SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20201119-36031-2147368021. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Oklahoma Joe's Rider 600 (Oklahoma Joe's pellet smoker grill . Model 600 Rider pellet smoker grill). Incident: Pellet smoker grill caught fire. I've been in discussions with the smoker grill company about the failure of design and manufacturing of the product which has been completely manufactured in China and shipped perhaps without any oversight from them and only becoming aware of a possible problem after a great deal of failures/fires. They have only admitted that the replacement parts that failed are on back order and that they underestimated the amount of these parts that will need to be replaced. As a retired engineer and the lack of the product manufacturer to service the product I and many others have had to perform service on these products. I found the cause of the failure/fire to be the fan/auger motor assembly. The assembly motors that are found to be in these grills are not the assemblies that are outlined in their own wiring diagram. The failed units are with only one wiring terminal to operate the pellet auger feed system and none for the cooling fan on the assembly which possibly leaves the cooling fan inoperable or insufficient which leads to overheating and failure/fire of the product. They refuse to discuss my findings or even listen to the fact that the motor they keep saying is in it in fact is not the motor in the product. I've even sent pictures showing this to be true. They have only expressed that they need a great deal of replacement motor assemblies but thats where the discussion ends. My findings and their refusal to talk about this is in my professional opinion is a clear attempt to stonewall for liability and or safety recall reasons. In my professiona