Another grill bites the dust, any suggestions?

[kaddjr]

We have had a Dyna-Glo for a few years now. I refuse to spend over $200. This one was $149 on sale on a holiday weekend at Home Depot. I just looked and the same one is $179 currently on their website. It is an excellent grill and will probably last 5+ years, we do put in our garage during the winter. It has wheels and one person can easily move it around. Happy Grilling!

Glad you are having good luck with yours. We had ours for 3 years. Igniter went out within the first year. Second year, the things that cover the burners inside rusted and crumbled. The lid rusted. Then the bottom of the grill totally rusted out and actually fell out. It was simply unsafe to use. We cleaned it often, kept it covered- didn’t make a difference. We don’t have a garage (and even if we did, it wouldn’t go in it cause we grill year round) so that could be the difference? And yes, they are light weigh and easy to move. So much so that on two separate occasion, the wind picked it up and tossed it across our yard! Had to chain a brick to it to keep it on the patio. Anyway, in January, we gave it to our neighbor’s son to scrap and bought a Weber. BIG difference in quality! No, it wasn’t cheap. We got ours at a local shop on sale and Lowe’s has the same one right now for about $70 more. For now, we are very pleased with it. If it lasts more than five years, it will be money well spent.

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

My Charbroil has a cast metal bottom and lid.......not stamped steel.

The inexpensive ones made of stamped steel (not stainless steel) have a limited life expectancy.

 

[RamblingMad]

I have a Weber grill that cost me $110. It’s charcoal. I also have a camping stove (Everest) that cost me $90 that I connect propane to. Both work great outside.

 

[Mrs. Bradbury]

I am glad to see this thread, because we're thinking of replacing our grill for Father's day. We use charcoal, live in GA, and keep the grill on our open deck all year round. It's a Weber we got from his parent's house that, according to my husband, is going on 40 years old! We have replaced a few inner parts in the last few years. He thinks he may want a smoker; I am less certain about that since he only smokes meat once or twice a year, and we do hamburgers and such much more often.

 

[RUDisney]

I had a Lynx grill for 23 years. I replaced it last year after I couldn't get replacement parts for the innards. They rusted out after so many years. I wanted a new one, but the first one we got for the store's price, as a favor to my DH. He paid $2,400 for it. The like for like replacements were retailing at $11k on the low end.

We bought a Weber. I keep it outside. It's on my deck, under a roof and we use it year round in Pennsylvania. My brother swears by Weber and I'm hopeful that it will last for a long time. It has a 10-year warranty and is hooked up to our natural gas line. It cooks as well as the Lynx did.

I do a lot of indirect heat cooking, so it has 4 burners. It came with a side burner that I swore that I wouldn't use, but it's actually nice to boil water for pasta or corn outside so the kitchen doesn't heat up.

I don't want to be bothered with replacing grills every few years and they have to use natural gas instead of small propane tanks.

 

[heathere3]

I was thinking I could do 2 burner because that is really all I use even on the big one I have now but some of the reviews make the smaller ones sound unsteady. How much space does a london broil or a few burgers need. Do you find this one to be sturdy with the tank attached? Also do you think it gets hot enough, that is the other complaint I see?

Thanks

We had their two burner one and loved it. It lasted about 5 years, but we were able to store it in the garage over the winters. We now have a much larger one and while my husband is happy with it (it was a present to him) I miss the nice compact one!

 

[heathere3]

I agree, it gets hot enough and cooks things through. Having cooked on it when living in NC and now in WA the biggest difference is the outside temp, like anything it'll heat up and hold the heat easier when it's already hot outside vs when it's colder, like 80+ vs 60's. But I try and remember to let it heat up at high for longer here in WA and even if I'm only cooking on one side I have both sides on to help with the all around temp. But I'd do that in NC too.

The one thing I have problems with, and I think it's just me, is my mom likes to have one hot dog charred on the outside, blah. With the new grill, even though it's exactly the same as my old one, I have a hard time getting it to blacken and not shrivel up to burnt. I had it almost perfected and for some reason, whether it be a difference in the flame height, a change in the hot dogs though they are the same brand, or something I'm doing, I can't get this to work. Everything else works just fine so it's not a knock on the grill, especially since most people aren't trying to blacken their hot dogs.

