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Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - wurm - 09-29-2011
Where to begin...
It's an approximately 10 year old Whirlpool gas oven/range which we bought new shortly after we bought the house. Several years ago the oven portion started a nasty habit of randomly shutting itself off, and generating a PF (power failure) error code on the display. A little research and a call to a repair shop and $$ later, it was determined that the control panel was shot, so we replaced it. It was fine for a year or so, then started doing the same thing again. Well out of warranty, so we lived with it.
Fast forward to a year or so ago when we re-did the kitchen. We had to have an electrician come to upgrade and add outlets, etc., so we had him install a dedicated outlet behind the stove and figured that might finally solve the problem once and for all. It didn't.
The really frustrating thing is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason to when it does it. We'll use the oven with no issues for months, then all of a sudden we'll be baking something and go to check on it and discover that the damn PF light is on and the oven had shut off. The circuit breaker never trips. No other power in the house is lost. It's just that 1 time out of 50 or so that it flips us the bird. I suppose it could be that the circuit board is shot again, but before I resort to replacing that again, I figured I'd check here. You guys know a lot about a lot, and I figured I might luck out.
Thoughts?
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - davester - 09-29-2011
I can only fix vintage gas stoves, not these new fangled things that use magic electrons.
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - lafinfil - 09-29-2011
I'm guessing it's the control board .... AGAIN!
I had a stove that had the digital control panel for the oven up top on the panel and it was the
worse design even. I never could figure out why engineer thought it was good design to put a circuit board
in a metal mini oven next to burners blazing away at a few hundred degrees. The replacement board
cost more that the stove was worth. Since the stove was electric (and came with the house) running a gas line
and buying a new stove was soon on the top of the to do list.
You might PM resident appliance expert modelamac if he doesn't see the thread
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - handyj - 09-29-2011
I've dealt with Whirlpool ovens having strange circuit board problems with electrochemical dendrites that cause shutdown and PF errors as you describe. Google consumeraffairs for "whirlpool oven dendrites" and welcome to the weird world of electronic circuitry. If you dig further you can find DIY repairs ranging from chemicals to pencil erasers (this worked for me but no guarantees). Good luck
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - cbelt3 - 09-29-2011
There is a very good reason that professional chefs use basic gas stoves that look a lot like the ones used at the turn of the century. I'm talking 1900. No... stupid... electronics.
Match. Light. Valve. On. Gas. Lit. Heat !
Yeah, and Whirlpool (Frigidare, Kenmore, yadda yadda) all generally sucked in the late 1990's at electronics.
Wish I had grandma's old Vulcan farm stove that she bought in , oh, 1930 ? She fed the whole family of 9 and the farm hands for years with that sucker.
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - davester - 09-29-2011
cbelt3 wrote:
There is a very good reason that professional chefs use basic gas stoves that look a lot like the ones used at the turn of the century. I'm talking 1900. No... stupid... electronics.
I'm certainly not a professional, or even close, but I love cooking on my vintage O'Keefe and Merritt which I restored about 5 years ago. In fact, I'm cooking up some petrale sole in wine-herb sauce on it right at this very moment!
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - wurm - 09-29-2011
Thanks for the replies. Grrrrr....I guess there's some comfort in knowing I'm not the only one experiencing this issue. What I don't get is why it randomly does it. It's not as if I bang the side to get it to shut itself off, or turn on something else in the house and it trips off. There's nothing I can attribute to causing it to shut off. It does it for no apparent reason. Hell, maybe it's a full moon thing.
The thing is, the control panel/circuit board is a couple of hundred dollars and the thing is ten+ years old, so it seems kind of silly to throw that much into it. That's assuming I could replace the part myself. Otherwise there's a labor cost involved, too.
Seems like the most practical solution is to live with the inconvenience for a while. Maybe when it totally dies, we can justify buying a new oven.
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - Robert M - 09-29-2011
Wurm,
It's silly to put hundreds of dollars into a problematic 10+ year old oven that has already been repaired once. To me, the practical solution would be to replace the range since it isn't working properly for the second time. So, the question you should be asking is whether or not you want to buy a new oven.
My wife and I cook/bake/warm food with our range all the time. The issue you've described would annoy the heck out of us. Shortly after the issue reared its ugly head a second time, I'd be using consumersearch.com and other online sources to evaluate ranges and be out shopping for it the next day.
Robert
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - macphanatic - 09-29-2011
Robert M wrote:
Wurm,
It's silly to put hundreds of dollars into a problematic 10+ year old oven that has already been repaired once. To me, the practical solution would be to replace the range since it isn't working properly for the second time. So, the question you should be asking is whether or not you want to buy a new oven.
My wife and I cook/bake/warm food with our range all the time. The issue you've described would annoy the heck out of us. Shortly after the issue reared its ugly head a second time, I'd be using consumersearch.com and other online sources to evaluate ranges and be out shopping for it the next day.
Robert
:agree:
After the issues that I had with a Whirlpool water heater and the way they weren't very public with the recall on the thermocouple, I won't buy another product from them. Glad I replaced the water heater as people who installed the replacement thermocouple continued to have failures. IMO, if you're going to buy a control board, you might as well buy two as it will probably happen again.
Re: Any oven/stove (repair) experts here? - wurm - 09-30-2011
Well, I may be willing to give one more thing a try. I did some more research and found this interesting tidbit.
I decided to ask the resident "expert", and here is our exchange.:
Our Whirlpool gas range has been afflicted with the random shutting itself off with the PF code since shortly after it went out of warranty (of course). After searching this site, it seems that it could be the problem discussed here: http://fixitnow.com/wp/2010/07/01/whirlpool-30-gas-self-cleaning-freestanding-range-with-direct-spark-ignition-dsi-that-wont-bake/
However, if it were that problem, wouldn't it always have a problem starting up? We have never had a problem starting the oven and for the most part, it's been fine. But every once in a while, it will just shut itself off and give us the PF code. The clock resets to some random time and we have to start it up again and reset the clock. Then it's fine for another month or so. The control module has already been replaced once when they thought that was the problem. Maybe it was, but the problem is back. No circuit breakers are tripped. Power to the house and every outlet is fine. It's the randomness that really is driving us batty. Any other thoughts?
Thanks.
The problem with the burner tube is that the ignition ports are offset slightly. As the tube heats up, this offset increases so your problem is consistent with that. Replace the bake burner tube.
You can find whatever appliance part you need through the parts search box at my website. No harm in buying and trying with our 365-day, no-hassle return policy, even on electrical parts that were installed!
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Yeah, they do sell parts a the site, but that return policy makes it tempting to give it one more try before I go stove shopping.