Open Letter to Wade Bradley

[Longtimecustomer]

Dear customer service and Mr. Bradley:


We are longtime users of Bradley products.  We owned a jim beam version of your smoker for 5+ years and used it to smoke chicken, ribs and more every weekend.  We were excited to see you improved the product by making the biscuits/assembly all inside and saved to purchase the p10 direct from your website on black friday.  


We had our first test run and made a pork loin.  It was delicious!  The next week we were ready for our normal smoked chicken and: no smoke, biscuits just dropped into the water.  We called and emailed support and were told it was an easy fix, parts would be sent.  


A week or two later we recieved the parts.  It took 2+ hours to remove and reinstall the parts we were sent (heating element and another part/sensor).  We were excited to use the smoker again and wanted to smoke a turkey breast for christmas.  We did, worked well.


The next week we were set to make our regular chicken again and... no smoke,  we called and emailed service again, unhappy.  We were told "this is a known issue". If that is the case why cant we ship the p10 back to you? 


JJ sent parts again, we replaced taking hours of our time..we used the smoker agai today.  Today, the temp would not get above 70 degrees.  


We are very dissapointed and hope you will reconsider allowing us to return the unit.  We arent asking for our money back, just a smoker that works. We will even pay for the shipping.  


If not, we will have no choice than to alert other potential customers if the issues with the p10 and your service policies.  


Please let us know what can be done.  I have begun to post on social media. I hope i can update these posts that the story has changed. 


Thank you 


Dawn and Jaymee James

[bigcatdaddy]

I just purchased a P10 and hoping we don't have issues.  Hope they get ya resolved and fixed up!  Keep us posted.

[manxman]

It would be interesting to know the outcome of this dispute. Having used Bradley Smokers for over 15 years one of the outstanding aspects of using their products is the warranty which I have used a couple of times to get replacement smoke generators. Other comments on this forum usually back up this assertion.

I cannot see how opening the box and using a brand new item appears to negates a manufacturer warranty? Neither should customers have to spend hours fixing a unit as an alternative to being sent a new replacement unit?

Unless I am missing something?

[Habanero Smoker]

First I want to say that I'm sorry to hear about your experience. It's very frustrating and hope you get this resolved soon. I wasn't going to reply, but I'm also interested in the outcome.

I had a different experience than you had. When my P10 arrived there was a lot of cosmetic damage on the top of the smoker. It arrived late on a Friday evening, I sent an email to Bradley on Saturday morning. That afternoon I received an email asking for photos. After sending the photos, I received authorization to return the smoker later that day. Fed Ex picked up the smoker on Tuesday, and once Bradley received it they sent me out a replacement. That too had damage to the top. Again they wanted me to send it back. That smoker is large, awkward to handle, and weighs over 70 pounds. It took me a long time, and a lot physical energy to repack that smoker to ship back. I did not want to go through the hassle of shipping it back a second time. When I saw the top could be replace by just removing a few screws, I asked for that part, and it was shipped out immediately, with two boxes of their premium blend bisquettes.

Though I don't know both sides of the story, a customer shouldn't have to make repairs on a brand new product. Though sometimes it is better to repair it yourself, than to go through the hassle of shipping it back. But one shouldn't have to do the same repair multiple times. I see that you were more than willing to do that. I can understand how the first repair can take a few hours - because there are no detail instructions, but I don't understand why the second repair to take that long. I have twice taken my turntable apart to clean it. The first time took a long time, but after that first time it took less than half the time to take it apart and reassemble.

[SammySmoker]

I am in the same position as you. I purchased the p10 last year and used it 8 times. I kept everything clean and even kept the machine indoors when not in use, and never used it in bad weather. The heat sensor just went bust one day, and the pucks do not burn. For the price me and my brother bought this for, we expected it to last a lot longer. I did email Grakka who sent me a replacement sensor, although it didn't fix the situation. I spent a very long time trying to unassemble and assemble everything back together.

I contacted Bradley via their instagram page, and they kept avoiding my messages, until I followed up and they told me to contact customer service... yet there still is no solution? I feel like it was such a waste of money to go for the p10 when it broke so quickly. It seems there is no solution to the problem, I wasnt offered any other solutions, which is a shame.

The machine worked well when it was working, however, I feel it was close to £1000 down the drain which is a real real shame. I honestly dont know who to talk to from here or how im meant to fix my machine. Upsetting to say the least.

[manxman]

I too would be beyond disappointed if I had spent that amount of money and still had something that wasn't working.

