Gas BBQ Not Fit For Purpose

sjlr1985

...well it's not IMO.

We bought an Outback Spectrum BBQ 3 burner and after having the family over last night we have discovered that it has a major design flaw.

Only small parts of the grill are suitable to cook food on due to the positioning of the burners, some parts are so hot (directly over the burner) it burns the food and others you can literally hold your hand right over the grill and just feel warmth therefore you have to continuously move the food around.

I have just read some reviews on Amazon for the model and it has a few 1 star ratings due to this problem.

I want to return it and have a refund as I feel it is not fit for purpose and obviously quite a big purchase.

I have just called the retailer and the guy I spoke to was not that helpful and said he had never heard of anything like this and it was 'probably just what it is like'.

What are my rights? I paid by credit card also.

Fosterdog

To be fair it sounds like pretty much every BBQ I've used, you have to move the food around to cook it all evenly and certain areas are used just for keeping food warm.

It would be pretty obvious really that directly above the flame will be hotter than off to the side.

Even using a cooker or hob indoors things are moved around to different shelves/positions with different sized burners and different temp settings to control and adjust based on what is being cooked.

kaya

It's a common misconception that a gas BBQ is designed to be used without coals . You buy coals especially for gas BBQ's ! The BBQ flavour is from the fats hitting the hot coals and smoking(which can't happen of you don't have any). A gas BBQ with no coals is just a gas fired griddle and can not give the same effect , the coals retain heat and spread it over the entire grill area . Go to any professional kitchen that has a gas griddle and you will see it has coals added (I spent years as a commercial kitchen appliance engineer) the point of a gas BBQ is that you can light it easily and quickly, have better heat control, don't need firelighters or have to clean out ash and muck after every use , they are not intended give a BBQ experience without any coals

wealdroam

We don't yet know whether the OP was using it with or without coals.

Perhaps sjlr1985 can address that point.

sjlr1985

Thanks for the replies, although I understand that some parts will naturally be hotter, only a tiny part of the grill actually cooks the food which is either on the far right hand side or far left and that's only towards the back, the middle and the front has hardly any heat and the lava rocks in these areas hardly warm up at all whilst others nearly set fire. Only about 15% cooking area will actually start cooking the food.

It has a separate warming rack also. Surely it is not right to only be able to cook on such a small percentage of the grill?

sjlr1985

Also I forgot to say that the unit did actually have some damage on the side which has started to rust (I also informed them of this last week) and the protective cover also had a split in the seam. Not sure if this makes a difference?

sjlr1985

wealdroam wrote: »

We don't yet know whether the OP was using it with or without coals.

Perhaps sjlr1985 can address that point.

The bbq has lava rocks included which are positioned underneath the grill but above the gas flames.

rustyboy21

Gas BBQ's do have hot a cooler spots on the working surface, as said above. This is so you can move food around as it cooks, if you didn't, everything would be cremated before you had chance to cook it. You do things like sausages, kebabs etc first then move them over, then do steaks etc, then seafood, which takes the least amount of time. You then can eat it all together.


If you wanted the whole area to get hot, you would have been better with a hotplate. Even a Charcoal BBQ has hot/cooler spots, that's what they are designed to be like.