Andrew Alan
New member
Greetings TVWBB members. I am new to the forum and specifically joined up just to illustrate how great Weber-Stephen is with regard to honoring the terms of their gas grill warranties.
I was encouraged by recent posts this month on the forum by Nate Frost in his “Neglected ol Summit” thread. Although the grill Nate was working on was significantly worse-off in terms of corrosion and burn through in the well-known weak spots of the Summit models of this vintage, I figured I would give Weber a call and provide some photos to see if any warranty support was available for me.
My grill is a model year 2005 NG Summit Gold A4. My wife and I splurged on this over a Genesis back in September of 2006, it was $1,019.00 out-the-door at Ace Hardware back then. It has been an excellent grill for us ever since. We still love it. Prior owning our Summit we were given a late 80’s Genesis "RedHead" from my father-in-law which I restored and enjoyed for several years (but that’s another story).
After reading about Nate Frost’s experience with Weber and warranty support, I called Weber about my rather insignificant corrosion at the front panel of my cookbox and the inside layer of the lid.
Above each opening where the burner tubes enter the cookbox, corrosion was obvious and at the right–most location there was actually a pin-hole of burn-through. Furthermore, the stainless steel, double-layer lid, also had some obvious but minor burn-through along a press brake crease of the inner heat shield of the lid. I reviewed my warranty and found that the lid carries a lifetime warranty. The part of the cookbox I noted my problems in with wasn’t specifically called out because it is an enameled steel part of the cookbox, not a cast aluminum part like the cookbox endcaps.
Last week Thursday I called Weber and spoke with CSR "Shane" at about 9pm Chicago time. We talked through what I was observing on my 9-yr old Summit and Shane requested that I provide photos of both issues. He gave me a ticket number and e-mail address to submit the photos to and indicated I would get a call back from Weber within 24 hours of sending my digital photos. Photos were emailed at 9:15 PM that night and by 3:30 PM the next day I had a voicemail from Shane indicating that the parts were being honored under a warranty claim and being sent freight to me free of charge!
On Tuesday the freight company was in receipt of my shipment (cookbox and lid) at the terminal closest to my location and called me to arrange a drop-off time because it was coming to my residence and not a commercial location. By the time I got home from work on Wednesday, 2 huge weber boxes with my parts were waiting for me at home! About $600 in replacement parts that will effectively make my grill brad new again!
I'll add that earlier this year I did replace the flavorizer weldments with genuine Weber parts ($160 shipped) and also replaced 2 crossover tubes and 2 igniters at my own cost. We should now be good for another 9-10 years with this grill. Plus, I finally responded to the urge to upgrade to a factory side burner and sourced the necessary parts from new and used vendors.
The NG side burner assembly came from eReplacement parts for $128 shipped and I picked up a female side burner quick disconnect port and a 4-output igniter module via eBay for $30 total. Those $158 spent out of pocket along with the warranty parts will effectively upgrade my Summit Gold A4 to a mint-condish Summit Gold B4.
The next upgrade I may do is a set of solid SS rod grates Weber Part 53S31. They were stock on the Summit Platinum A4 and they fit my Summit Gold A4 as well, but they do cost $200 per pair at allpartsgrills.com. That’s pretty steep compared to the u-channel stainless grates that I have now. Those go for about $60 a pair. I’ll have to wait on that a while. For now I’m going to enjoy my updated grill and recommend Weber to anyone I know considering a grill purchase!!!
My summit looks just like this one:
Here are photos of the corrosion and minor burn through:
And Here are the parts I'll be installing this weekend:
I was encouraged by recent posts this month on the forum by Nate Frost in his “Neglected ol Summit” thread. Although the grill Nate was working on was significantly worse-off in terms of corrosion and burn through in the well-known weak spots of the Summit models of this vintage, I figured I would give Weber a call and provide some photos to see if any warranty support was available for me.
My grill is a model year 2005 NG Summit Gold A4. My wife and I splurged on this over a Genesis back in September of 2006, it was $1,019.00 out-the-door at Ace Hardware back then. It has been an excellent grill for us ever since. We still love it. Prior owning our Summit we were given a late 80’s Genesis "RedHead" from my father-in-law which I restored and enjoyed for several years (but that’s another story).
After reading about Nate Frost’s experience with Weber and warranty support, I called Weber about my rather insignificant corrosion at the front panel of my cookbox and the inside layer of the lid.
Above each opening where the burner tubes enter the cookbox, corrosion was obvious and at the right–most location there was actually a pin-hole of burn-through. Furthermore, the stainless steel, double-layer lid, also had some obvious but minor burn-through along a press brake crease of the inner heat shield of the lid. I reviewed my warranty and found that the lid carries a lifetime warranty. The part of the cookbox I noted my problems in with wasn’t specifically called out because it is an enameled steel part of the cookbox, not a cast aluminum part like the cookbox endcaps.
Last week Thursday I called Weber and spoke with CSR "Shane" at about 9pm Chicago time. We talked through what I was observing on my 9-yr old Summit and Shane requested that I provide photos of both issues. He gave me a ticket number and e-mail address to submit the photos to and indicated I would get a call back from Weber within 24 hours of sending my digital photos. Photos were emailed at 9:15 PM that night and by 3:30 PM the next day I had a voicemail from Shane indicating that the parts were being honored under a warranty claim and being sent freight to me free of charge!
On Tuesday the freight company was in receipt of my shipment (cookbox and lid) at the terminal closest to my location and called me to arrange a drop-off time because it was coming to my residence and not a commercial location. By the time I got home from work on Wednesday, 2 huge weber boxes with my parts were waiting for me at home! About $600 in replacement parts that will effectively make my grill brad new again!
I'll add that earlier this year I did replace the flavorizer weldments with genuine Weber parts ($160 shipped) and also replaced 2 crossover tubes and 2 igniters at my own cost. We should now be good for another 9-10 years with this grill. Plus, I finally responded to the urge to upgrade to a factory side burner and sourced the necessary parts from new and used vendors.
The NG side burner assembly came from eReplacement parts for $128 shipped and I picked up a female side burner quick disconnect port and a 4-output igniter module via eBay for $30 total. Those $158 spent out of pocket along with the warranty parts will effectively upgrade my Summit Gold A4 to a mint-condish Summit Gold B4.
The next upgrade I may do is a set of solid SS rod grates Weber Part 53S31. They were stock on the Summit Platinum A4 and they fit my Summit Gold A4 as well, but they do cost $200 per pair at allpartsgrills.com. That’s pretty steep compared to the u-channel stainless grates that I have now. Those go for about $60 a pair. I’ll have to wait on that a while. For now I’m going to enjoy my updated grill and recommend Weber to anyone I know considering a grill purchase!!!
My summit looks just like this one:
Here are photos of the corrosion and minor burn through:
And Here are the parts I'll be installing this weekend:
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