Seems to me that, unless you are just hoping for more favorable anecdotes to balance out the negative comments, there is really no answering this for you because the critical question is how comfortable are you with playing the odds?

Maybe ask yourself: "what if I were buying a car" --- say, a 3-year old Prius --- "and somebody offered me a deal like this? Would I buy the three year old Prius?" What if I tell you that there are a lot of really good reviews from owners on the Prius forums but some other sites have scathingly negative opinions from owners who have had horrible problems with reliability and service? Would you still buy the car knowing that there is a chance it could be a bad one? How big or small a chance would that have to be?

Chances are that the stove will be fine. But note that I said "chances are." You are playing the odds. That makes this a question about your personal comfort level with degrees of risk. That is not a question we can answer for you. It is your comfort with risk levels that matters, not ours.

We know some stoves will fail early. That is true of every manufactured product on the planet. Many buyers will get reasonable life from their purchase, but some will not. If you get one that goes bad early, will you feel any better about it if you were betting on 80% or 90% of owners not having problems? Or will you, as some of the disappointed do, claim that every one of that product is complete $#!t that nobody should ever buy and anybody who is not reporting a problem is either a fanboy, a liar or just plain ignorant! (Nothing like inflicting bad service to really piss off a disappointed owner.)

Beyond that, we know that, if something is going to fail on an induction stove, it will most likely be a control board. (Could be something else, but we're just talking odds.) The reports here have been that replacement boards are very expensive. Failure of one board can cascade to others. When that happens, the repair will be a lot more expensive. And you run a risk of running into poor service and support, and replacement parts backlogs.

There is also a paradox in asking if the reliability has improved with the more recent production over that of three years ago. There are two kinds of problems -- those that occur right out of the box ("infant mortality" in industry jargon) and those that occur with use. So far as anybody here has reported, there have been few instances of infant mortality with the Elux slide-in, and the most that can be said here is probably on the order of "well, my stove didn't fail right out of the box." As for the problems that turn up over time -- which is what most of the negative experiences have been about --- one has to ask how would a new owner know? If the problems take months and years to turn up, how could we know about this from the experiences of buyers of the most recent production who have had their stove from less than a year?

Some folks mitigate that sense of risk by buying insurance. With a new product, some purchase the extended warranty from the appliance vendor. Some folks buy actual home appliance and fixture insurance policy. There have been some dicussions of the latter kind of insurance in some past threads. IIRC, searching on a company name like SquareTrade might turn up those threads, if that kind of thing interests you.

BTW, I'm curious about the reasons for the sellers deciding to replace their induction range to a gas range. I ask partly because, for me, it raises a possible question about whether or not they maybe had some reliability problems with the range. Sometimes a stove might be "lightly used" because the owners could not cook for lack of skills or interest, sometimes it is because they couldn't cook because the stove was waiting for repairs. (Same thing with buying a used car, btw: does that seven year-old creampuff have only 20k miles on it because the owners were so "Green" (or so old) that they hardly ever drove anywhere, or was it sitting the garage or shop because it didn't run?)

Mostly, though, I'm asking because we've had two very long threads in the past two or three years about whether any induction purchasers regretted their purchase and either wished they had gotten a gas appliance instead or had actually replaced their induction cooker with a gas one. Apart from a couple of second or third hand accounts --- kind of like "I heard from a friend that she had heard that her elderly aunt was driven crazy by high pitched noises from her induction range" --- the postings were all in the vein of "now that I have induction, I love it." Be interesting to hear those sellers' reasons for switching ranges.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Jul 9, 14 at 12:50

A three year old lightly used induction range with no prior problems is golden.
The Electrolux tapered top can be trouble and require counter modification. Aware?
The lower oven is somewhat basic.
Never use the self clean, but especially don't use the full cycle in one go if you do.
Original price in the $3k to $3.6k area? Current model on special for $3.2k. Half price rule? Must have?

Well, I'm sick today so not working. What better time to install my new in box Electrolux EW30IS65JSD from Craigslist? I just finished hooking it up and it is going through a full self clean cycle now. Partially so I can get rid of that smell that all new ovens put out when turned on, and partially so I can stress test it. I will report back on how it goes.

