Thanks so much. I live in an apartment building and the cost of bringing up the required electricity - if they let me - would be prohibitive and would be a huge amount of work. Thus, I need to stay with gas. The only wall oven I could use would be the Viking - dont want the Jenn Aire and the others have French doors which I cannot use because the oven is next to a wall. So, it is either take a chance on the Viking wall oven and find a cooktop, or find a range. If I get a range, I definitely want self clean because I will never get down there to clean it! The only cook features that are really important to me are convection, broil and simmer. All suggestions welcome!

I appreciate the comments! I'd not thought about the dealer aspect at all because we really don't have much choice locally, unfortunately. My fav went to the Dark Side (audio, video, entertainment, and sleep shop) several years ago , and I've avoided the other like the plague because we got bad customer service from them more than once a long time ago. Yeah, I hold a grudge, which isn't always a good thing. Gary, thanks for the AJMadison info -- I wasn't familiar with that, although I'd checked out Amazon & some big box stores for customer reviews. As well as Consumer Reports, but they let me down on this oven stuff. Just to clarify because I don't want to leave a wrong impression, but I don't have any problems having appliances repaired. I don't expect perfection forever. Some of the reviews I read some places were complaining about having to have X brand ovens repaired at four or five or more years. I don't have a problem with that kind of stuff; what I want to avoid if possible are the kind of widespread issues like those with KA wall ovens. I'm still trying to make up my mind, but I'm now leaning towards coming up with a list of four or five & FORCING my dh to make the call. Coward's way out? For sure, but I'm entitled, I think, after all these years to hedge my bets for the first time ever. That way, if we do wind up with an oven with . . . issues, the blame won't be solely mine :-) I think the gas cooktop is just going to have to wait longer . I was hoping to be able to just get both over with at the same time (the cooktop isn't an easy swap, either -- the existing is a 30" on an island & I have my heart set on a 36", so that means more cabinet/countertop work, thus more expense). Oh, well. I'd rather get an oven now that I feel relatively confident about & just wait longer on the cooktop.

I just received my double convection 30 inch wave touch Electrolux! It's in the garage and obviously hasn't been installed so I haven't used it yet. I did go everywhere I could, Fegusons, Pacific Sales, Renwes, etc. etc. etc. and looked at all of the ovens, pulled out the shelves, examined the controls, discussed the merits of each with the sales people and after having dozens to choose from; I choose this one. I've heard great things about them from friends that have Electrolux appliances, but mostly I loved the easy gliding shelves. There's more of the gliders than in the other ovens I saw, I love that the light comes on dim and then ramps up. I love the shade of blue in the interior and I really like that the controls disappear until you touch them. Several of the places I visited used this oven in their kitchen for employees so I saw them live. They all seemed to think it was a great oven so that helped me with my decision. Who knew choosing an oven could be such a big and expensive decision???? Good luck with your choice.

I recently tried baking cookies in the Wolf M series, and it baked very evenly (cookies on different racks and in the corners of the cookie sheet) -- it was one of the most even baking ovens that I've tried (that and, shockingly, the Thermador Grand Pro). I, too, am a little leery of Wolf ovens b/c of the reported chipping issues here. I also recently tried the Miele M Touch -- this oven wasn't as even a baker as the Wolf with cookies (e.g. bottom rack front corner was less done than the others), but it was still pretty good. The Miele has a rotisserie option (which I couldn't try out b/c the Miele showroom didn't have any that were working -- they had a lot of prototypes hooked up), and it's also got the burst of steam option, which is pretty cool if you're a baker (up to 3 bursts of steam for 6 min. each). I do think the Miele interface is very complicated, and if you are an experienced baker, the whole Master Chef thing isn't that appealing. I do have to say that the Miele did an awesome roast chicken (which we roasted directly on the rack) -- much better than any other electric oven I've tried (tho I didn't have a chance to roast in the Wolf b/c I didn't have enough time). I also want to try the Gaggenau wall oven, which I understand is a great baker but I haven't actually tried myself yet. It also has the rotisserie option, but it's very pricey and only comes with 1 rack standard (which seems ridiculous given the price of the oven itself). I'm not looking at Bosch b/c I've had 2 Bosch dishwashers, and they were both awful -- needed major repairs within 1 year of owning -- so I've sworn off Bosch products as a result. Haven't looked at Elux but maybe I will...