Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We had high hopes for this little wonder after our other waffle maker did not perform. At first we loved the crisp tasty waffles it made in about 2 and a half minutes. The timer was a little waffely though. Battery driven and oddly separate from the waffle maker. It was fairly useless. Yesterday it died in the middle of waffle-making. Took one out, put another in and nothing. Autopsy follows: Being a tinkerer, I wondered what was the cause of death. Could it be fixed, saved perhaps? A loose connection? A bad thermostat. I rounded up my screw driver set, voltmeter, and got to work. The bottom came off easily and revealed a circuitboard for the autonomous timer. No way it could be the problem. The rest of the wires led from the outlet wire into a couple of orange 'twisty' connectors and into the hinge assembly. A blue wire led out and over the other side to power the LED along with a ground. No issues so far, everything looked clean and happy. I took apart the top of the wafflemaker by unscrewing 4 screws in the waffle iron itself. The lid popped off easily. Instantly I noticed that unlike the majority of the wire sheathed with white insulated covering, the sheathing on the wires coming up from the hinge assembly was BROWNish. I examined the actual wire underneath but saw no obvious breaks or signs of burning. I set my voltmeter to stun (actually ohms) and measured the resistance across the entire heating coil assembly, thermostat included. It measured 6.9ohms which basically meant it was completing the circuit. For comparisons sake and to rule out a more devastating possible cause, I took the cover off the other side and examined the other heating coil. It was fine, and measured the same with my volt/ohm meter. By the way, measuring from the outlet wire showed the circuit as open or not complete. I did not have the desire to completely remove the wires and coils so I assume the wire leading from the orange twisty to the coil assembly is bad. I could possibly replace it but its probably not worth my time to take the entire assembly apart and rewire. Sad really. It was a great wafflemaker but I have no use for wafflemakers that do not last - especially since we only used it around once a month, usually less. I will likely contact the company with my story, but I don't expect my sympathy. Presto-Deado... RIP