.
 
Glad to hear your still rocking the SmokeFire Chuck! Seems like a lot of parts you went through though. Just went over the 1 year mark and the only thing replaced was the auger bolt. Weber sent the part right out.
 
ChuckO said:
Mine is up on the 30th. Weber has been very good to me warrantee wise. My list of replacements under warranty:

Glow Plug Assembly (3)
Auger & Motor (3)
Fan (2)
Motherboard & Power Supply (1)
Thermocouple (1)

The auger was the part that was bad in all three cases, not the motor. As a result, I have 3 spare motors. People that cap on Weber here have no business doing so. Weber has been outstanding in standing behind their products
Click to expand...
What if…you never had to replace, yourself, all the parts you listed over the last 2 years? Just cooking and not wasting your time waiting and installing parts. Outstanding customer service vs Outstanding Quality Grill from the start. Anyone who has had past issues with their Smokefire has every right to be disappointed. Not everyone feels it’s ok to keep fixing their own grill multiple times. I feel Weber deserves all the crap they get with the Smokefire. And I’d like to think it’s all the crap that forced Weber to change their design and make it better.
 
Darian Hofer said:
What if…you never had to replace, yourself, all the parts you listed over the last 2 years? Just cooking and not wasting your time waiting and installing parts. Outstanding customer service vs Outstanding Quality Grill from the start. Anyone who has had past issues with their Smokefire has every right to be disappointed. Not everyone feels it’s ok to keep fixing their own grill multiple times. I feel Weber deserves all the crap they get with the Smokefire. And I’d like to think it’s all the crap that forced Weber to change their design and make it better.
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You ain’t wrong, but you gotta start somewhere. Weber went big out of the gate, I still think the SmokeFire puts out a quality smoke.

I don’t regret my purchase. I just won’t be putting much money into it if it goes.

I have my eye on something big but it has to wait a year.
 
Darian Hofer said:
What if…you never had to replace, yourself, all the parts you listed over the last 2 years? Just cooking and not wasting your time waiting and installing parts. Outstanding customer service vs Outstanding Quality Grill from the start. Anyone who has had past issues with their Smokefire has every right to be disappointed. Not everyone feels it’s ok to keep fixing their own grill multiple times. I feel Weber deserves all the crap they get with the Smokefire. And I’d like to think it’s all the crap that forced Weber to change their design and make it better.
Click to expand...
The thing is, I bought the grill May 2021 and with the exception of a couple glow plugs and one fuse I had no problems with my SF from May 2021 until Feb 2024. That's 34 months of bullet free operation and I BBQ a lot. Now I will say it's been a rough patch from Feb 2024 until now, Jun 2024. I had to replace the auger 3 times in that period, and I had to replace the fan twice. But the fact is, I'm more than one month beyond my 36 month warrantee and they're still standing behind it. When Apr 2024 rolled around, they could have said "your 36 months are up, take a hike pal" but they didn't. So here I am, 37 months to owning my SF, it's basically been fully replaced and I'm betting it will go 2 or more years without anymore problems. That'll be 5+ years out of a $1.1K pellet grill. Those are good numbers and I'm satisfied. Enough preaching, time to get back grilling
 
timothy said:
Yea, we just had our 1 year B-day party and so far zero probs.
I was just looking over the manual under "maintenance" and they recommend an "annual engine cleaning."
I thought that was a odd phrase for a grill.
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I would definitely drop the motherboard / power supply and clean out any pellet dust that found it's way into it. It sure seems like a hostile environment for both, and it only takes a minute or two to drop it, blow it out and hang it back up
 
Bruno said:
You ain’t wrong, but you gotta start somewhere. Weber went big out of the gate, I still think the SmokeFire puts out a quality smoke.

I don’t regret my purchase. I just won’t be putting much money into it if it goes.

I have my eye on something big but it has to wait a year.
Click to expand...
I am smelling a Lone Star in the future!!!
 
