Help! Timberline XL inaccurate temperature

RichE

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Timberline XL
Hi all,

I’m new to traeger and picked up a Timberline XL on Memorial Day. Since the first cook I’ve been having issues with uneven temperatures in the grill and wild temperature swings (+-60f).

I’ve spent over a month going back and forth with traeger support, replaced the lid gasket and thermocouple and that has largely resolved the issues I was seeing with temp swings and left/right temps, but I’m still seeing huge differences in temp between the grill and racks, all of which are way below the temperature the grill is reading.

At 225f I’m seeing the temps at the grills to be roughly 195f, the low rack position to be roughly 160f, and the upper rack position to be roughly 135f.

The grills ambient temperature read at startup seems fine. I can’t see a way to calibrate the thermocouple, I assume that’s configured as part of the firmware.

Is it normal for the grills reported temperature to be so far off the actual ambient temperature inside the grill? I can bump the set temp to account for the difference, but the bigger concern is how big the difference between the grill and rack temps are.

I tried cooking a couple of full beef rib racks split between levels and they ended up cooking completely unevenly.

Traeger are giving me the runaround and refusing to believe any of my ambient readings, insisting that the grill is “working as expected” because it is (now) maintaining a temp around that which is set, but as far as I can tell there’s only one sensor they take data from, and a 70f difference within the grill top and bottom doesn’t seem reasonable.

I plan on talking to Ace to see if they can help in any way, though I’m not optimistic since I’m now (just) outside the 30 day return window, so I fear I’m stuck with a $4k grill I’m not all that happy with.
 
Idk about the them being so much lower than the set temp….my 575 isn’t super accurate either, but it’s not off by that much.

The swings are always probably going to be there in some manner. It’s not going to be a tool you see at say 225 and it just holds there forever. There’s going to be swings but it “should” average out around where you set it.

I also don’t know about the temp differences in the XL or whether that’s strange/unexpected, but I think it is normal to have some difference. My grill is a good bit smaller but I do have them. I figure my oven has them, my weber genesis has them…..it’s just not too big a deal for me.

All that to say yes my grill was free and yours was $4k. You need to be happy with your purchase
 

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