The saga of our wall oven

I chose the word "saga" for an important reason.  It seems like we have undergone quite a few "sagas" since purchasing our home.  This particular one, involving our wall oven, has been going on since February.

That's right.  I haven't been able to use an oven since February.  wohdkfkdshgjhskljfsldj!

Why, you ask?  That lovely "F7" error code below.  None of the buttons on the key pad would work.  Justin, the amazing researcher that he is, found out that the error code meant that the control panel ribbon had gone bad and we would need a new key pad/front panel.

Which, incidentally, is much cheaper than buying a new oven.  We have a wall oven, and they are, unfortunately, a lot more expensive than your standard oven/stove combinations.  Of course.

We ordered the part from Sears Parts Direct and they originally sent us this:

Hmm, that's weird.  It's black.  And the key pad is to the RIGHT. 

The back view so you can see the ribbon in question.

Justin wasn't able to retrofit this control panel onto our wall oven.  I got on the telephone with Sears, explained they sent us the wrong part, and they started researching how to get the part in stainless with the key pad in the center.  After a couple of days of the run around, I finally spoke to someone who found the part and would order it for us.  We also got 10% off and free expedited shipping.  The bad news: The part was backordered until August 31.  I told myself, I can do this.  I've lived without it for this long, what's another few months?

Well, August 31 rolled around and I received an email from Sears stating that the part was backordered "indefinitely."  My pregnancy emotions got the best of me, I will admit.  I got pretty irate on the telephone with Sears when they couldn't give me a straight answer.  The best they could do was "research when it would come in by contacting the manufacturer."  And no, they couldn't just call them up while I was placed on hold.  They're lazy like that.

Justin's mom June called while I was in full on breakdown mode over this oven part.  She called her brother Samuel who has a contract with Sears, and then got on the phone with Sears herself.  I sent an email off to my Dad, who also has appliance connections, hoping we could get the part elsewhere or get some more information.  June called me back with the bad news: Sears told her that the part had been discontinued, there was no substitution part being made, and that our money would be refunded.

That's when I decided to do some research of my own.  I found a message board on the Sears website, where shockingly (or not so), everyone else seemed to have the same exact "F7" problem with their Kenmore wall oven.  Way to go, Kenmore, to stop making a part that EVERYONE NEEDS.  Bravo.  There were a ton of posts about cleaning the contacts (the little shiny silver pieces) on the ribbon.  There was also a post about using computer paper to make a shim so that the contacts wouldn't be too loose.  I convinced Justin to give it one last college try.

First, we cleaned the contacts on both sides with a rubber eraser, per the message board's instructions.  Then we tried shimming a piece of paper on one side of the ribbon, before realizing that there were shiny silver contacts on both sides of the ribbon.

I got out the scissors and made these very complicated shims for both sides:

And hooked it back into the circuit board.

I wish I could say that I have an engineering degree in my future.  But alas, the buttons on the key pad still would not work.  That's when I realized that by shimming both sides of the ribbon, none of the contacts were touching.  Justin could tell I was getting frustrated and my "positively positiv-o" attitude was waning.

He cleaned the contacts again, and tightened the ground wire to the unit.  He also saw some corrosion on the ribbon that goes into the actual key pad, but we couldn't take that ribbon out like the picture above.  He did his best to clean up that side of the ribbon, and put everything back in its place.

We don't know which one of those three, or if all of those three, was what fixed it, but we no longer have an "F7" error code!
The best part?  We could have paid Sears $75 to send a technician to look at the oven.  Chances are, he would have done the same exact things we did, and he also wouldn't have known which one fixed it.  Doing it ourselves is seriously the best feeling ever.

Preheating to 350 like a boss.

First batch of cookies.  Yesssss.

I still felt like we should have the new control panel in case our fixes don't hold up forever.  My dad and Uncle David continued to research the parts, but the stainless version with the key pad in the center continued to elude us.

I went to check the mail yesterday and found a package on our door step.  From Sears.
What was inside?

The correct oven part I ordered.  Booyah!
I'm not even going to bother to find out why.  All I know is that I have the part in my possession, the oven currently works, and starting next month, we are putting a little money away every month in case we need to replace the whole wall oven in the future.

Now do you see why "saga" was such an appropriate choice of words?