T-Fal Supergrill G01-M not "Sizzling" anymore!

[edy]

Hi folks,

My wife uses a T-Fal Supergrill Model G01-M once in a while to sizzle up some breaded chicken breasts. Mmmmnm. Looks something like this:

https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/t-fal-super-grill-grill/6000196268580



Anyways, yesterday she was trying to make up a bunch of chicken and it took 3 freakin' hours!!!!!     It was getting hot, but it was not "sizzling" like she remembers it in previous cooking. It is rated at 1800W, minimum 15A circuit (120Vx15A). The knob on the front seems to control a thermostat and when temperature is below set-point, red light turns on indicating current is passing through the element. When it reaches the set-point, the red light turns off.



Interestingly, there are these two large "pans" that go on top of the grill which are removable. They cover the heating elements. I noticed on one side (near the temperature control actually) there is a "pad" that has a spring underneath it. When you clip in the grilling pans, it seems it puts pressure on that pad, pushes it down and likely is what tells the unit what temperature the pan is at. It makes thermal contact with the pad which I assume is connected to the thermostat. Otherwise, the unit would have no way to know what temperature the removable grill pans are at. The elements themselves do not contact the grills directly but sit about 1-2mm underneath.

So a couple of problems here. One, if the pan wasn't clipped in fully, it wouldn't make contact with that pad and would likely give the unit a LOWER temperature reading than what the pan is actually at, so the thermostat would actually try to make the unit hotter. In this case it was the other way around... it was not as sizzling hot. I thought maybe my wife didn't properly clip in those grilling pans.

The second thing we noticed (although it didn't make a difference to the pan heat) is that at first we had the unit plugged in with an extension cord (Ikea grounded). The extension cord was fine, but the plug of the T-fal was burning hot (where it plugged into the extension cord). I thought maybe something was going on with the extension cord, and we decided to plug the T-Fal directly into the wall socket. The plug did not get as hot, but the unit itself still didn't get "sizzling" either. 

So I'm at a point where I want to open the thing up... before I do, I may have my wife try it out again and see what happens. It could be the thermostat calibration is off. My guess is the knob is just a screw that pushes on a bimetal spring switch and thereby the bimetal needs more or less heat to have it "curve" enough to bridge the contact or not. If, on the other hand, I just make the T-fal run full-on 100% (red light on) and see that there is not enough heat... then something must be wrong with the elements. I have a thermocouple but I have to see what rating it is at, I don't want to kill it. I have no idea what temperature this thing is supposed to be to get "sizzling".

Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks!

NOTE:  I just read the bottom, it says in BBQ mode don't use more than 1 hour. Then it says 50 Minutes "ON" in a Two-Hour Period.  Huh???

EDIT:  Since I posted, I opened up the unit, confirmed there is a bimetal type switch that is set by a screw-like mechanism... seems intact. I've turned it on and testing it now, to make sure after I put it back together I didn't mess anything up... Basically looks something like this: