Krups 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemakers with Glass Carafes
by Krups
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Krups 12-Cup Programmable Coffeemakers with Glass Carafes
Customer Review: Not recommended
Summary: 2 Stars
We bought our Krups FME2 in July of 2008: we liked the looks, Krups had a good reputation, & the reviews were good. This machine has been a big disappointment.
To start with the positives. This is indeed a good-looking appliance and goes well in a contemporary kitchen. It makes excellent good, hot coffee; we especially like the 1-3 cup feature. Its ability to make excellent coffee lifts my rating from one to two stars.
The negatives:
1) Programming the timer is difficult. I'm a computer network engineer and am never phased by arcane, unintuitive procedures but, really..., this thing is unnecessarily complex to set up.
2) The sight tube water level indicator is prone to air bubbles, unless you pour the water into the tank very carefully and deliberately.
3) When you pour coffee out of the carafe, it will consistently leave puddles of your brew on the counter top. You can avoid the problem by pouring very, very, slowly. Engineering a pouring spout that dribbles so reliably would possibly have been excusable to our neolithic ancestors, but it's regrettable that such a design should have got the thumbs-up in our post-industrial society.
4) Not long after we bought it, the handle split along a seam. Part of it remains bonded to the carafe. The rest, which incorporates the hinge, stays attached to the lid and constitutes a separate dishwasher item.
5) The non-stick coating has already started lifting from the hot plate.
To sum up. It looks good and make excellent coffee, but the negatives have led me into the market prematurely for a new coffee maker.
Customer Review: Best coffee machine....period!
Summary: 5 Stars
Tryed many different machines,(B&D new, Mr. Coffee,etc). This machine makes the best tasting coffee! I grind my whole bean coffee right before brew, my sife likes to use Folgers morning blend. Folgers takes ok, but whole bean is why much better.
Do yourself a favor and get this machine. If a part is needed aftera while, just go to [...] and order what you need. Replacement are reasonable priced. We had out last Krups machine for 4 years. It is the 10 cup stainless steel carafe, still working perfectly after falling off the tailgate of the van while packing on the way to our summer house rental.That was 2 years ago. However as all things go, making 4-5 pots of coffe 7 days a week, things wear out and we decided to treat ourselves to this new larger cup capacity machine. It's that good that we take our Krups coffee machine with us along with filtered O3 water. Nothing under 200 dollars can touch this coffee machine. Always the right temperature andevenly brewed everytime.
Customer Review: Disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
I have owned several Krups coffee makers for many years and this model is a major disappointment. Where to start with the design flaws. The two piece carafe handle came apart within a month and will barely stay together. As other people have commented, the water level tube always has bubbles in it. Programing not intuitive so if there is a power outage you need the book. And you have to unplug it and reprogram when it decides it needs to be cleaned. I don't have hard water. And the light thing is just weird. On, off, blinking. There are better buys for the money. Customer Review: Good and Bad
Summary: 3 Stars
ORIGINALLY 3 STARS, NOW 1 STAR - SEE BELOW
I have read many of the previous reviews. In my experience with this coffee maker (about a week), there is good and bad.
THE GOOD
The coffeemaker seems to work as intended. The coffee is ok (but see below). The look is very good, and the fit and finish seem excellent. No leaks, no problems with performance. I have had no carafe "dribbling" problems reported elsewhere. Just pour slower. Also, the fill tube reading has matched exactly the carafe water fill measure - no air bubbles.
THE BAD
The coffeemaker is absurdly difficult to program. They need to provide about 4 more buttons to make it simple. Why the scrimping on what is a small programming area anyway? The earlier design was much better. As others have noted, the carafe top IS removable, but obviously not intended as such; I'm afraid the flimsy small plastic "nibs" will break if I do this frequently. The carafe handle is attached to the carafe only by two dots of glue. For this reason, I will certainly not put the carafe in the dishwasher, a real inconvenience (the carafe is also very thin glass). In any case, if you don't remove the carafe top, the dishwasher won't work anyway. After several cycles with vinegar-water mix, and several runs of coffee, the plastic odor is starting to recede, although it never really flavored the coffee much. Coffee fanatics will find this issue the worst. Finally, the beeping that occurs when the coffemaker turns off after the set time is REALLY annoying and apparently cannot be turned off.
All in all, Krups has taken a giant step backwards with this unit. I will see if I can stand it. If not, the next choice will be the Cuisinart, since I now see that the outside doesn't need to be that ugly stainless/chrome - black is actually available.
UPDATE Nov. 2, 2009. I have reduced this review to one star (originally 3) for the following reason. Tonight the coffee maker was sitting on the counter with the filter door open, and while putting dishes away, I knocked my hand against the open filter door. It fell completely off (this was not a hard hit) and the spring piece fell out on the floor. I figured no problem, I'll just put it back together. Well, the plastic hole where the filter door connects to the unit on top had completely broken out (it is VERY soft plastic). So, it is now impossible to remount the door and the unit is effectively non-functional. I have had Krups coffee makers for over 20 years, but Cuisinart, here I come! What a piece of soft plastic, underengineered crap! And to think I was worried about the little plastic nibs on the carafe lid - the whole thing is held together by little plastic nibs!!
Customer Review: Not a good choice
Summary: 2 Stars
We have two Krups coffeemakers from many years ago, and love them. They make the best coffee ever! We needed a third coffeemaker for another office. After researching a number of Krups machines, this one seemed most like the ones we have. However, we found it highly inadequate! We were not expecting the construction to be as good as our old Krups machines, but we were NOT expecting that it would leak water! We struggled with it for sometime, but no matter what we did the coffee was bitter. We chose to use a Cuisinart instead. With the Cuisinart we have to use much more coffee, but it tastes much better than the new Krups.