Greetings! With this being Thanksgiving, this problem has been exacerbated so
before I write the company I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Five or so years ago I bought a new electric range of middle-of-the-line
quality and with as few fancy features as possible (I want it to heat food, not
pilot a spaceship ;-). Prior to that time, in my entire life, the only time a
stove ever broke was the thermostat going bad in the oven of a VERY old stove.
Stoves in my mind don't break so I figured I'd have my new one for a very long
time. (I dislike posting brand names on The Eternal UseNet, so lets just say
the repair guys of this brand supposedly play a lot of solitaire...)

....However, I find myself disrupting their card game. I have had to have
"switches" (?) behind the burner knob controls replaced twice (one under
warranty, once out of warranty to the tune of $170). What happens is a nasty
sparking sound comes from behind the knob while the burner is on and sounds
like something has shorted out or is getting ready to. Makes one afraid of fire
so you stop using that burner. It's happened with two different burners and now
the second one is going again in the same way. Looking at another $170 and no
good explanation why this is happening repeatedly, it seems to me my best bet
is to express my displeasure with the unit to the manufacturer and replace the
entire stove with a completely different brand.

The reason I'm posting is I'd like to make sure I'm not missing something here
before I register a complaint with the company. Is this normal on today's
stoves? Why would a stove do this? Did they just get a batch of defective
switches and now those are swirling around the industry? Is this something like
my earlier post on faucet seat washers -- you just can't get good parts
anymore?

Thanks for any insights you might have....

DT