Costco Members: KitchenAid Professional Series 6-Quart Bowl Lift Stand Mixer Expired

Nope, that hasn't been true for about 4-5 years now.

You are thinking of the old Costco model. That model was a Professional 6000HD (not to be confused with the similarly named Professional 600) and had a 1.0HP DC motor. The current Costco model is a disguised Professional 610 and has a 590W AC motor, making it the most powerful model (by 15W) in the Professional 600 lineup.

As for attachments, the Professional 6000HD (the old Costco model) used a modified 5QT bowl with flared sides to make it a 6qt bowl. As such, most 6qt bowl related attachments won't fit it but a few 5qt ones will. All other non-bowl related attachments are fully interchangeable with that model. The current one uses a standard 6qt bowl, so it can use any attachment any other Professional 600 models use.

I did some quick math to help alleviate this concern. As a disclaimer I have this mixer in red and it is amazing. If you add up all the 1,2 and 3 star reviews you get 418 reviews. Now add up the 4 and 5 star reviews and you get 4177. If you look at this as a percentage it is almost exactly 10%. It's safe to say that more than 10% of the general public are not good equipment reviewers or users for that matter. I meet people that honestly can't tell me how to get to their house, they have no idea what roads they take they just drive them. If 90% of the reviews are 4 and 5 star, that's a bet I'll take, I can promise you that. This is a solid mixer, it'll sell out at this price. I got it for $219 about 4 years ago and it's still running strong and 0 complaints here.

Despite the name, both of these models are targeted at home users. You don't really start seeing the true professional features and power until you hit the DC motor models, which (confusingly) start at the Professional 6000HD or 6500Design and up. For true professional use though , you are looking at the Commercial 8qt model which has all of the necessary commercial features, NSF approval, and a commercial warranty.



The difference in power is only notable when you are doing larger volumes or more difficult doughs like pasta or bagel dough. This Costco model is the most powerful of the AC motor models. To get something better from KA, you would need to step up to a DC motor model which though looking the same are entirely different beasts.



The plastic gearbox housings had a tendency to crack. Kitchenaid has stopped using those in all bowl-lift models other than certain ultra-budget models for things like BF specials. Additionally it was a single sacrificial plastic gear designed to shred itself if the motor is over taxed. This is IMHO a good thing, not a bad thing.

As for the removal of the microcontroller, I have seen that on more than just this Costco model. It likely means that motor overload protection is gone (unless they accomplished it with discrete components). Alternately, the microcontroller could be integrated into the hall effect sensor. I have seen a few uC's integrated into hall effect sensors.




It is not. Costco used to sell a DC motor model around five-ish years ago but no longer do.