I've been reading a lot of posts about ovens and problems associated with the self clean cycle. People have suggested NOT to use the self clean cycle because of this and that problem. Honestly, am I the only one that expects a self cleaning oven to self clean without any problems? I would be livid if I a had issues because I used the self clean cycle. Manufacturers should not be selling ovens with a self clean feature if they can't withstand those temperatures.

I presently have a Gaggenau side opening oven that I am hoping to replace. I am wondering if I should just be happy with what I have reading about all of the issues people have with their ovens; shattered glass, fried electronics yikes!!! While I really dislike advertising for them, it has worked flawlessly without any issue; exception, moisture and bugs between the panes of glass. Because most of the door is glass having water running between the glass is very unsightly. For that reason, I would never buy another Gaggenau product since they acted as if it was my fault creating this water running problem. Having said that, I use the oven a lot and probably clean it at least once a month without any problems. It comes with a rotary spit which of course makes a mess but makes great chicken...no problem, just turn to self clean.

I've considered the Blue Star but sadly it won't fit. I'm now considering the GE Monogram - French door opening. I am reluctant since this forum, who I highly respect, is so against GE Monogram and GE in general. I guess for now I'll just keep reading about other people's problems.

Inga

GE historically has produced good cooking products. I believe they were the first manufacturer to market self-cleaning ovens (called P7), in the early 1960s. I've run self-clean on my 10-years-old GE range several times with no trouble thus far.

Ifoco:

You are hardly the only one who expects oven self cleaning to work without problems. Now, we do know that Whirlpool stove and oven products (including KitchenAid) had a bad design for several years and self-cleaning caused a lot of problems.

Mostly, though, about all we can say is that self cleaning functions can kill ovens but mostly does not. At least not quickly. Mostly. Self cleaning certainly will cause some ovens to fail in every product line. Maybe it happens 12 years after you buy it. Maybe it happens sooner. Maybe it never happens. Ovens are manufactured products. Inevitably, in every mass-produced line of products, even the most reliable lines, there will be some lemons. Some ovens will fail with shattered door glass, circuit-board burnouts, etc. People who experience those failures are likely to be vociferous. So read those posts and conclude that no product is worth buying?

We hear that, when service techs get called to fix ovens, the problem is
"often" ascribed to damage from self-cleaning. But how often is "often?" And, what is the percentage of the ovens that need servicing of any kind? Is it 5% or 10% or what? Whose product lines
have lower risks? For the most part, we consumers cannot find hard
numbers. We know is that there is a risk but you really cannot calculate
the odds of how likely we are to have the problem. Sometimes, the perception is in how you state the odds. One person might see that 95% of oven x owners never report a problem and think those are good odds. Somebody else looks at the same numbers, sees that there are hundreds (or thousands) of problems and think "what if it were me" and concludes the risks are (a) unnacceptable or (b) require insurance and back-up systems.

For most of us, though, without real numbers, It seems that the best we can do is what is being done here: look for reassurance that a particular product does not have a reputation for unusually high rates of failure as turned out to be the case with those Whirlpool ovens.

I bought a GE dual fuel stove in 2000 and ran self-cleaning every couple of months for 12 years. Then some or all of the oven circuit boards failed. The failure happened a month or so after the last self-cleaning cycle. Did self cleaning kill the boards? The servicer who looked at it said it might have been but it might have been something else. Appliance life surveys and studies from a few years ago suggested that the average lifespan for electric ovens and stoves was 13 years (meaning half last a lot longer and half do not). It was just the odds. Does that make GE terrible because my particular stove lasted a little less than average? I hardly think so. (What did tick me off was the astronomical cost of the replacement boards, but that is hardly a problem peculiar to GE.)

In that vein, I am curious why you think this forum is "so against GE Monogram and GE in general."

Seems to me that there is much positive said here about some GE products, particularly cooking products, and especially the induction models. There certainly has been a lot of negative opinions about GE fridges from when GE was outsourcing production and customers were seeing a greater than one-in-five failure rate in the first five years of ownership. (That number came from the only readily available source on product reliability that I have found which is the annual membership survey results from Consumer Reports.)

So, is the problem for you that there just is not much discussion of GE Monogram? If so, that just means nobody has started a discussion of them. Let me suggest that you start your own thread. Maybe somebody will have a way to fix your otherwise very satisfactory Gagg oven or can tell you about the Monogram FD oven you are eying.

Self cleaning killed my Thermador double ovens. It fried the mother board. I had to buy a new one. Since then, I haven't self-cleaned and haven't had any problems. The oven is now 13 years old.

