Neff C17MS32N0B microwave - don't buy before you read this|!!

Nick0207

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The Neff C17MS320B combi microwave is (supposedly) a top end item to match the latest Neff Hide and Slide ovens (as seen in Bake Off).
This oven is a sold and marketed as a 1000w unit. The user manual says that the max time on full power (1000w) is 30 minutes which is pretty standard for domestic microwaves.
However the microwave reduces the max power down by about 250 watts after just 70 seconds of operation. The front panel still says it is running at 1000w but it isn't! I suspect they chose 70 secs so their engineers can, if asked, carry out an on site test to measure output power. The test is run for 60 seconds.
This is why this oven doesn't seem to work very well if you cook foods at max power for more than 70 seconds. This is a scandal in my view! It's worse than VW cars - at least their cars work for the purchaser- this Neff microwave doesn't. If you follow the instructions on a ready meal (eg heat at 1000w for 5 minutes) your food will not be heated properly. Worse if you heat two items consecutively without switching the over off the second item is heated at a lower wattage even though the front panel display is still showing 1000w. You will also notice the cooling fan is ridiculous- there is a blast of hot air coming from the front of the machine trying to keep it cool and the fan continues to run for 5 minutes after the over is switched off.
After a lot of discussion with BSH they volunteered 'as a gesture of goodwill' to refund my full purchase cost (nearly£900) and let me keep the oven. Anyone who has made the mistake of buying one should do the same. Because I also have the Hide and Slide matching conventional oven I can't just buy a new microwave so i'm stuck with a defective product which is not fit for purpose!!

Have a look at the video at
 
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Thanks for all the information Nick. Much appreciated.

My neff oven, microwave combination, induction hob, warming drawer and downdraft extractor have been sat in a box for 9 months while renovating the house. Finally getting round to installing them today.

Ive got a BT58VT68N0B oven.. Gets an error code E5116 when using vario steam. Shuts off.

I've got a C18MT37N0B microwave combination oven. Will test this tomorrow to see if it has the same issue as the other models.

The touch screens on both are poor. They don't seem very responsive at all.

I would expect better quality on £1k+ ovens. Unacceptable. I will be contacted neff to see what they have to say about things and update when they do.
 
There is/was a software bug on the touch panel on my model combi microwave which caused it to freeze when the buttons were operated in a certain order. Eventually fixed by Neff with updated firmware but only after they have made three site visits and changed pretty well every bit of electronics first.

I've also got a 150mm warming drawer (mainly to fill the gap under the microwave that sits alongside a hide and slide oven) and it is actually really good. Very quick to heat up and very easy to use.
 
Neff engineer came out..

I was at work so palmed off the missus. Said touchscreens were fine must have been us not swiping them properly. Ive got a video on my phone of it taking approx 30secs and lots of presses to even try to select a temperature.

Did a 60sec test of microwave. Said it was fine.

Swapped the steam generator. Works fine now.

I'll be getting back in touch with them and no doubt another visit from the neff engineer which I will make sure I'm there for.

Nick.. Did you start emailing the bigwigs straightaway or wait for a few neff visits first after getting nowhere with them?
 
I was able to demonstrate the touch panel s/w bug on my combi to the engineer so he accepted there was a fault. Leave the oven overnight (on standby) and then, without touching any buttons, open and close the door. Then it won't switch on. You have to leave the oven for a couple of hours for the fault to reappear (once it starts working) though so this is a once off demonstration to the engineer.

After numerous button pushes it eventually starts working. As this had taken 4 engineer visits to get to this point (the last one phoned to say he wasn't coming as there was nothing more he could do!) Neff replaced my combi with one with updated firmware. I was dealing with Catherine Walsh at Neff [email protected] at this stage and I raised with her the issues about the poor heating performance when using the oven for 2 minutes or more and she referred the problem to higher levels.

I can prove the microwave switches the 1000w setting down to about 600w after 70 seconds. It is fairy easy to demonstrate by doing two consecutive (identical) heating tests for two minutes each. The second test was 10 deg C cooler than the first, as on the second test the oven will only operate at 600w even though the display says 1000w.

Once I had discovered this and told Neff of my tests they involved Karl Ullrich ([email protected]) who eventually rang me after they took several weeks to fail to reply to my questions. Private message me if you'd like any copies of the emails as happy to pass them on to you. BSH are contravening several consumer law and competition laws with this product. Nick
 
Thanks Nick... I've pm'ed you... If you could send copies of emails that would be great. More evidence the better. Much appreciated
 
Interesting reading, we got the C27MS22N0B, and noticed that it doesn't always wake up on first touch, but hadn't linked it to the door opening/closing. It'll take a few stabs to then wake up in our experience...

