Unplug the stove!!! then try turning the breakers on. That will tell you if its in the wall or the stove wiring. DOn't want to fool around if there's a wiring problem. Fires happen..

I have a gas range so do not have the large four prong receptacle you will for an electric range. I do however have an electric dryer and I suspect the wall receptacle for that is much the same. If so, make sure the breaker for the stove is OFF and open up the wall receptacle for the stove if you can. I strongly suspect the wiring is held on by screw terminals inside there. Check those to ensure they're tight, nothing to lose here as long as you make sure the power is off. There's not much that can go wrong with wiring inside the wall unless it's been overheated or it's been damaged through some careless renovation. The connection points at the breaker and the plug are the weak spots in any wiring circuit. Good luck, I hope the new range solves the problem, but if it's just a loose connection, that's a large investment, although sounds like a new range is a good idea anyhow if two coils have gone.

Tonight I flipped the breakers back on with the stove unplugged and they did not trip so the last piece before the range arrives is to inspect that wall socket as described. Thanks all.

Problem is in the stove :D

Last week I took apart the face plate off the electrical wall socket and sure enough one pole was blackened and sooty. I removed that wire and 5 of the 6 copper inner wires fell out leaving a single 1mm strand of copper. Either the original electrician cut through the wires when he stripped the insulation off or when he screwed down the wire the nut cut through.

Ok so I replaced the wall socket and re-strip and reseated the wires but as soon as the range was plugged in the breaker trips! So either they bad wiring caused the range to be defective or it was a coincidence.

New range arrived today and it works fine. Self clean too. :wink: Thank you all for the great advice and help.

All right!!
The missus will be happy with a self clean. But what a way to get a new stove.
Glad it has finally worked out for you

So the wire that was blackened looked ok after stripping it back a few inches? Sounds like there might have definitely been some overheated copper there. Hopefully it only affected the immediate area around the wall socket. Heavy guage wire like that can be a bugger to work with. I'm actually surprised it's stranded wire, I would have thought it would be solid conductor. Which one was it, a hot or the neutral?

Scary stuff when you find somthing like that, it could easily have been an electrical fire. Good thing it turned out ok and the circuit breakers did their job.

The wire was only blackened a bit where it contacted the screw down connector(pole?) but the connector itself and the surrounding area was sooty. It was the red wire.

well if your main breaker is tripping that is generally caused by a line to line short circuit, if one line is shorted or overloaded then it would simply cause the one breaker to trip (40A). The reason for breakers tripping is sensing the temperature of the wire via a bi metalic strip inside that will open the circuit should either condition be met. Anyhow the reason that any conductor 8 or larger is stranded is because electricity travels mainly around the surface of the conductor (skin effect) and the more individual wires the more actual surface area a conductor has (all cables have the same awg size above 8 just more strands are added for larger size cables.) Also another wonderful reason they strand wire is because it actually makes it substantially easier to bend ( just imagine bending a piece of solid copper the size of a pencil) anyhow not to get off topic but if your new stove still has problems tripping the breaker try loosening the clamps that actually hold the conductor in the box, as well as replace the actual stove receptacle and breaker. And if at all possible get a clamp on ammeter and open your panel with all coils on and see what each phase is actually drawing. Hope this helps.