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How I Fixed My Panasonic Microwave Oven and 4 Options I Considered

Our over the counter Microwave oven Panasonic NNP994SFR was recently
giving us some grief. It would work and then on the second attempt it
wouldn't. I found multiple workarounds to get it working but it hasn't
been consistent. I found it sometimes works if I used Sensor Heating
instead of using the timer. I also discovered that I could get the
unit to work sometimes if I reduced the powerlevel from the default
10. I also thought that spinning the disc where you sit food inside
the microwave oven worked but it didn't always. I gave up and decided
I had these four options:

1) Is it still under warranty? If it is then get it fixed.
This unit was purchased May 2007 so I had low hopes. I checked the
user manual and it showed 2 years parts plus 3 years megatron part
coverage. I may be able to get some coverage if the megatron was the
issue. We went to The Brick and asked for a copy of our invoice from
2007.

2) If there is no warranty, receive out-of-warranty quotes from
authorized Panasonic repair shops.
I went online to http://www.panasonic.ca to contact support and find
out what I can do given the symptoms I'm experiencing with my
microwave oven and they said to get the unit to the closest repair
shop. I called one of them and they said that it starts at $65
diagnostic fee. Parts are separate and I was hoping some parts were
still covered in #1.

3) Purchase a new one.
I called our trusted sales representative at The Brick and asked for a
quote for an equivalent replacement model. He found Panasonic
NNP994SFR for about $317. This was comparable to the last one but ETA
is 2-3 weeks so I'm a little worried about what we would use in the
meantime.

4) Ask an expert.
I did do that in item #2 but didn't get anywhere. What I did was asked
my brother-in-law what he would recommend and he said these ingenious
few words - "have you unplugged and restarted the unit?" I thought,
what would it hurt? We moved the unit to another power outlet and lo
and behold, it worked. I'm not sure if the unit just needed a reboot
or if it's the wall outlet, but my issue has been resolved. It's been
working for 2 days in row so am crossing my fingers. Thanks to my
brother-in-law Philip for suggesting the reboot. He saved me over $300
and many sleepless nights.

Moral of the story is: ask family or friends for advice first.

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