Gutsy on the self clean, but if you should "Smoke It" you can get another one here for less than a Grand!!

https://www.google.com/shopping/product/8563121840590643219?q=Electrolux induction range for sale&num=100&biw=1314&bih=801&ei=N4G9U-CZJ42HoQS0y4HYBw&ved=0CKIBEKkrMAE&prds=hsec:online

see the helpful link at bottom of my post to go to the above URL.

Gary

Here is a link that might be useful: Elux Induction Range for

hvtech42, it sounds like an exciting day (although I am sorry you are sick!) How wonderful that you found a model that was still in the box! That sounds like an amazing deal.

Gary, the one I was considering is actually a slide-in model, although the model you found also looks like quite a deal!

jwwvideo, you are super helpful as always! I know it might seem silly to pose this question on Gardenweb, but I totally welcome input from others as I am an "extrovert" when it comes to making decisions. Up until today, I had thought that this range got great reviews. It was only when I wrote down the model number and googled it that I came across that Amazon thread, which scared me. I have chanced it with pre-owned cars many times, but I always have my mechanic look at them first (and I know that he will fix anything that comes up for a reasonable price.) I guess I don't have that security with a pre-owned appliance, especially since many appliance service companies might not have experience with a slide-in induction range.....As for your other question, the couple who are selling the range switched to gas because they have a vacation home on the coast with a high frequency of power outages. They said that they want the chance to cook or make a cup of coffee during a power outage, so they switched to gas. They did not indicate having issues with the range, but it is always hard to say.

I don't think my husband wants to gamble on this one, so we are probably back to considering $2500-$3200 if we want a slide-in induction range. I will report back if anything changes. :-)

hvtech42, please let us know how it goes!

Sara

"I know it might seem silly to pose this question on Gardenweb .. ."

We all get stuck at some point in trying to sort through our appliance choices. Here, I was just trying to help sort out the complexities and concerns and trying to pay back all the help I got when trying to think through my own appliance purchases.

i did not intend to suggest in any way that your questions were silly and I apologize if anything came across that way.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Jul 9, 14 at 14:51

Well the self clean finished and while my house now smells nasty from whatever got burned off the oven liner, everything on the range works great. It isn't getting a break yet, though! Currently I am baking cookies on all 3 racks with convection to get an idea of performance (and to introduce a good smell!). I think this is one of the hardest tests you can give an oven, and I rarely if ever do this in real life, so if it can handle this it can handle everything I'd ever need from it.

The next step is to replace my hood. I think I am going to go as powerful as possible without needing makeup air. Even though I had my hood on high the whole time it was still no match for the self cleaning fumes.

This post was edited by hvtech42 on Wed, Jul 9, 14 at 19:11

Cookies came out great. Nice and even thanks to the 3rd element convection. I love the induction top but that's no surprise. This weekend when I have more time I'll do some pizza and I'll make the dough myself as an excuse to test out the proof function :)

So far I would recommend this range to anyone. If it breaks you all will be the first to know. Actually you'll be the second to know, my wife will be the first to know, and I'll be in trouble. She was not happy about this impulse buy and did not understand why we needed a new stove. Then again, she's never cooked on induction. I bet you any money she'll change her mind once she tries it tomorrow

WEll there are probably few hoods if any, that could completely eliminate the odors from a "self clean", particularly a first time burn off.

In fact all the years I've been here in GW, I have yet to see someone post they "Smelt Nuttin" during a new oven burnoff!!!

In fact, most if not all oven manufactures warn you not to have pet birds around during the "self cleaning".

So I would hold off, until you use the oven a bit more, before spending "Buku Bucks" on a fancy hood.

We did, but we don't need it because of the oven, in fact I don't what the heck we need it for. It did suck off all the fur of one of my cats one time, "Che Wa Wa".

Anyway glad to hear all is OK and somebody else can snag the under a grand Elux induction range!!!!!

