The oven from hell

I've posted about our Fisher Paykel oven and its problems before.  Our intrepid and very good service man worked diligently to diagnose its problems.

It had intermittent problems all through August and September.   Most of the time it wouldn't heat and I would end up trekking my food across the street to use the neighbor's oven.  It was so bad this week I fantasized about taking a sledge hammer to it.  Oh, how satisfying that would be!  Smash, smash, SMASH!!  I also considered an exorcism because it seems possessed by demons.

On Thursday Steve, the serviceman, worked on it again and found ANOTHER manufacturing defect.  This is its third manufacturing defect.  The first time it was wired incorrectly.  The second time it was a connection that wasn't properly crimped.  This time it was a wire that wasn't very well attached.  The loose wire was causing intermittent failures.

I won't trust that it is fixed until at least a month goes by without a failure.   I talk to it and threaten it with the sledge hammer (yes, it is driving me crazy).  It better behave because it is fall and I have lots of things I want to make in the oven.

Be careful what you wish for

Our oven died AGAIN.  Just five days after it was repaired.  I used it one time in the interval to make peach and blueberry cobbler.  A few days later, it wouldn't heat when I wanted to make lasagne.  The only power we have is the light bulb.  After an hour, it will raise the temperature a few degrees.

John says I finally  have the Easy Bake oven I wanted when I was a kid (it was powered by a light bulb).  I wanted an Easy Bake oven soooooo bad.  But the farm didn't have public electricity.  Instead, we had a wind charger and  a generator for when the wind did not blow.  Everything electric had to be rewired to work.  My dad refused to work on an Easy Bake oven.  So I couldn't have one.

This oven problem is a difficult one because it is intermittent.  Sometimes you can get it to heat and that is what happened when the repair guy came.  It worked.  He told us to get it to fail and call in the daytime, leaving it until he arrived.  He came again yesterday and saw its failure.  Now we are waiting a week for the part.  He thinks the circuit board was damaged by the death of the convection element.

Sigh....  I just want a simple oven that WORKS.

Our oven died AGAIN

Our oven died again.  We've had it about four and a half years.  It has had two manufacturing defects (see this post for its history); this time it had a dead element.  We were fortunate to get Steve to diagnose and repair it again this time.  He is so very good at his job and so responsible.  He was about to go on vacation when I got in touch with him but before he went, he ordered the part he thought it would be.  He came with the part and he was right about what had failed.  So, he gets points for being responsible, smart, and experienced.

Anyway, it's now fixed.  I didn't use it yesterday since it was 96 and we barely wanted to eat let alone use the oven.  We had to wait 10 days for Steve to get back from vacation.  We could have used another tech sooner but we chose to wait for Steve.

Steve says the part that failed, the heating unit on the convection fan, is the most common element failure on this oven.  That heating element comes on to help preheat the oven for all the functions we use.

It's going to be cool for a few days and now I can make blueberry muffins and roasted vegetables and peach/blueberry cobbler.  The foods of summer.

Oven Karma

Our oven died just a few days before Thanksgiving.  Over the years we've had multiple oven failures on or near Thanksgiving.  It must be oven karma.

This oven, which is a Fisher Paykel OB30DEPX1, didn't work when we purchased it new four years ago.  The problem was two wires which were crossed when it was manufactured.   And this time it was another manufacturing issue, a bad connection caused by damage to the cable connector.   The connector was so loose that it arced and built up carbon over the years until it finally stopped working all together.

It died when we were in the middle of preparing for a dinner party.  The cake was baked.  The corn bread (two kinds) was baked.  The pork verde was in the oven when it died and we had to finish cooking it on the stove top.  That worked pretty well but the consistency was changed.   And we were bummed to have a broken oven AGAIN.

Pork Verde prep

Corn bread with jalapenos and cheese

plain corn bread

 Verde ready for the oven

Verde just before the oven failed...

 John watching Steve work on the oven

It was a huge hassle when we had the original problem.  Fisher Paykel was not easy to deal with.  I think it took about a month of much time on the phone with them.  The first two techs who came could not diagnose the problem.   We had to wait a long time for parts that didn't fix the problem.  It was a terrible customer service experience.  And with a brand spanking new oven.

But finally we hit gold and got a technician who could really diagnose problems.  He read the schematic and found the crossed wires.  I saved his contact information and I sent him an email on Saturday night after our party.  When I got up on Sunday, I had a response.  I was so excited that I woke John to tell him.

And today our oven is fixed.  Ahhhh....

The oven tracks all sorts of statistics used in diagnostics.  In the four years we have had the oven we opened the door 4350 times.  We've never used the self clean cycle and the oven tracks that (it's not good for the oven).  We don't cook meat in it.  We've been good to the oven.  I wish it would be nicer to us!

Steve says he likes his job and intends to work there a long time.  We are very happy to know that.  If you can't rely on your oven, it's good to know someone who can fix it.