[Paul_Heery]

My wife gave me a 30" Masterbuilt for Christmas. I have yet to actually smoke something. The first two units have been returned.

When I opened the first one, I found damage to the main part of the unit that had to have taken place during the manufacturing process. When I opened the front door, there was a big dent on the unit itself that was not visible when the door was closed. There was no way this happened during shipping. We processed a replacement with Amazon (important note - if you have Amazon Prime and need to return something, return it for a refund then buy another unit. As we processed it for replacement, the new unit was shipped via standard ground. It took a week, not two days.)

The second unit came in on New Year's Eve and I set it up and started the three-hour process to season the unit on New Year's Day. Before I started it up, I put my Maverick ET732 temperature probe inside. The seasoning process calls for the temperature of the smoker to be set at the highest for the unit, 275°. I plugged that number into the control panel and walked away for a few minutes. When I came back, the control panel was reading 272°, but the ET732 was reading 310°. I then went and got a standard oven thermometer and put that inside. A few minutes later, I rechecked. The smoker indicated 275°, but the two other thermometers read 312° and 311°. I knew something must be wrong and shut everything down and waited until the next day to call Masterbuilt.

The next day, I got around to calling Masterbuilt Customer Service late morning. The woman that I spoke with agreed that there was something wrong and the unit would need to be replaced. She gave me an RMA number. So far I was OK until she got to the next part. She wanted me to cut off the end of the power cord and pry the plate with the serial number off of the back of the unit and send them back to Masterbuilt at my cost. Only after receipt of these items would they begin to process a new unit for me. But, she then told me that I would need to remove the front door from the defective unit and hang on to it as the new unit that they would be shipping to me would come without a door. I would need to install the old door on the new unit. I politely thanked her for her time, hung up the phone and processed a refund with Amazon.

So far, my experience with Masterbuilt makes me question their manufacturing process, quality control and the viability of their devices. According to the Customer Service rep, I was the eighth RMA that she had processed for a replacement on that day and it was only 10:30 AM. Maybe they used to be better built.