Gaggia Titanium Review

Overall Rating

It does make pretty good coffee and it is easy to use. If it actually condescends to work (see below!)

Oh, where to start....

Six months ago, I bought the Gaggia Titanium machine from my local Fenwick store.

It cost me £600 and proved to be the worst purchase I have ever made.

When I first set up the machine, it made exactly 3 cups of coffee before a 'ventilate' message appeared in the LCD display and the machine stopped working completely. I phoned the Gaggia Helpline for advice. They told me to descale it, even though it was brand-new! Then they said they didn't actually know what was wrong with it and to contact the shop.

Fenwick replaced the machine the same day. The next machine lasted 8 weeks before exactly the same thing happened again. And again, Gaggia Helpline could not say what was wrong with it, except for weakly suggesting there might be an 'airlock' in the machine, but they did not seem to know how to fix this.

Fenwick replaced the machine again. This machine lasted almost 3 months and, to be fair, it did make very good coffee. But then every time the steam/hot water pipe was used, boiling water began to run down the inside of the machine and out of the drip-tray instead of out of the pipe. Gradually, no water came out of the steam pipe at all; it just poured down inside the machine, accompanied by an alarming hissing and roaring noise. We called the Gaggia Helpline. They told us to descale the machine, so we tried that without any success. Then they said there must be a blockage in one of the internal pipes and told us to do a full rinse cycle and then leave the steam pipe running for a few minutes to see if that would clear it. We did the rinse cycle as instructed, then opened the steam pipe. After a few minutes of hissing and bubbling the machine emitted an enormous burst of steam and boiling water from inside which scalded my husband's hands, as he was standing next to it when this happened. Then the 'ventilate' message appeared again and the machine stopped working. We phoned Gaggia again and I explained what had happened. Their only response when I said it had scalded my husband's hands was "Oh right. Sorry". They said they thought there "might be an internal problem" with the machine (oh wow - glad the geniuses at Gaggia came up with that idea as we'd never have thought of it ourselves...!) and recommended we contact the shop again. Fenwick then insisted the machine had to be sent back to Gaggia for repair or replacement. We were told this would take two weeks. After three weeks with no word we rang Gaggia, who said the machine had been dispatched back to us the day before. However, over another week passed before it arrived back. Gaggia had in fact replaced the machine and stated on their report that this was because of 'postal damage' sustained by the original machine. Hard to believe, since it was boxed up securely in the original packaging and sent via Gaggia's own choice of courier...

The fourth machine lasted 3 weeks before doing exactly the same thing as the machines above. This time, I took the machine back to Fenwick and asked for a full refund, as I had had enough. Fenwick tried to insist it was sent back to Gaggia for repair or replacement again, but I refused (under the terms of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 I could claim loss of faith because the goods were not of satisfactory quality and not durable, therefore I had the right to refuse any further attempts to repair/replace). At this, they finally gave in and issued a refund. They also admitted that several other customers had had problems with this machine.

Having read a number of other customer reviews on this machine, it seems many people have experienced exactly the same problems with the Titanium range as we did (and the same total lack of helpfulness and honesty from Gaggia). It would seem that this model has an inherent design fault which Gaggia are not willing to acknowledge.

It is also alarming that there is only a one-year warranty on the machine (most other manufacturers offer two years). So although it didn't cost me anything to send the machine back to repair/replacement because it was within the warranty period and I got it from a shop and not over the net, if it was over a year old when this happened I would have to pay the shipping and repair costs myself every time it was sent back. And given how often it broke down to start with, I would absolutely expect to be sending it back regularly!

I wouldn't have been so annoyed or surprised if I had just bought a basic plastic coffee-maker from Curry's for £30, say, and it had subsequently broken down, as I might reasonably expect such a cheap item not to be very robust. You get what you pay for, after all.

But that's exactly the point: you are supposed to get what you pay for, and the Titanium is described as Gaggia's top of the range, state of the art home coffee machine and it carries a correspondingly (very) high price tag to match. As such, I would certainly not expect it to be so weak and flawed that it is incapable of running for more than a few weeks without breaking down. That is just ridiculous.

I would therefore strongly recommend anyone thinking of getting this machine to look elsewhere. Try a Jura or Delonghi bean-to-cup machine instead. Anything but a Gaggia!