Sorry to the MAK community, but for them to snag 5 clams from you is B.S. Hopefully your CC can help in some way.
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I honestly dunno why they did that, all they had to do was say "sorry folks, we're going down... but we will take orders on our remaining inventory though X date" people woulda still snagged up whatever and they would have bowed out with the community sad... instead a lot of people are pissed off. I've seen like this go down before obviously, but never with a company with such a great reputation and lots of personal connections with the customer base.
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I kept seeing the pics of that new controller and how nice it looked compared to the old. I had to fight myself not to order one. But I told myself when they start shipping grills again maybe I’ll consider it. When you shut down your own metal fab shop, I didn’t see how they’d find it feasible to build grills getting parts fabricated by someone else. I do think they ran them as two separate companies, but still the same family owned both businesses but obviously MAK Grills was nothing without MAK Metals.
ItsAllGoneToTheDogs it’s definitely a tarnishing of their legacy to sell the controllers when they had to know they were shutting down or at least a very high chance at it. I get they probably ordered them a year ago, but proper MAK fashion would have been to eat them or call up some customers and offer them for free or insanely cheap as a parting gift. Especially to someone like you that bought 2 grills from them in just a couple years time.Comment
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This is very sad especially for our long-time members who were fans.
I don’t have any special insights into what happened. I like to assume like others they were trying to do the right thing.
It’s possible they were trying to find a new metal supplier until the last minute, but simply ran out of money (grill orders fell off I assume), as it took too long. Maybe they wanted to try and secure a loan to keep the search going but the banks said no, and their preferred new supplier walked. No money left, no loan, no new supplier despite months of searching, then they would be forced to shut down. But I could see how a kind family that has done the right thing for so long could be overly optimistic about all of those things and taking orders until it was far too late.Comment
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Someone found an auction listing for the MAK Metals closing auction. They sold grill grates, auger motors, cases of fans, misc grill parts, etc. Definitely looks like the story about looking for a new fabricator was just a total lie to scam MAK owners out of 25-30k offloading questionable controllers that would have no app support.
Auction was in April.Attached FilesComment
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I remember looking through the auction when it went live, sadly I overlooked the grill parts or I would have never pulled the trigger on this controller. Regardless, I have a fantastically designed and manufactured grill body and there are ways to keep it alive. Honestly the Fireboard installation isn't as bad looking as I had thought (though might look funny on a full stainless grill) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzvl...MjIwMzkxNzg4Mj
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Parents apparently sold both companies, in 2022-2023, to two of the kids, Matt and Kal. It feels like the grill company was just sales and service. Probably did not own product, which may explain the auction contents including grill parts.Comment
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One of the auction attendees stated everything that wasn't botled down, to include brooms and first aid kits was sold on the 7th of April. We also now have access to pictures of the grill parts, they weren't refurbs or trash... they were brand new so I have no other conclusion than we were lied to just long enough for the controllers to be shipped out and then the rug pull.
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Long-time lurker, first time poster...unfortunately it's because of MAK's demise. I actually talked to Matt on Monday on the phone, he informed me that he hadn't shipped out some parts to me last week because he was dealing with getting ready to shut down (he originally had told me his daughter was sick and he hadn't been into work, maybe it was a combo of both, who knows). He said I was the first person he was telling and asked that I not share it on social media. I asked him if he'd still be sending me the parts I needed for my new 3-star that hasn't worked right since it arrived (read below), he insisted he would.
I purchased one of their new 3-Stars in November for a new backyard project. I'd had the original 3-star since 2018 and it was a workhorse that I used 3-5 times a week on average. Throughout its life I had to replace both ignitors, the Pellet Boss, and the WiFi card, but MAK was always awesome about sending those parts immediately and on their own dime.
So when it came time to pull the trigger on a new grill for the updated backyard, I knew that the new MAK 3-star (significantly larger than my old one) was going to be my centerpiece. I placed the order on 25 November 2025, and it shipped the 2nd week of January. Dennis Ogg sent me several batches of pictures of the construction (I believe they made a batch of 6 total 3-stars in that run) which was cool to see.
Unfortunately it arrived with a bad ignitor (cracked in shipment), an inop WiFi card, and a controller that doesn't control. They sent me 2 ignitors, so that problem is fixed and I have a spare. But the controller is wildly inaccurate and can't even remotely hold a temp. For some reason it reads about 50-100F higher than actual chamber temp and has pretty large fluctuations/overshoots well after it should be stabilized. I've verified this with a litany of air temp probes and IR thermometers that all very closely agree with one another with the MAK being the outlier, and I even place the movable chamber probes right next to the extra ones I'm using to make sure they're measuring the temp in the same part of the chamber. Thankfully because the controller on my old MAK is relatively new, I *think* I can swap that over, but I'm not 100% that they're compatible.
