Britannia range cooker 19 years old - worth repairing?

[poorcook]

Looking for some advice please! I have a Britannia dual fuel range cooker, the main oven doesn't work well now (fan setting seems okay but bottom element doesn't heat up properly on conventional setting). It's 19 years old so I am torn between paying £250 for a service plus (lots!) extra for replacement parts, or accepting it is time to replace it. I've already spent hundreds on repairing it a couple of years ago, but any new parts will only have a 12 month warranty, so is it better to put the money towards a new cooker now?

Could you find an independant repair person to do the repairs cheaper? (£250 sounds like authorised customer service). A 19 year old britannia is likely to be significantly better built than a modern range cooker and from what you write all it needs is a new element. I would repair. A similar quality new range cooker will cost at least £3000.

We replaced out Britannia dual fuel last year after the door fell off and I was quoted an astronomical amount to fix. It was about 13 yrs old . Ovens were dodgy for years .

We bought a new induction stoves range and it's fabulous.

Britain are made in Italy which surprised me - bloke at shop told me they've never been made in Uk , not sure if that's reliable or not though.

I wouldn't buy a britannia again.

Britain = Britannia

Get a new one. Good money after bad!

Thanks for your comment madwoman, I have been trying to find an independent repair person locally but no luck so far. The £250 service charge is indeed for the authorised Britannia engineer, but it does cover a complete safety check, and I actually got a mailshot through the post today offering a £50 reduction if I book before March, so I am thinking I will get it checked out and have the element replaced. At the very least it should put off the decision to replace it for another year!

ggirl, we actually took the door off the main oven yesterday because it wasn't closing properly anymore, it took my husband 3 minutes to take it off, then another 3 hours to get it back! It does close much better now, but I feel I am always waiting for the next thing to go wrong with it! Thanks for your recommendation for the Stoves range, that's helpful, I have looked at them online, and they do seem to have good reviews.

BubblesBubdy, sorry, x-post, you may well be right, I will call Britannia and find out the cost of a new oven element before doing anything else, but if I can keep it going for another year for a few hundred pounds then it may be worth it, as the cost of replacing it will be significant!

I think if it is 19 years old and has done stirling service you may not get much more out of it without it going wrong again. The one I have seen (my DSis has one) I did not think the build quality was fantastic. More style over substance.

I have two top elements for britannia cookers neither of which fit our cooker ( britannia kept sending the wrong one but didn't want them back. one is SP-BZ606105 and I think fits the wide single oven cooker. The other has no part number but is smaller but too wide for our double oven unit. If anyone wants them try [email protected]