Craigslist Spoils

[austinado16]

Hi,
My name is Todd and I have a Craigslist addiction.

(This is the part where you all give me a warm welcome.....)

It's been quite a week on CL, and I just had to share my latest haul.

But before I get to that, I scored a $300+ "Endless Summer" patio heater for free earlier in the week. So I was pretty happy about that.

Then this morning, there I was, minding my own beezwax when I trip over an ad for a Wolf BBQ for $100. My In-Laws own a big Wolf range, so I'm familiar with the brand and the quality, but had no idea they built outdoor grills. A quick google search and I found this model is 500lbs, and runs about $7,600 plus tax.

It came with a cover that they had just washed, all the tools, and the rotisserie parts, but not the rotisserie motor, which had failed a few years ago. Oh, and the original owner's manual.

6 burners in the BBQ area with cast iron grill surfaces, and flavorizer bars below that, like a Weber. An infrared burner on the back wall with a removeable stainless cover, and some sort of a burner for just using the rotisserie. Plus, on the right side, to staggered hight burners for pots/pans, and a flip up work table, also stainless. The side burners have heavy cast iron grills.

[this post was last edited: 2/27/2011-19:20]

 

[rp2813]

Welcome Todd!  Mind you, if you're looking for help, you've come to the worst possible place.

 

What an awesome score on that Wolf!  I think the lesson to be learned here is that I need to cruise CL more often and in more categories!

 

We have an Endless Summer patio heater and although it gets lets use than we thought it would and can go for very long periods between operations, it fires up readily whenever we need it.

 

[austinado16]

The endless summer heater appears to have a fault in how the pilot flame is shrouded. So if yours gets to the point where it will no longer stay lit because the thermocouple is cooling off and letting go of the magnetic valve in the gas valve assembly, the shroud has probably failed.

You can remove that long front panel to access the pilot light assembly and that stainless shroud. The shroud is to pieces, crimped together. When it gets hot enough (or goes through X number if heating/cooling cycles) the crimping fails and the 2 pieces pop apart. This cause the pilot flame to simply shoot straight up, rather than being seperated into a sideways jet that touches the thermocouple and vertical jet that can light the main burner. Simply remove the pilot assembly and recrimp the 1 pieces back together, doing a better job with your crimping. It'll save you about $50 in replacement parts and shipping.

 

[luxflairguy]

Todd, Todd, Todd! I'm picking that up for my backyard when I come to California in May. Make sure it's cleaned up and has all the knobs! LOL!!
Great score. I got a new in box Farberware electronic convection oven yesterday for $35.00. Bought new in S.F. for $300.00 in December 1982. Works perfectly. Craigslist is more addictave than Ebay!

 

[austinado16]

First I have to figure out how to unload it!!

Although.....gravity should make it easier than the loading process.

BTW, all the knobs are present. I just removed 2 so my tie-down strap didn't break them.

I'll get it polished up for you, and get the grills seasoned nicely.

Mmm....what to cook on it first. I know, 50 chicken breasts.....or 45 new york steaks....or 75 bacon wrapped fillets. Decisions, decisions.

BTW, the big camp trailer on the right.....A CL score from last Sunday, for $1,000. It's worth right at 3 large.[this post was last edited: 2/27/2011-21:11]

 

[polkanut]

Todd,

I like my London Broil done to a very nice medium rare, with au jus please!  And don't forget the baked potatoes, and green beans to go with it.

 

[rp2813]

Thanks for the pilot tip Todd.

 

What's up with the place next door?  It looks . . . er . . . untouched, and therefore, interesting.

 

[austinado16]

LOL........the place next door

Very observant!!

It's a kit house from 1947/48. It may be one of those kit homes that were so popular back east....the famous ones? I can never remember the name.

The original owners lived in it their entire lives, including raising a son and daughter, whom they named after themselves. They purchased that lot, and the lot that we moved our house onto, just after WWII, from the lady on the corner.

It's been vacant now for a few years and the surving family members don't want to sell it, so here it sits.

 

[rp2813]

Maybe it requires some work the heirs don't want to do, or they're just not interested in rental income.  Surely there's no mortgage, and only Prop 13 taxes -- I'm betting less than $500 -- in addition to tiny utility bills, if any, and insurance.   It looks like the yard is being maintained.

 

[austinado16]

Got a chance take the burner area apart today to asses the condition of things. 2 of the rotary ignitors (the black knobs on the front panel are rotated clockwise in order to trigger the ignitors and light the burner tubes to the left and right of the black knob) are bad. 5 of the ignitors are bad. 3 of the ignitor grounding shields are rusted away.

