Falcon 211 GGO

Cooker worked well for c. 6 years. Thermostat has packed up. Falcon 'trusted' service agent (Graffters) charge extortionate rates for home visit/fault diagnosis. Now Falcoln state that spares are no longer available .. and offer no help to track down alternative suppliers (although can be found with a little perseverance via Google) .. Graffters claim to have spares still available (at 180GBP incl fitting!). This is not what I expect for a 'premium' product. Next time I will go for something cheaper and more disposable (and most likely non-UK manufactured).

The lack of a light on the inside of a £3000 oven is unacceptable and an attempt to cut costs (penny pinching, it seems).

The lack of a grill at eye height is common, but foolish and not designed by a cook.

The problems unique to Falcon, of a grill which breaks down very soon after purchase and an oven which breaks down not long after, both appear not specific to me, but also to other customers.

A service engineer I spoke to suggested that the accountants had been at the product. For example, cutting product costs to improve margins. One example of how this was done involved reducing the number of hinges (or nuts on hinges, I can not remember), so cutting costs, but not immediately being obvious to the consumer that their product was any less well engineered). However, this appears to have come at the exopense of the Falcon 211 GGO longevity.

I agree with the other reviewers - my very expensive Falcon range cooker started to malfunction after only a few years. I actually found a Falcon 'expert' through their customer services who completely failed to help (he didn't even attempt a repair or service because he said he was only familiar with catering versions!) I am now having to consider replacing my cooker with a more reliable make, at considerable cost. I expected it to last a lifetime!!

Having to scrap my £3000 Falcon 211 GGO cooker after a few years because simple spares not available. Manufacturer seemingly was not interested in supplying information about spares. Oven is also very poorly insulated - keeps the kitchen warm in the winter though.

Had this 6 years. Paid £2,800-could have got cheap make for £600-700. Wish I had. Only had domestic use. 2 years ago thermocouple went on one oven (£150), now grill and oven stopped working, dealer has quoted £550 +vat (£650) to repair. No movement from dealer or Falcon, whose attitude is similarly it's got a 3 year warranty which has expired. That's legally quite correct but I paid 4 times the price of a cheap brand at that time, this product has "Professional Kitchen Ranges" prominently stamped on it- as does all their advertising material- and after 6 years of normal domestic use the thing is so knackered that it will cost 25% of bloated purchase price to repair. It wasn't even a brilliant cooker to begin with, the ovens in particular seeming unable to cook pizzas adequately without burning them. I thoroughly recommend anyone looking at these products to reconsider - I was a victim of my own brand snobbery and am paying for it now. Off to get a cheap Belling or similar, chuck it away if it breaks, alternatively Smeg/Laconche etc. Note part of Aga/Rayburn/Stanley/Rangemaster group so I'm not going near these either.