I also purchased the Kitchen-aid stove with the new AquaLift oven cleaning ability and it is absolutely the worst. I will NEVER buy another Kitchen-Aid product and will certainly never recommend it. I am an extremely neat and clean person and have tried so many times to use the AquaLift cleaning method but it does not remove much of anything. I finally called the company service department and they were useless! Easy Off has a new cleaner that says it is safe for use with self-cleaning ovens. Has anyone ever tried it?

I found numerous complaints on the website of "a well-known consumer reporting magazine" regarding range manufacturers' claims about AquaLift technology. If you, too, believe that AquaLift claims are misleading/deceptive, please register your complaint with the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. This link will take you to the FTC Complaint Assistant. They say it should take just 5 minutes and will likely make you feel better about being deceived. https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en Here is a link that might be useful: FTC Complaint Assistant

I believe the self cleaning also has roller racks and the manual does not. I have the 48" precision manual and have cleaned the oven once. It has been in use for almost a year. I do try wipe up any spills. Cleaning was fairly quick and easy and I do not miss the self cleaning feature. I did have self clean previously and feel I am able to get better results manually. Did not clean the oven any more often when I had self clean.

The discussion reminds me again how personal these choices are. I remember a wonderful phrase from a book (by Booth Tarkington, I think) which went something like this: a mild unpleasantness for one young man may seem the sheer brink of hell to another. That's applicable here as you can see from the posts above. For some of us, a self-cleaning oven is on the list of stove "must-haves." A stove won't even be considered without it. For others, like me, it was on my list of "wanna-haves" rather than "must-haves." (IOW, I miss having a self-cleaning oven but think I can live without it). Others, such as Nunya, are completely indifferent to self-cleaning; seemingly, he wouldn't use it if he had it. I say all of this because opinions here at GW can sometimes sound like dogma -- because I think X, you should, too, and your contrary thoughts are mere subjective preferences. It has to be said that subjective preferences are important. They are none-the-less valuable for being subjective. Your own preference absolutely must be part of the process of choosing a stove. Just because I find manual oven cleaning is "not too bad" does not mean you should find it that way, too. So, hopefully, the range of opinions is taken as helping you sort out our preferences rather than as telling you what to so. There is only way to get better informed than this exchange of opinions and that is by actually cleaning an oven in a stove you are considering. But, even if you live someplace where dealer showrooms have operating stoves you can test out, do you think they'll be demonstrating that aspect anytime soon? ;>) When I bought my NXR, I really had no idea how easy or how onerous "myself-cleaning" would be. That's one of the reasons I bought it from Costco. If "myself-cleaning" turned out to a royal PITA, I could simply return the stove for a full refund and get the self-cleaning induction range that I otherwise would have purchased. So, when you go shopping, it may be helpful to be up-front with the vendors about your uncertainty on this issue and to have a back-up candidate.