New oven not fit for purpose - advice or help appreciated!

John_

SusanBen said:

Hi.  Bought a new Indesit fan oven online from AO.  Oven does not cook food properly within suggested timescales on food packaging.  Contacted AO, they sent an Indesit engineer who said oven was operating correctly, as per his thermometer.  Cooked fish fingers in oven last night - haute cuisine in our house, Ah tell ya :-) - packaging said cook for max 12 mins, we had to cook for 18 mins before they were cooked properly.  Any suggestions or advice as to how we go forward would be appreciated, many thanks.  PS.  We're in Scotland, if that makes any difference to the relevant consumer laws/rights.

Use a higher temperature than it says on the packet, or use an oven thermometer. Every oven’s different, and you just need to learn how to get the results that you want from yours.

SusanBen

Wow, thanks @avoidtheupsidedownbottles @zoob @hollydays @Petriix @John_ for all your responses!  Yes, we've tried cooking at the temp recommended for electric ovens (as opposed to fan ovens) and increasing the cooking times but it's definitely a case of hit & miss... The thermometer's on order and been despatched, so at least we'll know ourselves what temp the oven's reaching.  Will let you know how we get on.  Once again, many thanks :-)

SusanBen

@zoob - got another query, if you don't mind, given you're familiar with Indesit ovens.  The indicator light cycles rapidly ie. when temp's reached, it goes out for three minutes, then comes back on for a minute & thirty seconds - it seems likely a fairly rapid heating/re-heating cycle, is this normal?

SusanBen

Spoke to AO, another engineer's coming out to review - will let you all know what happens...  Thanks again.

Petriix

SusanBen said:

@zoob - got another query, if you don't mind, given you're familiar with Indesit ovens.  The indicator light cycles rapidly ie. when temp's reached, it goes out for three minutes, then comes back on for a minute & thirty seconds - it seems likely a fairly rapid heating/re-heating cycle, is this normal?

That's pretty normal for any oven. It really doesn't sound like it's faulty. It may have an inaccurate thermostat, but the regular cycling shows that it's definitely doing the right sort of thing.

I've had four different fan ovens over the last 6 years (three different houses and one replacement) and they all cooked things a bit differently. The current one is the newest and probably the worst in that the fan is a bit less effective at creating an even temperature throughout so the top is obviously hotter than the middle. It was installed by the previous owner of my current house and wouldn't have been my choice, but I've learnt to live with its idiosyncrasies. I won't replace it until it fails as it is perfectly passable as is, but I'd prefer something a bit better quality ultimately.

SusanBen

Thanks, everyone!  Engineer visited yesterday and, long story short, could find no fault.  He offered further diagnostic testing but we declined on the basis that the cost would have been over half the cost of the oven... 
Think we're just going to have to suck it up & see how we get along.  On the plus side, thermometer's just arrived, so that'll give us an additional indicator as to how the oven performs. 
Thanks very much, everyone, for all your help & advice - it's much appreciated. 
Take care.