That's typical that the front and door don't get hot enough to self-clean. You can use COLD fume-free Easy Off.

Just this past weekend, I did a full cleaning of my CC. I was inspired by seeing the brand spanking new Culinarians on the Chopped previews. I just soaked the grates in hot water and dish soap for a bit and them scrubbed them with green scotch pads. If you have thick grease on them, you can boil some water and soak them in that for a while. We use to use boiling water to clean soiled grates and burners in the restaurant and it works wonders.

Well, taking a second look, even though there was mucho rust after using the self-clean oven approach, I saw a lot of gray underneath - a good sign. So, after watching a few You-tubes on the subject - I rinsed out the pot with hot water - thoroughly dried with cloth and over gas burner, put on American Idol, and tackled it with absorbent cloths, oil, shortening and salt. I just kept cleaning and cleaning - never got it quite all off, but finally applied the recommended grapeseed oil and let it preheat in a 400 degree oven. Got engrossed in Idol - so it probably stayed in the oven for an hour. Happily, the grapeseed oil sealed it up quite solidly - and the cloth wiped over it comes out perfectly clean! The pan bottom almost matches the lid again (which had not been affected). I will do another couple of cycles of oiling and preheating. (Will post my phone photos if and when I can find the proper cable to upload.) Thanks to each of you for the input.

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.