crazy_dan said:
Called my dealer and she was very helpful. She said she had never heard of that before and mine was the first she had heard of.
She said she would call her contact at PE and get back with me. She called me back in like 5 min. said her contact knew all about it even told her where the cracks should be.
Told me they have a machinewelding shop as part of their business. I was told to bring it in and they will fix it.
I am not real happy with the prospect of wrestling that beast out then back in to the house, but I did not have them install it or deliver it when I bought it.
Anyway I hit the wrong reply button so I will add pictures in a post under this one
This is crazy that we now have 5 different people with this type of issue... Every dealer says the same thing: "they've never seen it before". However, as stated in a previous post that could easily be simply that "most" stove owners don't inspect their stoves in that much detail. Don't you have to stick your head into the firebox and look back towards the front to even see most of these cracks? Not many people are out there sticking their heads into a sooty firebox to look for something they don't expect to find (or need to look for) in the first place.
Did she talk to Cory? Considering they told your dealer rep that they were aware of the problem she should realize that it's not an isolated event and as a responsible dealer she should be contacting all their PE owners to have them check their stoves for similar problems. In all actuality this seems more and more like something that PE should address in some sort of a recall. Expensive for them? Definitely, but also the right thing to do if a trend is being established. I can tell you one thing for sure: If a "known crack issue" (this thread is a good start for evidence) caused excessive stove temperatures and led to a house fire that PE would be in for a huge lawsuit. Add a death and were talking
multiple millions (not to mention all the bad press causing loss of customers. To me, this seems like PE needs to stop addressing this problem reactively and get
proactive...
I also still don't like them saying you need to take the stove in. It's something that you (the customer) did nothing to cause and they should be responsible for making it right. It's not like were talking about a car that can be driven in for warranty work and guess what, if a car couldn't be driven safely due to a defect that made it unsafe to drive to manufacturer/dealer would be paying to tow it from your house.
That PE Super I was looking at is looking less appealing. I wish PE would say it's something they identified and fixed. Even if it actually is the case (that they've fixed an identified issue) it would be expensive to actually "admit it" and have to deal with the tidal wave of warranty issues that would follow for all those previous stoves. I still think it would be a lot cheaper (
dollar & reputation wise) than the fire scenario I described though.
Edited: Just read meathead's post (must have posted while I was writing mine). It's probably evident from my post that I completely agree and would tell the dealer & PE to come get it "at my convenience". Also, it's getting a little cold out so they should provide you with a stove to use while yours is getting fixed!