Sal

Before you decide either way, check the vent. Two cycles to dry a load is the single most common symptom of a blocked or crushed vent hose, and it is free to check.

Pull the machine out, disconnect the duct, and look at the whole run to the outside including the flap on the wall. Lint packs into the elbows and behind the flap. I have seen a machine that everyone had written off run like new after ten minutes with a brush and a vacuum.

If the vent is clear and the element genuinely is dead, 180 on a twelve year old dryer is reasonable. Dryers are simple machines, the drum and motor outlast everything, and elements and thermostats are the normal wear parts. The rough rule I use is that repairing is worth it up to about half the replacement cost, and 180 against 600 is comfortably inside that.

If drying the mats does not fix it, check the drain under the windscreen where the wipers sit. Leaves block that channel, water backs up, and it finds its way into the cabin filter housing or the footwell. The tell is a damp carpet under the passenger side that people never notice because it is under a mat.

Press your hand flat into the carpet in both footwells. If it comes up damp, that is your route, and no amount of AC will fix it.

One more variable: the cut. Chuck is a big muscle group and some parts of it are much leaner than others. If your butcher gave you a piece from the leaner end, it will never pull the way a well marbled piece does, no matter how long you give it. Ask for chuck with visible fat running through it rather than the neatest looking piece in the case.

Fill level matters too. These machines are designed to run somewhere between half and two thirds full. Half a recipe in a big cooker sits in a thin layer with a lot of exposed hot wall, and a cooker crammed to the brim traps steam and stays wetter. If you are always cooking small amounts in a large machine, that is part of the pattern.

Counterpoint on size, since everyone is saying go smaller. If you batch cook specifically to fill the freezer, the bigger one is genuinely useful, and you just have to accept doing full recipes rather than half ones. I cook eight portions of chilli in one go in a large machine and freeze six. It is only a problem if you try to cook small amounts in it.

Your water supplier usually publishes hardness for your postcode, which saves guessing at the machine setting. Mine was two levels off the default and it made a visible difference the same week.