Don't judge a range by it's cover!
GalWithHighStandards
3/29/2019
What a bummer! We own a number of other Samsung appliances (refrigerator, washer, dryer) and we've had great luck with those, so I was thrilled to find a Samsung range (NX58K9850SS) that had a number of desirable features (true convection, dual oven, power burner, self-cleaning and illuminated dials when the burners are on) along with the beautiful styling that I wanted. Sadly, the product quality and consistency of this range is beyond disappointing.
1A. Oven temps vary wildly. I have purchased high-quality oven thermometers that suspend from the racks (the thermometers don't "touch" any oven surface), and even 10-15 minutes after the oven indicates it's reached the designated temperature, the temp inside the oven is off by anywhere from 15-35 degrees! And worse yet, if it's close to what you set when you start, the oven doesn't maintain the temp throughout the cook! For example, I had the divider in and set the lower oven to 350 degrees F. I gave the oven an extra 10 minutes of heating time after the preheat alert, put my 9 x 9 casserole in to bake and 25 minutes into the cook time, I checked the dish. The temp inside the oven was only 320 and my food wasn't close to being cooked properly. I bumped the oven temp up to 365 degrees, and 10 minutes later the temp inside the oven was 353 and my dish was still underdone. Sadly, this is just one example, and I have so many others. When using the divider, the smaller, top oven typically over heats - especially on convection, while the somewhat larger lower oven is slightly more consistent (meaning not horrific) when using convection, but when using regular bake in the lower oven, it's a true gamble and you don't know what you're going to get. The only mediocre thing I can say about oven temps is that when using the oven without the divider on regular bake, I have had a couple of decent batches of cookies, but I constantly have to fiddle with the temp to keep it at the desired level.
1B. After consulting the help manual, I did try the "temperature calibration" function - which is basically where you set the number of degrees that are automatically added or subtracted from the temperature you input on the touchscreen when turning the oven on. Clearly this doesn't work, because after *adding 15 degrees* to the temps, I still end up with temps that are *20 degrees (or more) lower* than the temperature I set on the touchscreen.
2. The oven racks are terrible! They don't slide in or out smoothly, and they often get slightly out of alignment while moving them, resulting in a rack you almost can't move. All of which can cause liquids in the pan to spill over. E.g. Juices from our holiday ham spilled over onto the oven door because the darn rack got stuck while trying to pull it out. Nothing says Happy Holidays like the smell of burning ham juices!
3. The self-clean function is terrible! After the holiday ham incident described above, the oven door and parts of the oven were splashed with sugary ham juices so I thought I'd try the self-clean feature. The four-hour self-clean cycle did almost nothing to remove any of the baked-on juices, so I tried a six-hour cycle and 80% of the gunk was still stuck to the oven, oven door and oven door glass. So I consulted the manual to see if there was something I was missing. I added a cake pan filled with water and dish soap and repeated a six-hour cycle. Needless to say, my oven is still a mess - even scrubbing with a baking soda/white vinegar mix didn't work, so clearly the self-cleaning didn't even loosen the gunk.
4A. The range top seems okay, and I've managed to work out which size pans can go on which burners so that I can use at least 3 at the same time, but beware, if anything spills over, you're going to have ugly burners and caps! Several of my dark metal burner caps are now discolored because sauce or something splashed out of one pan and landed on the deflector of a nearby burner. And to top it off, the metal burner "deflectors" that spread the heat under the pan are discolored - the brass power burner is the worst of all and nothing I've done or tried seems to get them clean. Oh, and fair warning - the stainless top can get scratched easily. The installers accidentally dropped one of the metal burner caps onto the stainless top and it left a 1 inch scratch on the range top.
4B. The middle burner/griddle is worthless. E.g. The center of the middle burner gets so hot the pancakes there over cook in seconds, while the pancakes closer to the ends of griddle pan don't get close to cooked. Maybe if you have an oval roasting pan and you want to deglaze the pan it might work, but I'm not convinced.
5. The timer. Oh, where do I start on the timer...? Plainly put, it stinks. The sound is not loud enough to hear from the room next door if anyone else in the house is making noise of any kind. No worries, though, right - because this oven can connect to my smart phone via Wi-Fi... Uh no! The oven can alert me when it thinks it's preheated, and I can turn the oven on/off, but the timer can't alert me to my smart phone - which is just one more bummer to add to the list of bummers.
Want to know the biggest bummer? I didn't use the oven very often during the first year of ownership, so I didn't figure out what a disappointing product this was until after my warranty expired. It's now 18 months after I purchased this unit, I've called to see if Samsung can do anything and was told that the only way to move forward is to pay out of pocket for service calls. Even then, I'm completely skeptical that it's anything that can actually be fixed.
So there you have it... It looks gorgeous on the outside, and while it has a number of fantastic features, they don't work consistently and you may have wildly varying results when you use it.
Originally posted on Samsung.com
No, I do not recommend this product