I called Wolf and got the serial # transfered over to my ownership and they gave me the # of "West Coast Parts" in Hayward, CA who are a parts supplier for Wolf to the retail public.

West Coast Parts sent me a pdf of the parts page, with part numbers and I put together an order. I also discovered the jet orifaces are removeable, and the parts diagram gives the # info for the LP jets....$3ea. So I ordered LP jets for all 9 locations.

Discovered the grill was also missing a stainless shroud over the pilot flame area for the rotisserie burner, and Wolf will supply that for free for some reason.

I have to say, my initial impression of the Wolf BBQ Grill is not that favorable.
-The ignitors, with their plastic jacketed wire, are mounted at the near end of the actual burner tube. The wire has a woven fiberglass sleeve slipped over it in an attempt to keep it from being melted by the heat. So.....sure enough, the heat melts the wire jacket, and burns up the exposed wire stranded core, until it falls out the bottom of the cheesey little porcelain ignitor tip. The ignitor wire "assembly" is $18.10ea, and there 6. For cryin' out loud, that's $108.60, plus tax and shipping for stupid ignitor wires!!

-Similar problem, there is a metal grounding shield, mounted in the same location, burns up, and is $5.28ea, times 6. Another $31.68, plus tax and shipping.

-Continuing, the ignitor and ground shield are mounted to a stainless platform. Although mine aren't burned up yet, same potential scenario....and they are $25.48, times 6, so that's potentially $152+ when those fail.

-As if this isn't enough, the "rotary ignitor" that fires the ignitor, is plastic, not shielded from the heat of the burner area, and so they melt....as mine are.....and stop working. $22.12ea and there are 3....so $66.36 if all 3 are needed. (I need 2)

-So $357, plus tax and shipping to rebuild the ignition system on this stupid thing.

-Next on my complaint list, $7,599 for this grill and it does not come with a temperature gauge in the hood. How do you cook, especially grilling meat to a specific level of done-ness, when you have no idea what the temp is inside the grill?

Meanwhile, my Weber grill, with an original price take of maybe $300 15 years ago, uses a $12 ignitor assembly that is mounted in the body of the grill, comes with the shroud, and the ignitor button, and needs no grounding shroud. And it's available all day long at all hardware stores. BTW, all Weber gas grills come with a temp gauge in the hood......doh!

It's going to be interesting to see how this thing cooks. I'm waaaay spoiled by the design and cooking quality of Weber gas grills. IMO, no other grill even comes close, especially when it comes to not setting fire to the food.

 

[polkanut]

Sounds like Wolf grills are "over-engineered".  Simpler is usually better, and more durable.

 

[austinado16]

Yeah, after getting up close and personal, I'm not feeling the love.

Couple other things I'm not liking (so far):

-On the Webers, there's a cross-over tube between all the burners. So one burner is lit by the ignitor, and the other burners auto light, just by turning on their gas valves...because the cross-over tube brings the flame from the first burner, to which ever burner you want lit.

Kinda blows my mind that Wolf chose to have an ignitor for every single burner.

-The Webers have a matrix of "favorizer bars" which are long triangular shaped pieces of flat steel that cover the burners, and then perpendicular, is another row of flavorizer bars. There's no way for drippings to get to the burner flame, and this nearly eliminates flare-ups. The Webers also have a deep (upside-down pyramid shape) grease pan which drains into a centered external drip pan. This steep drip area keeps the falling grease away from the burners...again, helping prevent grease fires.

Conversely, the Wolf has a flat bottom, just a couple inches away from the burners. It's got one flavorizer bar over each of the 6 burners, and that's it. I could be wrong, but this design sure looks like it has the potential to keep the grease close to the burners and really cause flare-ups.

I guess I'll find out soon enough.

 

[retropia]

We like our old Weber grill, too.  It's a starter model, only 2-burners, and just one row of flavorizer bars.  I did have one grease fire with it.  It was after we'd grilled a batch of rib-eyes, and I turned it on high for 10 minutes to burn off the grease.  There was a little more grease than I'd anticipated.  I blamed the fire on the rib-eyes, which while delicious, are particularly fatty. It didn't last long and didn't hurt the grill, other than some of the paint flaked off on the inside of the cover.

 

The only thing I've done with it is replace the cast-iron grates and steel flavorizer bars with stainless steel versions.  The push-button igniter sometimes sticks a little.  We keep it covered and parked under the eaves when not in use, so it gets some protection from the elements.

