what about the new bosch -- opens like the gaggenau. i saw it and it looks great. not sure how it cooks though.

Wall ovens that are well regarded on this forum for reliability and baking performance include Bosch, Gaggenau, Miele, and Electrolux. I do not know their dimensions so you'll have to go to the websites and look them up. Most of the french door ovens out right now are unproven. I have seen some negative reviews of American Range french doors. Gas wall ovens have gone the way of the dodo bird for the most part - I don't think it would be worth it to run a gas line for an oven that has so little feedback.

As for your Miele, you say the "timed bake" doesn't shut off the oven automatically. Are you just talking about the timers? Does your oven have a delay start feature? If so just set start time to the current time and cook time to whatever you want and you'll get auto shutdown. I think it's funny you want the oven to shut off by itself - I prefer just a beep so I can check on the food. My ovens are capable of shutting down automatically but I never use the feature.

hvtech, that is the way I expected time bake to operate on the oven. It is the way it has worked on every other oven that I've had except for the Miele.

Yes, I know the difference between timed bake and oven timers. On my Miele, one can set any two of start time, duration and stop time and it figures out the third. The oven then turns on at the start time. Unfortunately at the stop time it just sets off the timer and beeps forever (or at least as long as I can tolerate before turning it off). There are times I'm doing something that is slow cook and I just want it to turn off when it gets to the end of the cooking time.

Both Viking and Bosch say on their spec sheet or product description that their timed cook mode turns the oven off.

Housebuilder, I'll take a look at the Bosch. I like that French doors are shorter and therefore a bit less in the way, my DH thinks having a door on only one side will be easier to use. A single door is mechanically simpler and the Bosch has self clean (probably because it is easier to seal and lock a single door).

The Viking Series 7 (French door on top, conventional door on bottom) is apparently available - one place thought it wasn't but another one tells me it is and they have one on display so I may go down and look at it.

The Bosch is also a lot cheaper than the Viking French door.
But I like the simplicity of the controls on the Viking - the fancy Miele touch controls can be annoying so I'm concerned that the Viking might have a similar issue.

Either will fit in our existing opening.

GE Monogram just announced one but says availability is 2015.

American Range has french doors but is too tall.

I'm still looking for other contenders.

My sister ordered the Viking french door. I warned her against it because of Viking's horrid reputation, but she did anyway. I hope to post feedback here once it is installed but that will be well after you make your decision. AFAIK the GE Monogram will be a single oven only, not double, but it WILL self clean, which is funny because Viking apparently claimed it was technically impossible to self clean a french door oven. Sounds like a lame excuse for why they couldn't work it into theirs.

Again I highly recommend forgetting about french doors and checking out the manufacturers I listed in my last post. As for side swings... Gagg is excellent but Bosch is unproven and their latest ovens look to be a total redesign. However the previous generation had a good reputation here. Miele has a touchscreen on their latest doubles so it should be easier to use. It also has new features such as moist baking and a wireless probe. It should fit into your cabinet. Honestly the cook time feature not working properly in your model sounds like a bug, not an intentional design feature. All ovens I've ever seen have separate cook timers and kitchen timers for exactly that purpose.

Gagg looks like it is too tall to fit our opening.

Please do report on your sister's experience with the Viking. If the tech can repair our oven, we still might decide to replace the Miele in a couple of years after the Bosch and Viking (and GE if they make a double) have been out for a while.

I checked on the Miele timed bake feature when we first found out how it worked and they confirmed that was the way that it is intended to work. I think perhaps some other brands specifically say they turn off because Miele (and perhaps some others) don't.

The Miele also doesn't have rolling racks. I thought I'd be okay with that because it has always been fine in the past and the new ones in the show room seemed to operate smoothly enough, but in actual use, hot and loaded with stuff I find ours sometimes balky so I'd probably go for something with a rolling extension on at least one rack per oven for turkeys, pots of stew, etc.

Once in a blue moon, the Miele controller goes into error mode and shuts down an oven. Not enough to do something about - maybe less than once a year, but annoying when it happens and you don't know how long it has been off and how to adjust your cooking plans. It has done it when on high heat for hours and I think it is the controller getting hot, but it doesn't happen often enough to be diagnosed.

It is another reason why I'd prefer something with a simpler less fancy controller to run it.

So I'm more likely to try something else next time not something fancier like a touch screen control panel.

It turns out that the Blue Star gas oven is way to tall. Even if I was willing to modify the cabinet it is hideously tall - around 64" so even if it was set with its bottom a few inches above floor level, the control panel would be above my head and the racks in the upper oven high even with the French doors easing access.

Blue Star is coming out with an electric oven, but they have no track record with electric and that is still a bit too tall for my space.

It is looking like Bosch and Viking are the only contenders that fit in the existing opening.

Have you checked Electrolux? They aren't side swing or french door but they are such a great value and great ovens period that I think they at least deserve a look. Remember the Viking still has electronic controls, the knobs are not thermostats but rather potentiometers. It will be easier to use than touchpad controls but there is still the potential for error codes, component damage, etc. If you do buy the Viking please report back with your experience. My sister is putting it in as part of a to the studs remodel so it will not be installed until late September. Any feedback before that time from an actual owner would be very helpful.

