I have a KA double oven in a rental property that had self clean issues a few years ago. After the proper repair was made it has been self cleaned by the tenants many time since then with no problems. Yet when I researched this issue, I've seen complaints both on Gardenweb and elsewhere that the issues persisted due to technicians not fixing the problem completely. I was cleaning out my hard drive this evening and saw some Whirlpool bulletins that address this issue which inspired me to write this post. Hopefully it will save someone some money and aggravation.

The self clean issues were officially fixed in December 2008. If your oven is from before then, there is a very good chance you will have a problem with the thermal fuse blowing. If this happens to you, DO NOT simply let the tech replace the thermal fuse, collect his money and run. This is a band-aid fix and not a long term solution.

Before doing any repairs, a few things need to be checked. These ovens cool themselves by sucking air through the vent above the control panel, drawing it through the control area and down behind the oven, blowing it out the bottom below the oven door and through the left side of the upper vent. Because of this, if the door is not forming an effective seal, hot air from inside the oven can migrate upwards, get sucked in by the fan, and travel right by the thermal fuse. See where I'm going with this? You need to check that the door is closing properly and not opening past 90 degrees. The gasket, inner door liner, or hinges could be the problem if excessive heat is escaping the oven above the door. And of course, the oven vents should not be blocked in any way.

Once those things have been fixed or confirmed OK, most of the problems on these ovens were caused by an undersized blower. The blower must be replaced with the upgraded, more powerful model. I found that the upgraded blower was slightly more noisy than the old one but nothing objectionable. Whirlpool will pay for labor and parts (including the replacement thermal fuse) for this repair. You should use a tech who is aware of the issue and knows how to claim payment from Whirlpool (or can figure it out).

If you have a DOUBLE OVEN it will have two cooling fans, one for each oven. Only the fan for the top oven needs to be replaced.

This post was edited by hvtech42 on Sun, Jul 20, 14 at 14:05