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gigem94

My Kobe Venthood Experience

gigem94
9 years ago

Hi there, new to GW, but have been reading posts for the past year for my large remodel. I wanted to share my experience so far with my Kobe venthood I bought for my recent kitchen remodel. We ended up selecting the Kobe IN26-1200 series as we wanted 1200cfm for our Bluestar rangetop. We went with the IN2642SQB-1200 and purchased the unit from the Natural Home website. Unit was bought in June and installed in Sept by my contractor. I loved the unit for the first month I had it. I literally could cook bacon and eggs in the morning and not smell anything in our kitchen, and that was on the low setting. I then developed an issue whereby I could turn on the lights, but then the fan would not come on unless I turned off the lights and turned on the fan first. Shortly thereafter, I noticed the lights would only come on in the low setting. I called in a service ticket with Kobewho hired a local repair guy to swing by and take a look. I had a feeling it was either the processor board or control board and asked the Kobe rep to ensure the repair guy had the parts with him when he came. Repair guy comes, spends 5 mins and realized it's the processor board, and has to order the parts. A month an a half have gone by since the service ticket was called in, and no parts have arrived, and now my unit has completely stopped working. I called Kobe this morning because I need a working venthood in my kitchen to cook and asked them to rush the part or to send me a new unit.

I'd love to hear from others with experience on Kobe hoods to see if they've had similar issues with the unit, with the service department, with backordered parts, and any other information they'd be willing to share. I'm hoping I didn't make a mistake on this hood.

Appreciate the help!

Comments (7)

  • gigelus2k13
    9 years ago

    Well, I reported back in the day about my hood issue, where the rotary switches went bad within the first month of use. It took a while, including a 3-month delay because of "part is on backorder", but it was eventually solved to my satisfaction.

    I do have a much simpler hood (a RA02) however, with practically no electronics (apart from the LED driving circuit) and the AC motor powering the fan never stopped working.

    Overall I like my range hood, despite this hiccup. Kobe would benefit immensely from improving their QA process.

  • hvtech42
    9 years ago

    Good lord, how many boards do you need in an appliance that does nothing but produce light and exhaust air?

  • gigelus2k13
    9 years ago

    Since you had to ask, the answer is probably "one". This model does more than just producing light and exhausting air (it has push buttons, timers, remote control etc.), therefore some sort of electronics board is needed.

    B.t.w., it looks that the OP is not the first one to complain on GW about this particular model.

    Here is a link that might be useful: another Kobe yellow citrus

  • hvtech42
    9 years ago

    Yes, but you would think 1 board is enough for those things. From the OP it seemed like there were at least 2. And someone posted here earlier about problems with an electric freestanding range, when I looked up the parts diagram I counted 5 or so boards! I'm not one of those people who thinks we should just go back to mechanical controls for everything, but some of the stuff popping up in appliances these days is ridiculous.

  • gigem94
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Quick Follow-up: After posting, I decided to call Bruce @ Natural Home where I bought the unit, knowing that he's a reseller, and thought he might be able to provide some help and insight. I explained the situation and he offered to help contact Kobe mgmt. if I provided him with the details (dates/times case info, names of folks I spoke to, etc). I got that over to him and about a week later I heard back from him that Kobe had shipped the part to Adco on 12/12, which was odd b/c when I spoke to Adco on 12/28, Adco claimed Kobe had the part backordered. Armed with Bruce's information, I called Adco, spoke with a rep who had to call me back, and when he did, the part had 'just arrived'. I asked him to express ship the part to me, to which he explained he could not express ship as it's against Kobe's policy. He did indicate he would ship the part to me rather than the appliance repair guy. I didn't want the appliance repair company to potentially lose track of the item s it was yet another group in the mix. It turns out he shipped to the local appliance repair company. The repair guy came out yesterday and replaced the processor board and all seems good again.

    So the key issue for me is the quality of service Kobe is using causing a 2.5 month service issue to exist. I appreciate Natural Home's help along the way, but I doubt I'd buy another Kobe unit again knowing I'd have to wait this long for a 15 minute processor board swap.

    Sounds similar to the same aforementioned delays on the post from gigelus2k13.

  • vrejae
    8 years ago

    Well reading this makes me sad. I have a KOBE Range Hood model CX1836GS-8 for 6 years and the processor board is bad. It's beautiful but useless. I can't find a part through KOBE, they discontinued my model. I have a appliance repair person coming to look at it for $110 per 1st 15 minutes and $30 every ten minutes. If I can't get the part then forget the repair person. I also talked to Bruce @ Natural Home, he was very nice but couldn't help. My husband said I should order a new hood. This wasn't a cheap product. I guess he is right.


    I had to repair my Electrolux Dbl Oven last year, 5 years old. I think the quality of the new appliances are disconcerting. My 1963 appliances worked fine:(