Cuisinart Slow Cooker, ticking time bomb?

Rainy day in San Diego, a novelty to be sure.  Decided it was a day for chili.  Stopped by Ralphs and the tri-tips were on special, tri-tip chili, why not?  Came home cubed and seared the meat, caramelized an onion and off to my Cuisinart Slow Cooker and I was off.  The point of a slow cooker is to throw your meal in and take off.

What I did not know is that my slow cooker was slowly cooking itself.   I returned home to find the cooker was not cooking, no light, no one home.  Meal partially cooked, company on the way; ah what to do, but the uncooked meal is only the beginning of the story.

I hate throwing things away.   Especially looking at this rather large, small appliance wondering if it could be repaired and spare it an eternity in the landfill.   The cord would no longer retract so I started there and what I found was shocking.

The retractable cord had overheated, shorting out, and ultimately failed with melted wires and completely shorted out connectors.  This was not spontaneous, clearly my slow cooker had slowly been failing with a faulty design since day 1.

What you are seeing are corroded wires that were continually overheating until they finally broke off free of their connectors.  On the white retractable cord spool, the power cord had melted, along with the plastic housing.  The yellow disk, which should be white, suffered long-term heat damage and is where the unit is fed from the retractable cord, it too suffered long-term heat damage.  The saving grace is these failed, shorted out, burned components were all housed in sheet metal.

Maybe I missed the recall, sadly,  no nothing out there.  This UL listed device manufactured by a brand I trusted was a ticking time bomb.

If you own a Cuisinart slow cooker with a retractable cord, you may want to see if it is cooking itself.  An inspection is simple to perform and requires removing only one screw.  Pop the cover to the retractable cord housing and take a look, better then burning your house down.

According to Consumer Reports, Kitchen Fire Safety, fires from defective appliances are on the rise, with millions of defective products on recall list.  This Cuisinart clearly should be recalled, but was not.