I live in the foothills in Colorado, where it is routinely quite windy at night (though nowhere near as bad as those poor souls who live in Wyoming get it), and there are a couple things about the 2-star (which is about 9mo. old) that drive me nuts when it is windy. I'm not talking about cooking when it is windy, which it does a reasonably good job of doing up to the level of wind I'm willing to tolerate being out in. I'm talking about it being stored outdoors in the wind. Winds of 20 mph with gusts to 40 or 50 are routine around here.
First, the cover (the regular EP-429-2G-C cover). It's a pretty heavy cover, but it has nothing to keep it on in the wind other than its weight. Pretty much every grill cover made has some kind of retention mechanism (velcro cinching straps, a drawstring, clips to the legs, etc. You can troll through Amazon listings to see.), whereas the much higher-quality MAK cover does not. Anything over about 20mph, and this cover takes flight, and once the cover comes off. For comparison, I've never had the cover on my pre-bankruptcy Vermont Castings grill fly off in the wind (held on by little 2" strips of velcro on each short end that pinch it together under the "wings"), but I lost the cover from my MAK at least once a week in the first month of ownership. Eventually, I got a grommet kit and put a grommet at the center of the bottom edge of the cover, front and back, and I run a bungee cord underneath the grill to hold the cover on. I feel like I shouldn't have to do something like this on a cover I paid $100 for due to lack of $1 worth of sewn-in velcro.
Second, the utensil hooks. They are cut maybe 1/4" too short in that they just start bending up when they end. Any small disturbance from the wind knocks everything off these hooks. Even after I have the cover bungee-corded down, anything I leave on these hooks always ends up on the ground after any wind. Again, comparing to my propane grill, I start to lose stuff off the hooks on the grill at about 50mph (which is a once-a-month kind of thing), and on the 2-star at around 15 mph (which is a couple times a week occurrence).
I really love the 2-star, and the above two things are pretty minor and shouldn't dissuade anyone from buying one if you're considering it. I'm just saying this in the spirit of continuous improvement, as MAK is always tweaking the design a bit, and these annoyances could be cured with very minor changes.
First, the cover (the regular EP-429-2G-C cover). It's a pretty heavy cover, but it has nothing to keep it on in the wind other than its weight. Pretty much every grill cover made has some kind of retention mechanism (velcro cinching straps, a drawstring, clips to the legs, etc. You can troll through Amazon listings to see.), whereas the much higher-quality MAK cover does not. Anything over about 20mph, and this cover takes flight, and once the cover comes off. For comparison, I've never had the cover on my pre-bankruptcy Vermont Castings grill fly off in the wind (held on by little 2" strips of velcro on each short end that pinch it together under the "wings"), but I lost the cover from my MAK at least once a week in the first month of ownership. Eventually, I got a grommet kit and put a grommet at the center of the bottom edge of the cover, front and back, and I run a bungee cord underneath the grill to hold the cover on. I feel like I shouldn't have to do something like this on a cover I paid $100 for due to lack of $1 worth of sewn-in velcro.
Second, the utensil hooks. They are cut maybe 1/4" too short in that they just start bending up when they end. Any small disturbance from the wind knocks everything off these hooks. Even after I have the cover bungee-corded down, anything I leave on these hooks always ends up on the ground after any wind. Again, comparing to my propane grill, I start to lose stuff off the hooks on the grill at about 50mph (which is a once-a-month kind of thing), and on the 2-star at around 15 mph (which is a couple times a week occurrence).
I really love the 2-star, and the above two things are pretty minor and shouldn't dissuade anyone from buying one if you're considering it. I'm just saying this in the spirit of continuous improvement, as MAK is always tweaking the design a bit, and these annoyances could be cured with very minor changes.
