Jgarbee Which gets us to the 'limited' side of that lifetime warranty. First, you must be the original user. You cannot submit your grandmother's Dutch oven for replacement (take a look at the subtle changes in Le Creuset designs over the years; it's pretty easy to tell) or the one you snatched up for $20 at a garage sale.

But nice try. According to the website, the warranty also 'does not cover damage from abuse, commercial use or other non-consumer use, neglect, abnormal wear or tear, overheating, or any use not in accordance with the cookware instructions provided with the utensil.'

In other words, if you drop your Dutch oven and break the handle, the full warranty doesn't apply. You can, though, still send it back. We've read about several Le Creuset customers who dropped theirs and qualified for the 75% replacement discount -- you only pay 25% of the retail price. Still a pretty great deal as Le Creuset is hard to snag at a deep discount. But we did not drop our pot. So how does Le Creuset determine whether the damage to the enamel was our fault? The corporate legalese is, not surprisingly, vague on the website.

Do they consider it 'abuse' to obsessively caramelize every meat and vegetable that goes in the pot? Do they define 'abnormal wear or tear' as relying so heavily on one pot that we snub virtually all of our other cookware? Jl Audio 500 1 Service Manual. Does 'neglect' include some admittedly rather odd weekend experiments involving acidic ingredients like vinegar?

Surely they would find a reason our pot did not qualify for the replacement, as this is a large corporation, not a family member or generous milk-lending neighbor. And did we mention the time we forgot about those brown sugar-laced baked beans in the oven? (End result: black beans.) A letter to Le Creuset is required detailing what is wrong with the pot; yes, we scripted it carefully. Hey, maybe we'd at least get the 75% discount. After we shipped off the pot, we waited.

Amazon.com: Le Creuset Parts. Le Creuset Stainless Steel Large Replacement Knob. By Le Creuset. $20.95 $ 20 95 Prime. FREE Shipping on eligible orders. 6 results for 'Le Creuset Replacement Parts'. Le Creuset Large Replacement Classic Knob. $18.28 $ 18 28 $20.95 Prime. Only 15 left in stock - order soon.

How long does it takes to boil water for pasta? Not long in our Dutch oven. When you have to rummage around to find that ridiculously over-sized Williams-Sonoma 'pasta' pot that you still have in a back closet (wedding gift guilt), and then wait for the excessive quantity of water to boil?

A lot longer than we remembered. And so on more than one occasion, we emailed the Le Creuset service representative, an incredibly patient woman named Cindy, to check in on our pot. Did they receive it?