As for the 1kw thing, tbh I felt a bit puzzled at the microwave level choices anyway, why the gap from 600 to 1000, given that most ready meals seem to be 750 and 850, I don't think we've every used anything less than the 1kw.

Is the 1KW just one model, or likely all the ones of the same style, sounds like an easy test, with a couple of glasses of water, I might go try it out...

It would answer why a few things seemed colder than expected.

This would seem to be a food safety issue, as we tend to reduce cooking time (it's 1KW after all!), and so could end up with under cooked food...

Tried the test, but think I need to do it again once the oven has finished cooling, as it sounds like it's the very first one to get (also put the energy monitor next to it, see if that changes during the test...)

So redone the test, two glasses of water, 2minutes at 1KW. First one came out around 75C, 2nd one about 58C.

Energy meter showed ~600W difference in power usage between first and second run (first one started to drop from it's peak during the test, 2nd one started high, but rapidly dropped)

Guess I'll need to talk with Neff as well. Any chance you can PM the emails over to me as well?

For now I guess we use 600W and add time to cooking, so that stuff is properly heated (given that the difference from 1kw to 600w would be a couple of minutes...)
 
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I've pm'd you. My unit defaults to 600w and 1 minute as the switch on settings and users cannot change this. Every other microwave I've used either lets you set the default values or switches on at the last or maximum power setting.

It takes ten push button operations to get to 1000w for 2 minutes. The only bit of the user manual they couldn't change is where it says that the max time for use at full power (1000w) is 30 minutes. Even they realised that if they openly admitted that the real max time at 1000w is 70 seconds they wouldn't sell many units!
 
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Good job I read this, I was on the verge of buying an oven and combi microwave, so you have saved me £K2. A pity as we really wanted the slide and hide door. The microwave issue is unbelievable from a 'prestige' manufacturer.
 
Hello, I have one of these Neff Microwaves and when I raised this point with Neff (BSH) I was told this is quite normal for Inverter Microwaves and he emailed me a document explaining this (attached). I am not happy I bought something which doesn't heat the way it should, I was told the 1000w setting is for liquids only.

Nick0207, could you send me you communications I would like to take this further as I feel I have been miss-sold.
Thanks

 

Attachments

  • UDT Power Management on Inverter Microwaves.pdf
    338.3 KB · Views: 557
Hello, I have one of these Neff Microwaves and when I raised this point with Neff (BSH) I was told this is quite normal for Inverter Microwaves and he emailed me a document explaining this (attached). I am not happy I bought something which doesn't heat the way it should, I was told the 1000w setting is for liquids only.

Nick0207, could you send me you communications I would like to take this further as I feel I have been miss-sold.
Thanks
I read their document, which I hadn't seen before, so this is something they have produced to try to 'convince' customers that the microwave works OK. It's a load of baloney- any engineer will tell you that Invertors - if designed properly- do not fail at full load! I don't know of any other manufacturers' Inverter microwave which has to reduce from full power to prevent failure. Inverter technology is basically a different type of power supply which doesn't need a large transformer so is smaller, lighter and cheaper to make.

A quote from a web site on Inverter ovens:

These (inverter) type of microwaves also tend to cook things faster due to their increased efficiency and power. For example, older microwaves often took three minutes to cook popcorn, the inverter microwave can do it in a minute and a half. These types of microwaves are a better fit for actually cooking food.

The Neff unit takes longer to cook everything! I'm afraid it's a duff design. I've never found any microwave recipe book that says you should only heat food at 600w which is what BSH say.
pm me with yr email address and I'll send you the docs
 
Hi Nick thanks for your reply, I can't find how I PM you. Alex
In his posts click on his name (includes avatar if you are on a device that shows it) and it should pop up with his details. In there is a link to start a conversation which is what a PM has been called here for a while now :)
 
I complained to BSH regarding my Neff C17MS320B combi microwave and after they sent an engineer to test it they also refunded the cost of the Microwave and let me keep the appliance. Thanks for your help Nick0207 and I must admit BSH were very efficient and helpful once I contacted their Directors office.
 
This is really disappointing. We just bought a steam oven and wanted the combi to go with it. It seems that ALL the combi models use the 1kw inverter tech.

So I assume that they will all suffer this issue...

Can't send the oven back as it was a private sale so looks like we'll be stuck with a crappy neff microwave... Or buy another brand that won't match!
 
