I am so disgusted I could scream! About a year and a half ago DH and I got all new appliances in our kitchen. We have a free standing electric range. We went to Sears and bought a GE self cleaning oven I ran the self clean feature twice per their instructions. It runs for about 3 hours, then turns off and takes a while to cool down so that the latch will open. It got so that the latch would slip down and block the oven door when I was baking something.
I called Sears to come and look at it. The first thing the technician asked me was "How long did you let this clean cycle run?" He then told me that anything over 2 hours would damage the latch. I had just turned it on and let it go for the time they had programmed into it. The end result is that it can't be fixed and a new latch will cost a couple hundred dollars. I told him to forget it. He fixed it so that the latch lever won't flop down and keep me from opening my oven.
I'll just do the Easy Off thing from now on. If you get a new self clean oven, disregard manufacturer's instructions and set the thing to run no more than 2 hours.
By Marty Dick from Houston, TX
This page contains the following solutions.
You can prevent major over cleaning by periodically wiping the inside of your oven down with straight white vinegar and removing any debris. Then you don't have to introduce nasty commercial oven cleaners or homemade oven cleaners (like ammonia) into your house.
