gas-tra-tion : the frustration experienced when servicing a poorly designed gas appliance

I installed this GE gas cook top seven years ago. Recently the automatic ignition system failed and we have been lighting the burners manually. Today I set out to repair the problem. What should have taken an hour or two turned into an all day affair and unresolved outcome. In order to access the electronic ignition module, the most likely source of the problem, you must first gain access to the inside of the unit. This involves removing the range from the counter top, releasing two screws and the five burner tubes. When I attempted to loosen the final burner tube it would not budge. All the others had come out easily so I continued to apply more torque. Eventually the tube began to rotate but not because it was backing out of the casting below. Instead the casting had broken free of its mount and was rotating in place, wrapping the associated gas lines around itself destroying the assembly and associated control valve. To make matters worse, with no possibility of removing the final tube, access to the interior and any hopes of a repair are out of the question. If it were just a matter of replacing the unit with a new one this story would have a happy albeit expensive ending. Even though our kitchen island counter top has a standard size cutout for the range, it is also equipped with a telescoping side draft exhaust system which sits flush along the back edge. This creates a dimensional constraint on the cook top rear flange which as luck would have it does not conform to any model currently available on the market. It will now be necessary to cut a larger opening in the one and a half inch thick slab of granite along the already narrow front edge to fit a replacement. Not a great note on which to end the year.