I was working this issue with Dennis, but e-mails after the beginning of February started going unanswered, and for a while I couldn't get anyone via phone. Then after about a month of silence, I got swapped over to Matt, who was able to send me a grate that I'd paid for but wasn't shipped, as well as the ignitors. But that took months. Matt has also been promising to ship the new Pellet Boss and WiFi cards for quite some time, but every Monday it's the same story "I got really busy I'll take care of those first thing today." Wash, rinse, repeat. Of course today not a single of my 6 phone calls were answered, despite his assurances 2 days ago that he'd get my parts to me, so I'm guessing that I'm SOL at this point.
If the old controller doesn't work, I'm left with an $8K grill that I can't reliably set within 100F which is just crazy, and unacceptable. I know the 3-star wasn't a widely sold model, but if anyone has any suggestions if the old controller doesn't work, I'd greatly appreciate it. I really don't want to dispute the charge with my credit card company but I'll definitely go down that road if I can't get this thing working. Then I'll have to find another large built-in smoker and then hopefully have some sort of adapter fabricated to fit that into the giant counter hole left by the MAK.
Just as bad, the old 3-star was supposed to get sent as a donation to a gentleman up in Minnesota. He and his wife do a lot of charity work for the homeless and vets to include a lot of cooking, and he's limited by the capacity of his current 2-Star. The 3-star was going to be a huge upgrade for him. Back in November Dennis had offered to pay for the shipping, but it's been sitting boxed up and covered in a tarp since February, same deal as everything else. Promises to get shipping arranged "next week" that never materialized. And now instead of going to help people it's turning into a parts bird to hopefully keep my new grill running.
As with others, I really admired MAK. I used to recommend them to everyone that asked for my advice on smokers, and I usually would get the same response - "that's way too expensive." Well, it's 100% American made and built like a tank with unparalleled customer service, don't know what else to tell ya. The way I was sold this grill and then left hanging with something that barely works - again for $8K!! - really left a bad taste in my mouth.Comment
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HogPilot disregard my comments earlier. I had forgotten they redid the 3* to be two grills in one body. That controller has to be unique and your old only had a single firepot, correct? You could probably still replace with fireboard controllers, but would probably need two and have to trace a lot of wiring down then figure out a way to make a clean housing for them. -
I CAN help you manually set your MAK controller that may help with the temp issues, you just have to enter Pro mode and fiddle with numbers and lots of trial and error. I think the 3 stars controller is unique unfortunately, at worst we could get one side of your grill working and the other side would still function as a cold smoker. Another option would be to move the thermocouple to the center and just burn through pellets to maintain temp. -
glitchy the old 3-star was also 2 grills/one body, just smaller. From talking to Dennis, the updated 3-star is essentally the 4-star's body but without the 2nd K-probe input plate.
MAK sent me a new controller for the old 3-star back in October, so it's fairly new and I'm hoping that it will work with the new 3-star as a backup.
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I looked into retrofitting my one star with the FireBoard pellet drive controller a few weeks ago, because I've never been a huge fan of the Pellet Boss cloud interface. Ultimately, I decided to just use the pellet boss as my pit controller and purchased a FireBoard temperature module to monitor the cook (but now wondering if that was the right decision). But I'm fairly sure that FireBoard pellet Drive would work with a Mac grill perhaps with a bit of wire/plug splicing and maybe some face plate mods since the pellet drive form factor is different than the Mac pellet boss. I noticed that somebody on this or another thread shared a YouTube video about doing that, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet.Comment
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Perhaps one of you MAK owners who have the time and temperament to fiddle should get ahold of the folks at Fireboard to see if they would assist in whatever mods or tweaks are needed to make their product work with a MAK. It's beginning to sound here, and I suspect on FB or other groups, like there's going to be a fairly good demand for something that is high quality and as close to plug and play as is practical.Comment
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Their product already works, I have a group going that will figure this out and document all the possible ways to keep a MAK running (ideally while not actually looking frankensteined) -
ItsAllGoneToTheDogs I’ve seen Jim’s video, I was just thinking a direct fit adapter plate that doesn’t hang down so much and a couple wiring adapters and they have a ‘custom’ MAK retrofit kit people would love to get. -
glitchy I did talk to them about making a kit for MAKs and they passed it to someone higher up. I think the MAK controllers with built in wifi instead of partnering with fireboard was part of the MAK demise honestly, that's when all the controller bugs started happening.
