Just my perspective... Of the premium brands of gas cooktops that Consumer Reports included in their reliability ratings, Wolf was the best at 7%, Viking was the worst at 15%. They lump together "repairs and serious problems", so my guess is that the occurrance of "real" issues is a lot lower, and repeated issues lower yet. So let's be conservative and say the average of real problems is 10%, and assume that A&E is your service provider and screws up 50% of their calls. That would mean that you have a 95% chance of getting an appliance that either has no problems or else has a problem that is remedied.

All this to say, in my opinion mind you, of the brands you listed, I would be a whole lot more concerned about performance, features and aesthetics, all of which you will live with every day, than repairs, which you probably have less than a 5% chance of ever having to deal with.

By the way, I would not necessarily feel this way about more complex appliances like refrigerators, electric ovens, etc. But a gas rangetop....

I think any of the following will be fine: Wolf, DCS, Capital, Bluestar, GE Monogram. Pick the features that you want. All brands have problems on some units. You could check about who performs service in your area - but even Whirlpool has alternatives to A&E, at least where I live. Once the warranty is over, you can use whoever you want for service.

To carry weissman's comments a bit further, poll owners of units weissman listed and, generally, you will get strong opinions from happy customers as to why they like their unit the best. That said then, this reinforces weissman's comment that within the group listed, pick the features that are most important to you. None of them will be absolutely perfect but what is.

As to Consumer Reports, I put very little stock in their reviews of this level of product. I have not found comments here and elsewhere supportive of the observations made and conclusions reached by CR in its reviews of these upper end products.

weissman, from what I've seen, American is having less than its share of problems, and their service seems to be quite responsive...I know they're not as high end as the ones you mentioned but in terms of the original request (reliability/service), I'm thinking they're better than some of those you listed...?

breezy - While I realize that the forty people who post on GW are a much more representative group than the hundreds of thousands who respond to CR questionnaires, it was not my intention to debate CR. That has been done ad nauseum around here. Rather, it was to point out that regardless of brand, it appears that the actual percentage of cooktop problems is quite low, and that this low number seems to include any and all problems regardless of severity, and that therefore I would not make reliability or service my primary focus as sayde suggested when saying, "I've forgotten to factor in what is probably the most important concern!"

In the end, you, Weissman and I are all saying the same thing. I just happened to make the mistake of citing Consumer Reports. Pick what appeals to you.

flyleft - I didn't deliberately leave out American - I'm just not as familiar with it as I am with the other brands - sorry

Ah, thanks, weissman...I'm fixin' to order one tomorrow, probably (I'm the embodiment of the word "gunshy" :)), and was a bit concerned to see you had left American out of the lineup. But their issues seem few and far between, and addressed well, except in one case. Now that said, I'd *LOVE* to hear from anyone who has *not* had an issue addressed by American to their satisfaction...as in *tonight*, please post! :)

Whatevah yathink. If you are not going to debate the CR issue, then you shouldn't open your comments by using arguably overly embellished and misapplied statistics that are tantamount to saying CR is, at a minimum, far more reliable than GW (as any fool can see if they take your statistics at face value) but then your comments are not up for debate.

take it easy, breezy, know sarcasm when you hear it, and concentrate more on THE FACT THAT WE AGREE ON THE ISSUE AT HAND!

OH! OK, sorry, long day bad headache. Thanks for the reality check! B:)

If you want performance, Bluestar excels with their 8 fingered star burners. No whistles, no indicator lites, just great burners, that are rugged, powerful and open in design.

Thanks, guys, for the input. I think I feel better (?)

I was going to ask the same question (reliability, service) about ovens but since I want 24 inch the choices are limited and I think I'll just go with Miele, uh, may-be Gaggenau (?) Thoughts?

Both Miele and Gagganau were on my finalist list. Both have excellent reputations as manufacturers. Wolf, Mile and the Gagg were about a tie for me but Wolf won out for my oven choice b/c the features are excellent and the unit matches up well with their WD which I liked better than others I looked at.