Gary

JWVideo, I am not offended at all! :-) Your input is SO incredibly helpful. I think I a more of a risk taker than my husband, but we collectively decided to skip the range opportunity. There were just too many unknowns for us to manage, and the item was still over $1000.

hvtech42, I loved hearing about your first day with the stove! You have such an energetic attitude; your enthusiasm is contagious! Please continue to keep us posted. :-)

(Also, great tips on oven cleaning!)

Thanks again!

Sara

I bought an Electrolux EW30IF60ISA free standing induction range 2.5 years ago. I loved it when it was working.

The cooktop recently failed (there was a loud bang as I lifted my tea kettle off the hob, and then the range displayed error code 31). I don't know what conclusion you can draw about the reliability of the brand from that, but I do think that the industry shift to 1 year warranties is a bad sign. Maybe you could glean something from comparing how much manufacturers charge for extended warranties?

Anyway, the error code indicates that I need to replace the left side generator board, which costs $450. Yale Appliance (where I bought the range) charged me $99 for a service technician to come to my house and read the error code, which I had told them over the phone to begin with.

When the board came in, the technician came back to my house, took off the back of the range, and pointed out that there was a scorch mark on the right side board, so I'd need to replace both. Since this was adding up to more than $1000 with labor, I decided not to do it.

I have since done a little poking around, and took the back off the range myself to have a closer look. It turns out that the left side generator board is actually on the right side, but that the board with the scorch mark is actually the filter board (whatever that is), which sits below the generator board. I'm going to try replacing that myself, since at this point I don't trust the service from Yale.

Anyway, I'm not too happy with Electrolux right now. I think they ought to have longer warranties on these appliances, and design and build them so that they won't need to be repaired. But I suspect that all the other manufacturers have similar quality issues, so I don't know what advice to give.

Sorry to hear about that - and the terrible service experience. They were right in sending a technician out despite you telling the error code, because error codes often lie, but the technician was wrong in not even taking the back panel off for the diagnostic and just going off the error code. Other induction ranges, GE and Samsung included, have gotten some similar reviews from people who'd had them for a while, and the 1 year warranty is pretty standard so as you said I think all the manufacturers are at fault here, not just Electrolux.

While extended warranties aren't worth it most of the time in my opinion, I think they could be a good idea for any appliance that has tons of expensive boards like this. Although boards have sometimes proven to be unreliable in non-induction ranges, those ranges usually only have one board as opposed to many and the boards tend to be cheaper and simpler to replace yourself.

For some reason, it seems like there are far less complaints from people who have an induction cooktop and a separate oven. I bet reliability is negatively affected on ranges by cramming all those electronics into a tight spot that also gets a good amount of heat from the oven. Maybe I should've just gotten a cooktop and filled in the range spot, because I have a separate wall oven I like and I don't REALLY need 2 ovens (although they're nice to have). I sure hope nothing big goes wrong with mine, because I don't even have the standard 1 year warranty.

Steer away from induction ranges unless you want costly repairs.If you do want an induction range Please purchase extended warranties.

I have an electrolux induction range. Purchased 2 1/2 years ago. At the time I thought I was purchasing a top of the range item from a quality manufacturer.

So I did not buy any extented warranty.

The induction top just suddenly stopped working. I had 2 different error codes E35 or E75,both mean the same thing-filter main circuit board to be replaced.Cost $1000.00+ dollars for the part plus labor costs.The repairman told me to rather go out and buy a new range because the replacement parts are only covered by a 90 day warranty and this item is prone to break again.

My oven still works great and it is an excellent oven with excellent features But I went out and purchased a new range as I need a cook top as well.

If only Electrolux had a longer warranty like Miele which has a 10 year warranty on their top products.

We had exactly the same problems with our Electrolux range as Iain did. Repairs would be between $1000 and $1500. Our range was only 4 1/2 years old, but it was cheaper in the long run to buy a new range. My friend has the Electrolux slide-in range...and they have just experienced a similar breakdown. Their range also happens to be about 4 1/2 years old, but at least they purchased an extended 5 year warranty and are still covered, although they are having a little difficulty getting it serviced as the warranty is through a third party company. I loved this range when it worked, but after these experiences, I would NOT recommend it.