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So sorry to hear of such a high end grill maker going under so quickly.
These kind of issues - failure of electronics and auger motors, and concern about future parts, are why I ended up going with a charcoal cooker when I won the grand prize in the giveaway in January 2021. I thought hard at the time about one of the pellet grill options, and then decided the technology would fail in 5 years or so, versus an all stainless and ceramic cooker which will outlast me, unless I tip it over and shatter the ceramic body...Comment
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Andrrr between FireBoard and SmokeDaddy you can keep almost any pellet grill going -
Andrrr I thought Louisiana was a sister with Pit Boss. I would think a lot of the parts would have cross-over. I inherited a Duro with the camper and it’s somehow related to Pit Boss too. I was able to get a better controller on Amazon that was a direct fit to its weird shape. -
I hope you're right. I guess I'll find out when something takes a crap ItsAllGoneToTheDogs glitchy
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Thanks for the welcome and thoughtful responses, much appreciated.
glitchy:
As to whether my issues lie with the controller or the temp probes, I was sent 1 new chamber probe (which I forgot to mention here, sorry about that) when they sent the new ignitors, and it didn't fix the problem. I tried the probe on each side, running that side solo, and the result was the same with the controller wildly over-estimating chamber temp and having large swings. I actually had something somewhat similar happen on my old 3-Star but I was able to narrow it down to the right chamber probe because the grill ran great on just the left chamber, but when I'd add the right chamber to the mix or run it solo, the temps were nuts.
Regarding all of their grills using the same controller, I just checked and the one for mine is labeled "MAK 3 & 4 Star Rev 1.4". So it's at least different than the 1/2 star controller because the 3-star (and short-lived 4-star) has 2 of everything - fire pots, pot temp sensors, igniters, fans, augers, chamber thermocouples. Thus 2 sets of terminal connectors for all those extra inputs. I'm going to toss the old one in tomorrow and cross my fingers that it works. I know the new version has an extra terminal connector for the lid switch (you get an alert when it opens while the grill is running) but I could care less about having that. Plus it had a working WiFi card...
Given that I went thru 2 igniters in 7 years, I hate to say it but I'm going to rip those out of the old 3-Star as well and hang on to them. I was kinda hoping that this expensive ass thing was going to last me for the next 20 years - the body is certainly built for that - but now parts are in scarce supply. Now if we can find a place to source them - which would be awesome - that would be a different story.
Sid P:
I'm going to try swapping controllers tomorrow, if that doesn't work then I'll take your advice and file the claim. This is a giant chunk of money to fork over and not even try to get back when the product ultimately doesn't work. Knowing they sold all their parts off almost 2 months ago when they were promising me replacements leaves an even more bitter taste in my mouth.Comment
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File the claim anyway, at best you paid for wifi control and lifetime warranty which were part of the proce and you will never have those things now. -
Also... If you're not already in the group I created on Facebook to document replacement parts and work arounds, consider joining. If you do, please make sure to answer all questions to the best of your ability. https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1EU3UZY4uD/
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In hindsight, I think the end started when Caleb left. I suspect the 2nd generation of the family didn’t have the passion for the grill side and that’s why they hired Caleb to begin with. Caleb was amazing for MAK grills and with him and MAK’s unofficial brand ambassador rwalters they did a lot to promote MAK in several places.
Caleb is who made me fall in love with MAK along with some help from Robb. I talked to Caleb several times before and after buying my grill. He actually tracked my posts here and would call me to discuss things and solicit some of my feedback. I think I would have had a good shot to be a tester for the new controller had he still been there. He sent me an email directly when he left. He left for personal reasons that required him to move across the country, not as any part of this mess. I totally believe that.
After Caleb left, communication stopped. I never got another call from MAK unless I called in for an issue. Which after my initial auger motor issues causing jams got resolved was non existent until a little stopper for the lid not to clank the body when opening it fell off…the only other minor issue I’ve had with my MAK since (knock on wood). I’m guessing they must have quit calling rwalters too, his promoting the brand slowly shrank away and I miss seeing him around my different bbq hangouts.