 

 

[austinado16]

My Weber is similar to yours, but 3 burner. I like the 3 burner models because you can turn off that center burner and cook indirect. Same as you, I replaced the original porcelain-enameled flavorizer bars with the stainless versions, and scored a new set of cast iron grills locally on CL for cheap. The flavorizer bars are from a guy on ebay who makes them, and they are thicker and last longer than the OE Weber versions.

I can get mine to flare up too, if I'm cooking too hot. Generally, I keep the heat on the temp gauge at about 325ish and that seems to be the magic number for food on the grill surface. I think I paid $25, or maybe $40 for originally, either at the swap meet or on CL locally. Can't remember, but it's been the best grill.

My In-Laws wouldn't listen to my advice about owning a Weber and 2 years ago went over to Costco and bought one of their $400 stainless monsters. What a nightmare to cook with. The first time I used it, the casual observer would've thought I was cooking over gasoline. The thing was just a 4 alarm fire, no matter what I did. I helped them land a new Weber Genesis E-320 Natural Gas model at xmas and it's real nice to cook on.

 

[polkanut]

From what I've seen and read about the big "stainless monsters", I'm not impressed.  I sometimes think people buy them to impress their guests, not because they're good performers. 

 

[austinado16]

IMO, there's just a huge design flaw in everything other than the Webers. The other stuff looks fantastic sitting in the store for sale, but just a joke to cook on.

For 2 years my in-laws milked their costco model. Everytime they'd use it, I'd eventually hear or be brought home a sample of the meat that was under cooked/charred on the outside. I'd actually told them after I used it the first time.....cooking for a dinner party they were hosting....that it needed to go back to Costco the following day. They didn't believe me; how could their $400 stainless and chrome monolith that took them 5hrs to assemble, be the problem? Nope it had to be me. After 2 years, I think they finally got the picture.

Believe it or not, Costco had so many problems with these grills that people were bringing them back, even after a couple years. So that's what we did. Day after Xmas were rolled it into Costco and they handed my inlaws $400 and change.

I'm going to have a good laugh if this Wolf turns out to cook poorly. May get a chance to find out today as the majority of the parts will arrive this morning, and then all I need to do is buy an LP regulator and hose, and the pipe fittings to adapt them to the 3/4" manifold that sticks out the back of this thing.

What's weird is; I've yet to find one online comment about how the Wolf's cook.

 

[rp2813]

Considering the price point, they probably didn't sell a lot of those Wolf grills.

 

We have a Front Avenue grill that's several years old.  I think it was the first stainless type that Costco ever offered.  Made by Char-Broil, and does have most of the drawbacks described above, but has lasted longer than the previous two Sunbeams.

 

The Weber with stainless grills sounds like a winner.  I may keep an eye out for one.

 

I think you could recover your investment if you decide the Wolf isn't worth keeping.  Looking forward to hearing how it performs.

 

[austinado16]

Called Wolf this morning and spoke with their tech dept. I was very nice about it, and told them upfront this was a used purchase and I wasn't after any sort of warranty, but I just wanted to give them a heads up on how bad the system is.

The guy was very nice, but I could tell there was a disconnect there between the reality of how poor the design is vs. the alleged quality and new price of the grill. It was more of a, "Well, sometimes we've seen a build up of grease in that area cause those wires to melt...." type conversation. I told that guy that wasn't the case at all, the wire is just sitting there, right next to the burner tube, with no real shielding from the flame or heat of grilling, and that the silly fiberglass cloth "sleeve" does little to protect, since the wire is touching the cloth and then just melts into the cloth.

He said they were aware the rotory ignitors could melt and that the new grills came with a metal shield to protect that plastic part. He is sending me 3 shields for free.......so that's good. Didn't expect that.

Meanwhile, started trying to remove the screws that hold the ground shields in place. Did Wolf use stainless #10 screws in their $7,600 stainless grill? Nope, just some shallow headed philips, standard grade screws. They are rusted into the stainless so bad that I had to grab the shanks with my biggest pair of vise-grips and twist them out 1/8th turn at a time, while supporting the flimsy stainless plateform each sit on, so it didn't buckle. Really, really lame.

The new parts are here, so I can start putting it back together today.

Ralph, below is a link to a super deal on a nice Weber in your area. If you've got the money, this is a fantastic model. I got the same unit for my in-laws, except it's black. Just make sure it's propane if that's what you have to use. Some of the 320's are Natural Gas.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/for/2242363382.html

 

[austinado16]

Here's another great deal on one and it's propane.

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/fuo/2242000803.html