Darian Hofer said:
What if…you never had to replace, yourself, all the parts you listed over the last 2 years? Just cooking and not wasting your time waiting and installing parts. Outstanding customer service vs Outstanding Quality Grill from the start. Anyone who has had past issues with their Smokefire has every right to be disappointed. Not everyone feels it’s ok to keep fixing their own grill multiple times. I feel Weber deserves all the crap they get with the Smokefire. And I’d like to think it’s all the crap that forced Weber to change their design and make it better.
Click to expand...
I don't think that Weber adequately tested the SmokeFIre, and the innovative design brought issues not typical to pellet grills in general. I fault Weber for putting themselves in a bind to where they felt they had to get the SmokeFire out to market faster than they should. (Look at the history of the first Genesis gas grill and how long they tinkered with it to get it totally right.) It is also true that the first release, and to some extent even the "improved" versions, probably suffered at the hands of the bean counters with too thin materials in high stress areas.

However, I salute Weber for aiming for the fence rather than making a "me, too" pellet grill which would have been the easy way out. A bunch of you users have shown us just how good a cook Weber's design is capable of, so I think it is hard to argue that - when it is working - the SmokeFire is a great smoker.

Finally, I applaud Weber for taking it on the chin very hard in trying to make things right with their customers and ultimately coming up with a way to move toward something a bit more conventional in the Searwood while still retaining as much good as possible of the SmokeFire's innovations.
 
Jon Tofte said:
I don't think that Weber adequately tested the SmokeFIre, and the innovative design brought issues not typical to pellet grills in general. I fault Weber for putting themselves in a bind to where they felt they had to get the SmokeFire out to market faster than they should. (Look at the history of the first Genesis gas grill and how long they tinkered with it to get it totally right.) It is also true that the first release, and to some extent even the "improved" versions, probably suffered at the hands of the bean counters with too thin materials in high stress areas.

However, I salute Weber for aiming for the fence rather than making a "me, too" pellet grill which would have been the easy way out. A bunch of you users have shown us just how good a cook Weber's design is capable of, so I think it is hard to argue that - when it is working - the SmokeFire is a great smoker.

Finally, I applaud Weber for taking it on the chin very hard in trying to make things right with their customers and ultimately coming up with a way to move toward something a bit more conventional in the Searwood while still retaining as much good as possible of the SmokeFire's innovations.
Click to expand...
Perfectly stated!
Weber gave us $200 back on the SmokeFire’s back in the day, they sent pellets and parts.

They did make some mistakes, I almost lost my mind when Harry Soo got the new improved welded auger and we didn’t at first. That really changed the game for my SmokeFire. The first one was caulked together.

With the great Lew Newby’s help I added some nice parts that made it quite the smoker.
Miss ya Lew.
 
ChuckO said:
The thing is, I bought the grill May 2021 and with the exception of a couple glow plugs and one fuse I had no problems with my SF from May 2021 until Feb 2024. That's 34 months of bullet free operation and I BBQ a lot. Now I will say it's been a rough patch from Feb 2024 until now, Jun 2024. I had to replace the auger 3 times in that period, and I had to replace the fan twice. But the fact is, I'm more than one month beyond my 36 month warrantee and they're still standing behind it. When Apr 2024 rolled around, they could have said "your 36 months are up, take a hike pal" but they didn't. So here I am, 37 months to owning my SF, it's basically been fully replaced and I'm betting it will go 2 or more years without anymore problems. That'll be 5+ years out of a $1.1K pellet grill. Those are good numbers and I'm satisfied. Enough preaching, time to get back grilling
Click to expand...
”People that cap on Weber here have no business doing so.” I’m sure you intended the word “crap”. But I’m thankful this forum allows different views.
I definitely feel sorry for all the Weber Customer Service employees having to field all the Smokefire issues over the last several years. I hope they were all given a pay raise.
 
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