HU- and suburbanguy, what brand of ovens do you have? Also are they gas or electric? I’m guessing electric. HU, can you use nonconvection modes in your oven? Convection can be uneven depending on how the manufacture designs the oven. “Eveness” is way oversold. If you have a fan and especially if it has a third element, it sets up an air current that dries and browns one side of what you are baking/roasting. Many companies use baffles, dual fans or reversing fans to deal with this. Some ovens have a slower fan with the conv bake mode. This gives you more control over the browning. I love convection but just use it part of the time when I want something to brown more. I agree the hidden bake element is horrible. You lose a lot of radiant heat. Bad for pies but the hidden element is just the way they make ovens. Very few have the open element. I would get a thermometer and check how far off the temperature is. Also read the manual as some have an auto correct for convection modes that turns the temperature down by 25°F. Sometimes this can be turned off. Make sure the oven has preheated for 30 min before baking. Convection should make things cook faster because they accelerate heat transfer unless you have the auto correct. Also some ovens once they are preheated do not have a way to bring temperatures up quickly if you open the door. This is really bad. It is really just poor design on the oven not the convection. I had a Dacor oven that did this. If you were baking cookies or appetizers and had to open the door, the temperature drifted down. It had to drop 150°F before the preheat would come back on. It would just oscillate the element on and off to maintain otherwise. Capital electric oven was like this and Wolf is but only has to drop about 50°F to come back on. Wolf can be turned off and on and it seems to make the preheat back on. If you just turn up the temp, it takes forever to move up 25°F. __________ Suburbanguy, Not all ovens are like that. That is the problem. It is very hard to figure out what the different ovens actually do. Sometimes reading the manual, before you buy helps and sometimes it doesn’t. You have two or more fans in your oven. One type is the convection fans but the other is the cooking fans for the computer boards that run your oven. Not a good thing to disconnect those. Many ovens do have a rapid preheat so that your oven preheats in 7-8 min. It does need to continue to preheat for 30 min to fully heat the bulk of the oven for baking.

I have had the Kitchen Aid KEMS308S for 5 years. I had not noticed that the microwave power was low. I doubt that power will be an issue. I assume that many ovens have cool down features. They are not running when the door is open. It is ture that the fan makes some noise, but it isn't that noticable. When I originally purchased this oven I had been intending to get individual ovens, but it turned out that the individual ovens had been discontinued. I see no difference between your choices because they are all double ovens and when one fails, they both fail wheras individual ovens could be replaced individually. I have not heard of the microwave section showing a high rate of failure. You didn't even mention the advantage of the micro/convection. It is not just a microwave, but a real convection oven with a broiling (sort of) element. It is not a speed oven because it does not microwave and heat at the same time. Actually it CAN microwave and crisp via the broil element. Anyway it is a small second oven that can bake a pie or bread (or a small trey of cookies I suppose). It heats far faster than the regular large convection oven because it is small. I find it very useful. The only problem is it is occasionally in use when I would want to reheat a cup of coffee etc. I keep an old microwave in the garage for those cases. While I hope I have relieved your concerns, I believe that there IS an issue. I have had no problem with my oven, and it has been several years since the Main contingent of problems: similar models have encountered a higher than normal thermal fuse blowing during the large oven self cleaning cycle. Unfortunately, the fuse is located on the back of the oven and is a $50 item and shuts everything down. Of course, most people see no problem (myself included) and the problem is certainly due to excessive heat behind the cabinet that could probably relieved by making sure that there is a little more open space back there since you are still installing cabinets? In any case, this is probably a general issue. Other ovens have failed on self clean cycles. At this point, many people concider the self clean to be a marketing ploy and don't use it. Perhaps we just don't make enough spattering roasts, but I have easily wiped down the main oven. It wasn't stuck on hard. Perhaps the surface has anti stick coating? My self cleans have been done mainly to test the thermal fuse problem. By the way, the microwave interior is stainless steel and IS much harder to clean. In fact, that last sentence is probably my most important piece of information. I imagine it would apply to other convection microwaves.

John, 1)Did Smart money talk about resale value of the home? Real estate agents/money lenders love Wolf. It is the brand de rigueur for the nouveau riche poseur elite. If you are building your Kitchen to impress real estate agents,potential buyers,and friends then yes Wolf is best. 2)The previous generation Wolf oven had some reliabilty issues. To its credit Wolf hired an outside consultancy to do extreme testing of it's ovens to find weak spots. It completely redesigned some parts while leaving others alone. It has been about 3 years or so since the current generation came out and so far so good. However, both Gaggenau and Miele have long established records of excellent oven reliability. Wolf will "probably" be very good.Gaggenau and Miele you can take to the bank. Having said that there is always some chance you get a lemon,that is why they have warranties. 3)Before I purchsed my Gaggenau I sought friends and friends of friends who had high end kitchens. I live in West LA. My best friend lives in Yorba Linda in Orange County.I have one sister who lives in Anaheim Hills in Orange County and one sister who lives in the Palos Verdes section of LA County. I offered to cook a meal including beef wellington and chocolate souffle if they let me test their oven and monkey around in their kitchen. Checking things out like ranges and such. I found takers that had Thermador,Wolf,Miele, and Gaggenau. Could not find anyone with a Kuppersbusch. I got good results with them all.I eliminated Thermador when I researched and found reliability problems but I like the results in the order of my rankings. 1) Gaggenau 2) Miele 3) Wolf. All are on my recomment list because they are much better than the GE/Whirlpool/Viking ovens that I have previously used. And I really like the side-opening doors. It lets you get real close without fear of burning yourself.

mirelle, Our MOV230S has been installed for only three weeks at this time. I do like the technical aspect of the system (I'm a guy who sells very high end electronic power measuring test equipment). As far as reliability is concerned, I've got my fingers crossed. I have spoken to customer support a couple times already (as evident by this thread) and each time I kinda had to step carefully just to get my point across. But once they felt I really needed help, and was not simply calling to complain, everything when smoothly. I actually had them send a repair item out before the oven was installed because I could see a potential problem. The one area that does disappoint me is the quality of the porcelain finish around the oven openings. There were several very small chips in the porcelain about where you'd think the flexible gasket would touch. I bought a little bottle of "Porc-a-Fix" high temperature touch up paint (carried by most home centers for about $6) and touched up things myself. Of course, I should not have had to do this at all, but in the scheme of things such items are trivial. I am aware of a couple issues known by Dacor to cause headaches include a "non-beeping" meat probe (fixed in later units and upgradable for free when the oven is in warranty), a cooling fan/relay board/controller board problem that has required a Field Service Bulletin (this seemed to be related to the self-cleaning mode and is probably no longer a problem in units produced since 2008), and some complaints of temperature inaccuracies (that can be adjusted via a service menu), and a meat probe usage procedure that seems to require a little getting used to. As things are now, we're very happy. I installed the oven myself, and am prepared for all contingencies should the oven require removal from the wall for service. The instruction manual does have many suggestions for optimum results for the various cooking modes. For every new dish we make, we are consulting the instructions and using the on-screen Dacor Guide. Should we need to constantly refer to the instruction manual?... probably not...but I like gadgets so I'm giving Dacor the benefit of my doubts. The pork loin roast we cooked last night using the meat probe and the "Sear/Convection roast" came out wonderfully...but we did have to put the roast back in the oven because our hand held meat thermometer said the internal meat temperature was only at 148 degrees (after a 5 minute rest). We decided to give the roast an extra 10 minutes cooking time which raised the internal to 160 (following an additional ten minute rest. The meat was truly outstanding.