I have a fairly new KitchenAid KEMC378 27" Wall Oven/Microwave (bought August 2009). We are having a very noisy (rattling sound) blower (part #4449888) replaced in several weeks (the part is backordered evidently). Up until yesterday the oven worked fine except for the noisy blower. Yesterday, the oven started having a seemingly unrelated problem:

Now the oven light will not go off and when we try to heat up the oven, the "CLOSE DOOR" indicator on the display comes on. The oven will only heat up to about 180F or sometimes just stays on Lo. The door is fully closed, yet the "CLOSE DOOR" indicator is still on. Pressing the Oven Light button will not turn the oven light off.

I have made sure the door is fully closed but the problem still exists. The only way to get the oven light to turn off is to flip the breaker switch to cut off power. When I turn the power back on, the oven light is off and the display blank. But when I press a temperature and hit start, the "CLOSE DOOR" indicator comes on and the oven light will not turn off again.

Any ideas what could be the problem?

Sounds like possibly a defective control board, that should be covered under warranty from KitchenAid.

Contact KitchenAid and let them know.

Jake

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Star Appliance Tech. 2 yrs. 1988-1990
Wards Appliance Tech. 11 yrs. 1990-2001
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I think you might be right.

I did a little exploring with my flashlight into the middle venting area where the blower was making the rattling noise. You can see back pretty far and actually see the blower running. I noticed that the door latch assembly has some wires going from it to the back near the blower. In fact, these wires were rubbing up against the blower fins. There was some slack, so I pulled the wires back toward me and away from the blower. Guess what? No more blower rattling noise. However, the wires are frayed where they were hitting the blower. I will bet this caused a short circuit and messed up part of the latch assembly switches or the control board itself.

Seems like all this could have been easily prevented if the manufacturer had secured the group of wires instead of leaving slack for them to get back toward the blower.

Does my assessment of the problem seem realistic?

Yes, that sounds about right.

Jake

__________________
Appliance Repair School 1987-1988
Star Appliance Tech. 2 yrs. 1988-1990
Wards Appliance Tech. 11 yrs. 1990-2001
Sears Appliance Tech. 4 yrs. 2001-Oct. 2005
Jake's Appliance Repair Nov. 2005-present

If you need more repair advice help on your appliance, click Here

Look-Up & Order Parts

Shop Home Appliances