It turns out that the Blue Star gas oven is way to tall. Even if I was willing to modify the cabinet it is hideously tall - around 64" so even if it was set with its bottom a few inches above floor level, the control panel would be above my head and the racks in the upper oven high even with the French doors easing access.

Blue Star is coming out with an electric oven, but they have no track record with electric and that is still a bit too tall for my space.

It is looking like Bosch and Viking are the only contenders that fit in the existing opening.

It looks like the Gaggenau single oven stacked with their steam oven above and their warming drawer below fit within the space of the Miele double oven.

I don't know how much trouble that would be to install. Water for the input comes right next to the oven because of the feed to the fridge for cold water and ice. The nearest drain on that cabinet run is around 13 feet away at the main sink. With vertical distance, that may put it farther than the 17' the drain hose is allowed to run even if we can run the hose through the back of the cabinets behind the drawers.

There is a prep sink in the island directly across the aisle from the ovens, but I don't know if the drain connection could be worked into that drain.

It's an intriguing idea, but I think the total cost for the stack would be significantly more than the other double oven alternatives even before the cost of adding the plumbing.

Also the fridge (full depth) is to the right and the steam oven only comes in right hinged so that might interfere with the door opening.

I'm used to having two identical ovens so anything that can be done in one can be in the other. I don't know that I want to adjust to having two different ones though it seems like other than size the steam oven can do most cooking. It would be very good for baking crusty bread.

We saw the Viking French door at an appliance store this weekend. The French door operation is good - you pull either door open and they both open - the same for closing. They close with a good solid feel. When we got home, we looked more at our space and determined French door is not an option for us. Our full depth fridge is next to the oven cabinet. The Fridge sticking out would block the French doors from opening fully - possibly even from opening enough to get the racks to pull out.

So that leaves us down to the Bosch double oven or a Gaggenau stack of Combi-steam over single convection oven over warming drawer. At least I think that stack fits in the 53" we have. The Gaggenau stack would be quite expensive - the Gaggenau single convection oven costs more than the Bosch double and the Combi-steam costs more than the convection. So we'd need to feel we really want the steam oven for that to make sense.

DH didn't like the Gaggenau control panel because it has low contrast and uses icons instead of words. That was a display of the older model. We were told the new models have a different control panel which may be better contrast. From the manual it still uses the icons.

The new Gagg models have color touch screens and automatic doors whereas the older ones have a monochrome screens and manual doors. Every display I've ever seen that uses pixels has adjustable contrast and I don't see why Gagg would be any different. You can download manuals from their website to confirm (which by the way you should always do before buying anything). No matter which Gaggenau you get it will take some getting used to the controls. They operate like no other oven I've seen before. Forget about the guests being able to figure it out on their own, LOL.

If you buy the Bosch Benchmark please come back here and review it. I haven't heard any feedback since it's so new and it would be great for people in the market for a new oven.

Was the tech able to fix the problem or are you still in the market for a new oven?

Hi ollie, I'd reported on that but in my other thread. The short answer is the tech came out, diagnosed it and it looks repairable. It may cost around $1000. Parts needed to be ordered.

It may be repairable, but since I'm vertically challenged I'm also still considering getting a side opening oven.

The long answer is:
The tech came last Thursday and found that the convection element had failed shorted. (They usually fail open.) The bad element was removed, but he had to order the replacement which may take a week to arrive.

On my request, he did some testing and the fan and other heating elements in the upper oven cycle on briefly and then off for a while. He thinks the convection element took out the power control board that is behind the oven when it went. We won't know for sure until he pulls the oven out when he comes back.

With the bad element out, the bottom oven runs. It did something strange when I used it Friday. It had been used by my DH earlier and worked fine. I turned it on to preheat for baking a loaf of sourdough. Came back later and put the sour dough in. Came back in 20 minutes to see how the loaf was doing and found that the oven said preheating and was up to about 325 (when set for 475 and on for close to an hour). I hadn't looked at the control panel when I put the bread in so I don't know if it was up to temp then.

I ran the bottom oven twice over the weekend at 475 for an hour monitoring it with a temperature probe all the time to see if the problem repeated. It worked fine both times - the problem didn't repeat. I checked the diagnostic mode and no fault had been recorded so I've no idea what when on.

So it is probably repairable and we are likely to repair it but I've also decided that I'd like to switch to a side opening oven at some point. Since the Bosch side opening model is so new but so much less expensive than the Gagg, we may repair the Miele and then wait a few years to see reports on the Bosch.

i have followed your oven travails. One thing that I really like about my 3 yr. old Bosch double oven, not side opening, is the fast preheat feature. Push a button and it gets to temp quickly.

Bosch Siemens makes such highly accurate, sensitive, products for hospitals, like mri machines that I trust they make good cooking equipment. Bosch, Gagg and Thermador and Bosch is their lowest priced line. Scary to read about certain new-to-market gas stoves where the oven door gets hot. Can't they get that basic thing right?

1000 bucks? ouch