Grakka are the U.K. and European agent for Bradley Smokers and I have always found them most helpful, usually I try and speak to them directly by phone but I think there is a live chat option via the Grakka link to the U.K. Bradley Smoker  website?

However assuming the item is still under the one year warranty I would be settling for nothing less than a replacement item particularly as you tried fixing it yourself initially.

Did you buy directly from Grakka or via a dealer, if the latter you could always try them?

[UncleDuke]

I purchased my Bradley P10 smoker in November 2021.  I have used it to smoke 2 full-sized turkeys, 1 chicken, a beef brisket plate and 4 pork bellies.  When I attempted to smoke a pot of beans (ala Steven Reichlen), the burner did not burn any of the bisquettes after the first bisquette and just dumped them in the water pan.  I emailed Bradley and they asked me if I had an error code, which I did not. After a couple of e-mails, they agreed to send me a new sensor.  I requested that they send me instructions on how to remove the old one as the instructions in their manual and on-line are horrible.  I received a new sensor three days later.

I was able to install the sensor myself, however, most of the screws had been cammed out when the smoker was put together and required use of a Torx driver, rather than a Phillips head screwdriver.  I had to tap out three screws and was unable to remove one of the screws, which resulted in slight bending of the chassis that holds the turntable and burner.  This took about an hour to disassemble and put back together.

The smoker worked, however, I have been unable to keep the heat down for a low-temperature smoke.  Even though I set the smoker for 86 degrees F, it wanted to climb as high as 114 degrees F.  My 3 lbs of speck that I cured and smoked is now fully cooked.

Uncle Duke

[SammySmoker]

Hey,

Does anyone know who I can speak to about my faulty p10? I emailed Grakka on March 20th but still havent received any reply. As I mentioned in my post above, the heat sensor stopped working, and the pucks dont burn. It gave me the Error6 message so Grakka sent me a replacement sensor. I tried fitting in the new sensor but no luck.

The machine still did not work. It does not burn the pucks of wood. I emailed Grakka asking if there was any solution to that and they just went silent on me. Also, I had the same issues as UncleDuke with the manual, and screws being jammed, but managed to get them out eventually.

[manxman]

Grakka UK Head Office on +44 (0) 1803 712712

[PickledEggz]

Hi everyone,

I guess I'm in the same boat. Been really disappointed with my P10. I am in the UK. Initially I had to wait a few extra months as there was an issue with the manufacturer being able to ship out the units to UK distributors. I was told it was because they were newer models so I was happy to receive that. When it arrived, the puck chimney wouldn't fit properly into place. The pucks jammed often.

It literally lasted around 8 uses and then died, same exact issue as most of you are having. The pucks don't burn. They sent a replacement sensor which was difficult to replace - turns out the manual was wrong, and I had to be the one to bring it up to Bradley's attention, to which they provided me with an online updated manual.

Nothing remedied the situation. My P10 is still just sitting in a corner in my apartment ever since. Been months and months. Reached out to Bradley multiple times on twitter with no response. I paid so much for a machine that doesn't work! I wish I just got another coal offset smoker as this P10 was replacing that set up.

It's clearly obvious there are some major flaws with the manufacturing process of the P10! So what do you suggest we all do now? What a faulty product

[CaptBuddy]

Same here in Florida.  New P10 in January 2022, use 4 times. Easter Sunday the bisquette burn stopped working, nor ERR code, nothing. No smoke.
Round and round with Customer Service. New cable sent, after inventory was completed, one week delay.
No instructions, terrible owners manual. Sent another email yesterday, Sunday. Got a reply his morning with detailed instructions (which are not available on the web site, as far I can find).
But after reading these posts, I'm not even sure I'm going to attempt the repair.   

The P10 was great, when it worked.  It is my 3rd Bradley Smoker. Like most of you, I've been a BS customer for 10-15 years, and have always been high on them.

Since this is where folks come to find help with a faulty smoker, I wonder what percentage of P10s are faultless through a year of use, vs. the broken ones like we have.

Even if I do the repair, I'll never trust the P10 again.  Too bad, an exceptional product that was not ready for mass production.

Bradley - you need to hire a customer service/communications expert to help you save your customer base.

[tvp]

So based on the thread on the P10…..sounds like there are sensor issues, puck heater issues, and issues to clear stuck pucks in the turntable mechanism.

Is the P10 still a worth while purchase at this time or do we wait for the upgraded model to fix these issues.

Or out of hundreds sold or thousands……it’s a isolated problem

Tvp