- Sep 25, 2020
- 202
- 162
The grill arrived yesterday, and I put it together. I haven't put the shelves on because it will be easier to roll it outside without them.
So far, I have mixed feelings.
It's not a stainless grill, regardless of what the ads say. It's part stainless. The base is all painted or coated carbon steel, and so is a lot of the grill itself.
Using stainless steel in a grill is pointless if most of the grill is still going to rust eventually. This isn't like a real stainless product you can clean up with Scotch Brite. If it starts rusting, I'll have to paint it. I guess the $100+ cover is a must. After years of sitting outside, my old DCS looked about like it did when it was new.
The casters are not good. They're plastic. I hoped they would be on threaded posts so I could replace them with real casters from Amazon, but no such luck. They sit in weird plastic inserts, and you shove them in with a soft hammer. Some metal fab could fix this.
The door handles are not metal. They're plastic. The doors are partly plastic.
The burner knobs are illuminated, which is silly. They have little wires connected to them. One wire was too short, so the knob didn't light up. I had to do major surgery on the grill to fix it. Not much fun, considering the grill is heavy and I didn't have assistance. Putting the grill on the base by yourself is not a great idea, but I wanted to get it over with.
The assembly manual is pretty bad. It has virtually no text, and the cartoons don't make it clear which screws you're supposed to use. The Napoleon assembly video is nearly worthless. Fortunately, some other Youtubers have posted better videos.
The packaging was great. A pallet and sturdy boxes. Unfortunately, most of the boxes are not labeled, unlike Weber boxes, so you have to take everything out and pore through the manual to figure out what's what.
The burners, heat shields, and grill grates look to be very high quality, but you can't judge stainless until you use it for a couple of years.
Today I plan to throw a steak on the infrared burner and see if I got what I paid for. I'll also be grilling onion slices to see if Napoleon's wavy grates really keep stuff from falling through. If not, I can always get some stainless hardware cloth.
Ordinarily I fry steaks, but I need to see what the burner can do.
If you buy from Amazon, they tell you they'll put the grill on your porch if you want. The Fedex driver said this was a lie. They are only obligated to get it into your yard. He got it onto my porch, so I gave him $20.
He said there was some kind of problem with the pallet. I believe it didn't work with his pallet jack. He put another pallet under the first one so he could move everything.
This is probably a great product, but after DCS, it can't help but look somewhat cheap.
The price dropped about $124 the day after the grill arrived!
So far, I have mixed feelings.
It's not a stainless grill, regardless of what the ads say. It's part stainless. The base is all painted or coated carbon steel, and so is a lot of the grill itself.
Using stainless steel in a grill is pointless if most of the grill is still going to rust eventually. This isn't like a real stainless product you can clean up with Scotch Brite. If it starts rusting, I'll have to paint it. I guess the $100+ cover is a must. After years of sitting outside, my old DCS looked about like it did when it was new.
The casters are not good. They're plastic. I hoped they would be on threaded posts so I could replace them with real casters from Amazon, but no such luck. They sit in weird plastic inserts, and you shove them in with a soft hammer. Some metal fab could fix this.
The door handles are not metal. They're plastic. The doors are partly plastic.
The burner knobs are illuminated, which is silly. They have little wires connected to them. One wire was too short, so the knob didn't light up. I had to do major surgery on the grill to fix it. Not much fun, considering the grill is heavy and I didn't have assistance. Putting the grill on the base by yourself is not a great idea, but I wanted to get it over with.
The assembly manual is pretty bad. It has virtually no text, and the cartoons don't make it clear which screws you're supposed to use. The Napoleon assembly video is nearly worthless. Fortunately, some other Youtubers have posted better videos.
The packaging was great. A pallet and sturdy boxes. Unfortunately, most of the boxes are not labeled, unlike Weber boxes, so you have to take everything out and pore through the manual to figure out what's what.
The burners, heat shields, and grill grates look to be very high quality, but you can't judge stainless until you use it for a couple of years.
Today I plan to throw a steak on the infrared burner and see if I got what I paid for. I'll also be grilling onion slices to see if Napoleon's wavy grates really keep stuff from falling through. If not, I can always get some stainless hardware cloth.
Ordinarily I fry steaks, but I need to see what the burner can do.
If you buy from Amazon, they tell you they'll put the grill on your porch if you want. The Fedex driver said this was a lie. They are only obligated to get it into your yard. He got it onto my porch, so I gave him $20.
He said there was some kind of problem with the pallet. I believe it didn't work with his pallet jack. He put another pallet under the first one so he could move everything.
This is probably a great product, but after DCS, it can't help but look somewhat cheap.
The price dropped about $124 the day after the grill arrived!
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