Joe,
Thanks for the reply. Your comment that
Unfortunately if the appliance is 5 years old then it's almost lived it's full life and maybe just needs to be replaced.
Does not give me much hope because all the appliances are coming up on five years. I've had a lot of appliances over a lot of years, and a five-year life is certainly not what I have experienced.
Are we spiraled down to manufacturing
everything like GM did under Roger Smith? (I'm a veteran of the R Smith era, with 4 cars between 1975 and 1988, each worse than the last. I'm a Toyota guy since then, and all my children stick to Honda.) THEY'RE ALL AMERICAN CARS! I don't feel very sorry for either the Big Three or for the UAW, but it looks like they're all going to get a LOT of my money.
RPM suggested I get an IR thermometer-gun. I spent $65 for one about a month after I started trying to use the GE smoothtop. It doesn't do me a damm bit of good - the stove careens off to its own temperature as it wishes, and I still can't do much about it.
Mike