Believe it or not, it may be the hotdogs. I have a weird food allergy but have eaten ballpark hotdogs safely for YEARS. Until last spring, when I had a very unpleasant reaction. They have changed the recipe, with no notification on the packaging, and it now includes my allergen. The good news is I'm not anaphalactic. The bad news is I can't find hot dogs that are safe to eat anymore, and I miss a nice grilled dog!

 

[afan]

Believe it or not, it may be the hotdogs. I have a weird food allergy but have eaten ballpark hotdogs safely for YEARS. Until last spring, when I had a very unpleasant reaction. They have changed the recipe, with no notification on the packaging, and it now includes my allergen. The good news is I'm not anaphalactic. The bad news is I can't find hot dogs that are safe to eat anymore, and I miss a nice grilled dog!

Interesting. We eat Hebrew National so I've always figured we were better off with them than other brands but that's good to know.

 

[daisy2013]

Get a Weber and use a cover. We push ours against the house in the winter (and will roll it out if we use it in the winter) but don’t bring it inside. Ours is 4 years old and works as well as it did on day 1

 

[LuvOrlando]

I wanted a safe cheap grill and just bought a Dyna-Glo from Home Depot for around $120 because its super inexpensive, I think it was like $9 to get it delivered next day, in total its 3 burners under $150 : ) I was looking for Charbroil but couldn't make heads of tails out of Lowes curbside and they hung up on me a few times, both local store and main number - tried to dig for local mom & pop but honestly couldn't figure out who is doing curbside or delivery near me - I wish more local would go on Nextdoor but that hasn't caught on for small business owners yet... honestly I do a lot on there as its all word of mouth. After ordering HD kept me on hold while I was trying to sort out if I can get it put together before they deliver but its not a deal breaker, I do have time these days.

 

[Birdie dog]

I know you said you don't want to spend more than $500, but if you have any wiggle-room in that budget, consider the Big Green Egg. It's expensive, but it's genuinely a lifetime purchase; in fact, my husband mentions his Big Green Egg in his will!

This. I live in SC and we grill all of the time. We considered our grills temporary and threw them away every few years. We now have a BGE and use it several times a week. We've had it for close to 10 years and I don't think we'll ever have to replace it.

 

[LuvOrlando]

The Big Green Egg must be something, if I was a family starting out I would but I'm trying to shed stuff these days.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Just bought a Weber Genesis II (S-435 in Stainless) as a combination 30th Anniversary/Father's Day gift for DH. I'm so tired of replacing components in the lower level grills because of rusting, so I splurged for the 10-year warranty.

 

[LuvOrlando]

If they are good with warranty then that is really smart!
I had a warranty for the big charbroil one I had but they didn't cover any of the stuff that rusted so I'm thinking they knew what I didn't : /

 

[RUDisney]

I bought the same grill last summer, @lovesmurfs. I love it!

 

[Tinkerbell58]

We have a Weber Genesis and is going strong after 10 years of use. Because it's now just my DH and I, we decided to get a smaller grill and purchased a Weber Spirit II.

To ease the cost, I purchased Lowe's gift cards at Target, using my Target RedCard (5% savings). Then, we went to Lowe's to purchase the grill and used our 10% off military discount and the Lowe's gift cards.

 

[rcj2000]

We swear by Weber, I think we are on #2 in 24 years. Every 5 years ago we buy replacement parts for the inside. We never cover it (the automatic lighter dies within a year due to rain), and living in NJ we have 4 seasons. We do not take good care of it at all.

We love our Weber Grill too! Had ours for 18 years and just replacing parts now. We leave it out all year and it gets cold where I'm from too. We have a cover for it for all types of weather. Weber maybe a little more expensive but it is an excellent quality product!

 

[Jax1023]

We have had a Dyna-Glo for a few years now. I refuse to spend over $200. This one was $149 on sale on a holiday weekend at Home Depot. I just looked and the same one is $179 currently on their website. It is an excellent grill and will probably last 5+ years, we do put in our garage during the winter. It has wheels and one person can easily move it around. Happy Grilling!

I bought a dyna glo and in 2 years it completely rusted and literally the inside of the grill fell out the bottom.

I bought a Weber spirit. This will be summer 5 and still looks brand new, electric starter works perfectly. Definitely worth double the price as it’s already lasted me twice as long and seems like it will keep going.