Breville After Sales - Issues

Edit: New readers to the topic can join at post #10, March 2022

Not knowing where else to file I put it into design issues. Please feel free to file it elsewhere.

I was cleaning our kettle with vinegar and water and as I looked in to see how it had worked, I saw what turned out to be glass chips in the bottom of the kettle.

Looking closer, it looks like the glass viewing windows on both sides have cracks across them (which aren’t visible when there is water in the kettle) and are breaking up at the edges.

Fortunately the kettle has a removable mesh filter to pour through so it is unlikely the glass shards would get poured out, but it is possible especially if the filter has been removed.

If anyone has a kettle similar to this, have a look at it to make sure yours isn’t having the same fault.

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If one boils a water vinegar mix, the boiling temperature is increased by anywhere up to about 20°C.

As metal and glass expand differently, this increase in temperature (or even regukar boiling and cooling cycles) may have been enough to place excessive expansion forces on the metal/glass contact points, causing fatigue and ultimarely failure.

I note that Breville indicates using a very mild water/vinegar sikution for cleaning kettles on its US website, but can’t find the same information on the Australian one.

The other point to make is the acetic acid vapour/steam will be corrosive and may not be good for those parts of the kettle outside the boiling vesel which are prone to corrosion (electronics, hinges, welds etc for example).

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The cracks in the viewing windows have been developing for some time. I was OK with that. What jarred me was finding glass shards.

I boiled a mild water/vinegar solution so I don’t think it was the cause of the problem. The kettle is in excellent condition apart from the indicated problem. I acknowledge you are right in your concern for damage to other parts of the kettle, and I usually rinse the kettle with clean water several times afterwards, and wipe the outside with a damp cloth.

In this case it is academic as it now has to visit the garbage as it would be dangerous to be gulping down glass shards.

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Thanks for sharing this @meltam, I’ll be sure to flag it with our product team. I find it surprising that they use the glass at all considering the risk!

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I can’t guarantee it’s glass, but it looks and feels like glass and it hasn’t discoloured at all, whereas plastic would be porous and gradually discolour.

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Update

I wrote to Breville Customer Care on the 19th of March about this matter and received an autoreply
At Breville, we sincerely care about your experience.…”
with the following signature block:
Sincerely,
Aaron Wanek
VP, Global Customer Care

Today is the 30th of April or six weeks later. I still have had no response.

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could it be this is he?

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Telling me to rack off ?? :rofl::joy::sweat_smile:

Yes, it could well be an autoresponder. It’s a shame they removed the care factor.

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Well done. You got it!

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Three years later, and still no contact. I guess @PhilT was right (above) …

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In the past month-

A presales query to Breville required reference to a product specialist but was still answered overnight. Some website errors on the product were very timely tended to. But then –

23/2 Breville: Thank you for your enquiry regarding your BES920BKS model coffee maker. I will seek confirmation of the coating. As you have mentioned scratching/chipping, if this has occurred perhaps you could send us photos to show the situation or not sure if you are just being proactive and no chipping.

23/2 Me: I replied linking a relevant post on the Community.

23/2 Breville: Great Phil got the context now.

10/3 Me: I expected my question would have been a quick and easy one. In my experience a delayed answer is often no answer so apologies if your internal service levels for getting your own information are long and I am premature in my followup.

The humans appear to have passed the ticket to, who else?


who routed it to
image

The rest was silence. I may yet be surprised, but doubt it. Seems it might be their style?

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Vinegar is typically 5-7% acetic acid and the rest water, there are minor other ingredients that make little difference to the boiling point. Pure water boils at 100C and pure acetic acid about 118C. They do not form an azeotropic mixture so the boiling point of a mixture of the two will be somewhere between the two values depending on the concentration.

To get a rise of about 20C you would have to boil away most of the water leaving nearly all acetic acid which would take a very long time.My guess is the temperature of boiling vinegar at normal strength would be about 101C. The temperature would rise gradually from that as you boiled the mix. This is a very inefficient way to make concentrated acetic acid and the kettle may boil dry before you got there are some acetic acid would boil off with the water.

I can’t see that there is a high temperature reached to produce excessive expansion or rapid change in temperature that would crack glass that can withstand boiling water. It may be that the glass in question is not good enough for the purpose and has cracked due to heat effects (or something else) but I doubt that boiling vinegar had any part in its demise.

So for those who are thinking they cannot clean their kettle this way for fear of cracking the glass I don’t think there is much risk of that.

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Given @PhilT 's experience, I have broadened this topic out to general issues with Breville’s (lack of) after sales service.

21/3: I received a response.

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