Product review (1 stars): Universal poor oven appliance quality
We are shopping for a new oven.  We currently have an Amana Caloric RST399UW gas range bought in 1996.  And I thought it was chintzy!  All the new ovens Ive researched, including the one that is the subject of this review, are even more so.  For example, visit any appliance department or store and what you find are exterior oven parts that cannot withstand normal cooking temperatures.  Things like touch sensitive control panels are constructed with thin plastic that depresses excessively just with the touch of a finger on silkscreened control images that are bound to wear off, either through excessive heat, or by the overly cautionary instructions that come in the Users Manual to prevent damage to the plastic and control images.  The burner control knobs suffer from the same poor quality with silkscreened burner levels.  When these types of glass panel controls were first introduced they were silkscreened on the backside protected from cleaning and oven and burner heat.  I'm basing the glass silkscreened control panel on our 1980 microwave, an Amana Touchmatic II that has such a glass control panel and looks like the day it was manufactured.

They used to make fun of the Soviet era Yugo auto.  These current day cooking ranges are of the same quality level.

What seems to be going on here is planned failure of oven parts in a very short period of time compared to the way ovens used to be made and were capable of lasting for many years.

Supposedly the captains of industry were going to relegate engineering and design to this country and reduce the cost of manufacture in places like China.  Obviously they have failed, or deliberately planned, to reduce quality in the quest for profit as they employ their bean counters in pursuit of that end while availing themselves of Chinese prison labor.  They must all be getting together in their country clubs of choice to plan how they are going to line their pockets primarily by reducing quality while produdt failures will create more future sales.  American brands USED to be valued worldwide, but not with the current crop of corporate officers in control who appear to have international reach, because even foreign brands have the same poor quality.

Our solution to this is to repair our Amana Caloric (ignitors and burner control knobs).  The parts are still available and cost a small fraction to repair in comparison to buying a new oven.  Incidentally an appliance repair service we contacted suggested a new oven was a better choice.  Apparently this is so (for them) given the expected service calls in the near future that these ovens will require.