Caleb and Robb if you happen to see this I hope you are both doing wonderful and I miss you both!Comment
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Last time I talked to Robb he said he was just really busy with life. And I agree Caleb and Dennis were an absolute power duo of customer service. Matt left MAK in 2020ish and then not sure when exactly he came back. I just feel if they had let FB take on the controller when Yoder and/or LSG did and stopped throwing money at a bad controller and weak app they probably could have survived financially anyway.
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I've had a MAK Two-Star I ordered in late June 2021 and was shipped July 23rd and delivered soon after.
I've never had a problem other than a bad Touchscreen Pellet boss that I "think" has been resolved with a replacement. With the timing of the shutdown I am amazed I received a replacement and glad I did. I also still have the old pellet boss should I need to swap it back.
I wouldn't call myself a frequent smoker but do find times to use it year round.
What is the average times for components to last? Is is based on days/years, smokes, or both?
I really hope I can find replacement parts in the future if needed.
Thanks.
[Order #9928] (June 21, 2021)
All-Stainless Two-Star General 1 $4,499.00
Searing Grate 1 $150.00
Two-Star General Front Shelf 1 $225.00
Grill Cover 1 $100.00
Subtotal: $4,974.00
Discount: -$248.70
Total: $4,725.30
Blank FlameZone Pan 1 $150.00
[Order #243456] (April 30, 2026)
Pellet Boss® Touchscreen Controller 1 $450.00
Replacement Touchscreen Pellet Boss shipped May 13th.
Last edited by Midway; May 21, 2026, 09:58 AM.Comment
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I'll share my purely anecdotal experience (owned a 3-star since 2018):
- Pellet Boss lasted about 7 years, same with the WiFi card
- I'm not sure if it was due to heating and cooling cycles, but some of the wires feeding into the Pellet Boss started to fray and come loose from their connectors after about 6 years. Those are easily fixed
- I replaced one ignitor after about 4 years and the second around 7
- I thankfully have not had any auger or fan issues -
My First MAK never had any problems other than I kept getting bad ignitors. My Stainless MAK has had 5 controllers (I was testing and pinpointing a flaw in the integrated wifi boards, which apparently still shows up on some boards to include the touchscreen one). Otherwise no issues.
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ItsAllGoneToTheDogs thanks for all the info! I went ahead and filed the CC dispute as several of you have suggested. They said that the next step is for them to reach out to MAK, but I haven't been able to get them to answer their phones since they shut down, and their voicemail box is full. Chase said if they couldn't get a hold of them I'd just get the refund in full.
Also, if you'd be willing to walk me through how to enter that Pro Mode, and maybe explain what I'm looking at, I'd greatly appreciate it. If I can get this controller working and keep the other on hold as a spare, that might breathe some life into this otherwise unusable, giant hunk of metal in my outdoor kitchen.
I've actually gotten off of all social media (even including forums and whatnot, this is a first for me in about a decade), but I may create a basic FB profile and join your group because it sounds like an excellent resource for all of us left holding the bag on our MAKs.Comment
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If you do create a FB and have issues joining that group just pm me here, I prefer this site to FB anyway. Once we have a usable parts list I will start maintaining one here as well. As to pro mode let me see if I can find a video if not we will likely have to do a phone chat. Its not difficult, but can be cumbersome to explain. -
ItsAllGoneToTheDogs I’ll probably look for your parts list here. That’s awesome that you’re doing that.
Yeah if you can’t find the video let me know and we can figure out a phone call time. I’m out of town until Sunday morning and then have a big BBQ (MAK being kattywompus killed my brisket plans!) that day, but I’m sure we’ll figure some else out after that. -
If you're joining here (paid) I can PM you my number if we get to the point that's needed. Granted this is the previous controller, but manual mode might actually work... when my previous controller was out of whack the manual mode did work except under certain weather conditions where the normal mode would/should have compensated... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY-ZgGot5-Q
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HogPilot I have a lead on a 3 Star controller for you but you have private messages turned off and I don't want to post his phone number publicly.Comment
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Man that is awesome news - I checked and my PM’s are turned on for anyone to send, is it maybe because I’m on a trial subscription? I’ve been Amsterdam the last couple days for a retirement party, I’m just catching up on this thread. Sounds like I need to buy a membership here…
Edit: Membership started!Last edited by HogPilot; May 23, 2026, 02:52 PM. -
HogPilot welcome to the Pit... this place is the best subscription service I ever signed on to... wish you'd found us under better circumstances, but at least now I can send you private messages when it's warranted like the one I just sent you
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