I've been considering buying one of these, or the higher spec C28MT27N0B. Has anyone bought one more recently and could confirm if the issues still exist? Given they are still being sold, I would have thought they have worked out a fix and have incorporated it into later releases. They do now appear to be sold as 900W ovens rather than 1KW so it would appear to indicate some sort of change. Also some reviews seem to indicate that it takes several key presses to access the microwave function. Is that still the case? Thanks for any help.
 
I recently bought an ex-demo.
Note the reference number is C17MS32N0B/11 (not /01).

It does seem that tweaks have been made. Firstly, there's no mention of 1000W anymore on the NEFF website. It merely states the various power outputs, the highest being 900W

Next, to get to the max setting no longer takes ten key presses. From memory (it's been put away while the kitchen units are being built) it defaults to 600W so there's just a few key presses to get to "max".

Used it a few times for simple reheating and so far, haven't noticed a difference from our 'old' Kenwood 900W timing - wise.

Hope that helps. Can't guarantee that they've all been fixed/updated but was pleased to find that ours does not seem to suffer the issues that the OP faced.
 
I've been considering buying one of these, or the higher spec C28MT27N0B. Has anyone bought one more recently and could confirm if the issues still exist? Given they are still being sold, I would have thought they have worked out a fix and have incorporated it into later releases. They do now appear to be sold as 900W ovens rather than 1KW so it would appear to indicate some sort of change. Also some reviews seem to indicate that it takes several key presses to access the microwave function. Is that still the case? Thanks for any help.
The ten key presses are/were what is needed to get to a typical setting of 1000w for 2 mins.
The heating problems cannot be solved in the firmware. The magnetron needs to be completely redesigned as it's not fit for purpose. I don't know if BSH have done this.

Note, the 900/1000w has always been around- the Neff Web site says it's a 900 watt unit but retailer ads state 1000w and the display on the unit also shows 1000w (when selected).
If possible I suggest you get a real demo of the one you're interested in. If the default power setting is 600w and the default time setting is 60 secs I suspect it's the same design!
The 600w default cannot be changed as it's one of the ways BSH chose to disguise the,design error. Also if the user manual says all food should only be cooked at 600w then it's definitely got the same problem. No other manufacturer recommends 600w heating.
Nick
 
Hi there I am having the same problem with my new combi microwave C17MR02N0B/35, it just does not heat the food as well as my old 900w microwave. I have contacted BSH and they have fobbed me off saying there is not a software issue so I don't know where else to turn Nick 0207 can you offer any advice

thanks nicola
 
If you send me your email address (use 'Start a Conversation' after left clicking on my avatar/picture) I'll send you some info.
 
@Nick0207 you have made some serious assertions in this thread without any evidence to back them up. We are going to need some solid evidence if we’re going to keep this thread public. Please provide that evidence within the next couple of days.
 
@Nick0207 you have made some serious assertions in this thread without any evidence to back them up. We are going to need some solid evidence if we’re going to keep this thread public. Please provide that evidence within the next couple of days.

Stuart, look at the attached upload document entitled UDT Power Management. This provides all the evidence you need. It was produced by BSH for their engineers so that they could 'explain' to customers why the microwave cannot run at full power for more than 70 seconds, even though the advertising and user manual state that the maximum cooking time at full power is 30 minutes.

an extract from the document makes it very clear:

"The inverter can be operated continuously only at a microwave output power of 600 W with
optimum cooling"

Note: By "continuously" they mean after 70 seconds!

The microwave has a serious design fault which would cause premature failure if used as specified and it is utterly reprehensible of BSH to market and sell these units in this state. By the way, all the BSH branded combi microwaves (including Bosch and Siemens) have the same problem.

My posts are in the public interest and should be kept public please.
 

Attachments

  • UDT Power Management on Inverter Microwaves.pdf
    338.3 KB · Views: 322
Stuart, look at the attached upload document entitled UDT Power Management. This provides all the evidence you need. It was produced by BSH for their engineers so that they could 'explain' to customers why the microwave cannot run at full power for more than 70 seconds, even though the advertising and user manual state that the maximum cooking time at full power is 30 minutes.

an extract from the document makes it very clear:

"The inverter can be operated continuously only at a microwave output power of 600 W with
optimum cooling"

Note: By "continuously" they mean after 70 seconds!

The microwave has a serious design fault which would cause premature failure if used as specified and it is utterly reprehensible of BSH to market and sell these units in this state. By the way, all the BSH branded combi microwaves (including Bosch and Siemens) have the same problem.

My posts are in the public interest and should be kept public please.
I'm not trying to be difficult, just thorough. I could create that PDF document in no time. It's not evidence, I'm afraid. How about, for example, a video showing the power usage?
 

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