Kenmore stovetop wants to burn our sauces -- can this stove be saved?

July 9, 2012 5:59 PM

Crap electric stovetop acting crappily. Can this be repaired (preferably for less than $150)?

Hey! We're cooking spaghetti! Yay!

However, the front left burner of our craptastic Kenmore electric stove decided to ignore the simmer select button and get crazy hot. Argh.

We moved the sauce to another burner and are carefully monitoring it to make sure it doesn't go nuts -- so far so good.

This puts a serious crimp in our sauce-making and curry creation, not to mention I really don't like the idea of an appliance that has a mind of its own and the ability to incinerate matter.

Googling "simmer select broken" mostly returns pages of people complaining about the burner not turning on at all. This is not our problem.

In the future we will replace this absolutely dreadful stove, but in the meantime, is this a repairable issue? The oven had an issue last year where it got crazy hot really fast, and we got that fixed for about $200. I'd hate to think that we need to sink even more money into it, but we can't replace for at least six months.

It's a Kenmore "Warm & Ready Drawer" model 79096419407.

posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord to Home & Garden (5 answers total)

That problem is because of a faulty knob, not a faulty element. And while I can't speak to that directly, I can tell you who I'd call about it.

I recently had a Kenmore oven element arc out and melt on me, so I looked up the part on Sears PartsDirect, called them and there we are, four days later with a working oven again.

Putting your oven model number into it, I can see an exploded diagram of the parts you'll almost certainly need - one of the 54 large-element dials, I think, but do that homework yourself - along the information you'll need to order it with a few clicks.

Four days, for a 20+year-old part, for real. Not the Sears you remember, right?

Remember to take a picture of the wiring before you start taking it apart, or you'll never remember where all the wires go. Remember to unplug the oven before you start working on it, or you'll die.

Good luck!
posted by mhoye at 6:22 PM on July 9, 2012

Head to the Sears outlet for a new one. Tons of amazing deals there, you might get a new one for $150
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 8:01 PM on July 9, 2012

Sears is *excellent* with spare parts support. Odds are you'll have no trouble getting the right replacement part quickly for a reasonable price.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:08 PM on July 9, 2012

BTW, you can order it online and have it shipped directly to you. I've been doing this for years. Just fixed our Sears garage door opener yesterday, BTW!
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:20 PM on July 9, 2012

If the stove is so dreadful, I wouldn't do any repairs that I couldn't do myself very cheaply. You could almost certainly get a newish range on Craigslist for the amount you're thinking of spending. Why isn't that on the table for 6 months?
posted by jon1270 at 3:02 AM on July 10, 2012