If you have a double oven in a cabinet, it is more likely than most to suffer from over heating and melting. There isn't anywhere for the heat to go. In the case of my Thermador, my appliance repairman said the wires are placed in such a way that he saw a lot of melting of wire casings.

jwvideo

Thank you for your very thoughtful knowledgeable reply. All you've said makes a lot of sense. I have never had an oven fail although the last one I didn't own that long. It was a Dacor that I sold to a friend because I was getting serious burns on my forearms due to the oven being a couple of inches higher than I had planned and being vertically challenged reaching across the door into the hot oven gave me serious burns. I still have the scars to prove the burns were real and serious. I got the Gaggenau side opening sight unseen. Won't do that again but it served the purpose of stopping the burns. Gaggenau suggested I have an authorized service rep clean the glass. I did ask him - when he was here to repair my dishwasher and he said absolutely not would he take it apart. With all of the electronics on the door, he didn't want to risk taking it apart and having it break. So...I'm pretty much stuck with it. I have decided, if the oven has a major failure, I won't pay to repair it.

As for GE Monogram. I don't know where specifically I got the feeling this forum is not fond of the brand. At first blush people said it was overpriced and other brands were more reliable. Somewhere, someone said they should stick to Airplane engines being their forte. And yes, you are very perceptive in recognizing that I would like some discussions on the GE Monogram French door wall oven. More than anything, I'd like to hear how people like it. I suspect, because it is relatively new, not many people have it. It will fit into my existing space with some minor rework of the opening (re framing and re tiling) I spoke to a GE person and asked all kinds of questions and downloaded all of the manual and specs. I then went to a retailer who had one on display. The salesman knew absolutely nothing about it but did say it was a waste of money. Great to be working with a salesman like that...knows nothing but is opinionated. He said the "Cafe" oven was the same thing and about $1000 less. When I asked how they differ, he couldn't tell me. I went back another day to look at it and told the receptionist I wanted to look at the oven alone to study it. Personally, I saw a noticeable difference between the two. The Gaggenau was hardly inexpensive. More than anything, I absolutely love the idea you can leave the grates/racks in the oven during self cleaning cycle. My Dacor came with very heafty racks and I ran them thru the cleaning cycle even though you are not supposed to. As you can tell, I do not like playing Cinderella. I love to cook but don't like that kind of clean up. Have way more things to do than scrub ovens in this day and age. You have, however, given me some pause to think of the many times I have cleaned it. Will it fail tomorrow, next year or not at all? I suppose I could extend the time frame of cleanings since the window/door is filthy anyhow and getting more so with each exceptionally humid summer day.

Happy Father's Day to all of you Dad's out there and a happy 1st day of summer.

Inga

I used the self-cleaning on a less than 6 month old oven right before Christmas one year. Self-cleaned one of the two wall ovens and then the other. The top oven began making popping and cracking noises. I soon saw that the double paned glass of the top oven was cracking, and little pieces of glass began exploding out of the oven door onto the floor. The whole thing came apart into little pea-sized pieces of glass. Warranty replaced entire double oven, but I was lucky there was one in stock where I had bought it, and I insisted on installation the next day, which was either Dec. 23 or Dec. 24. I made sure to ask about availability and installation dates before I mentioned that I wouldn't be buying a new oven but instead would be making a warranty claim to replace the ovens. Now I don't use the self-cleaner, but they say not to use oven cleaner, so it's a problem.

My 5 year old Thermador oven was cleaned exactly 2 times since I wipe it out after using it. I decided to clean it the 3 rd time, during a cold spring day, even though it wasn’t all that soiled, to warm up the house. Unfortunately, the self clean feature wouldn’t work. I’ve had a repair technician 6 times in which he troubleshooted and couldn’t get it to work. We are now waiting for 2 more parts and a seventh try. I wish I purchased cheaper appliances and threw them out after 10 years. A five year old range, which is kept clean, shouldn’t have problems with self cleaning, a feature that added close to $1,000 more in price and over $700 more for a full wall guard! If self cleaning causes problems, then the engineers need to redesign or not sell these ranges. I never had a problem with cleaning my last 2 ranges one of which lasted 27 years, but wouldn’t bake because a repairman damaged the control board and the parts were no longer available.

I recently ran self-clean on a 13yo GE Profile set-in range, that had never been cleaned by the looks of it! My neighbor bought it (with a GE OTR microwave, KitchenAid refrigerator and dishwasher) from one of his coworkers who remodeled their kitchen and replaced everything. The appliances were stored for probably three years while Mr. Neighbor remodeled a house as a rental property. No trouble with the range (other than the oven light bulb was already out), although it needed another self-clean cycle which I didn't get to do before the tenants moved in.