All of a sudden my Maytag dryer stopped heating, although the drum was running fine. I took the front cover off and discovered that one wire to the heating element had overheated, charring a couple of inches of the insulation and causing the end of the wire to fall away from the connector. The circuit breaker never tripped.

It would be simple to put the connector (or a new one) on the end of the wire and start her back up, but I'm worried about why this happened in the first place. Is there a failure mode of a heating element that can cause it to draw too much current? (It doesn't seem to me that overheating from, say, a clogged vent could cause this particular kind of problem.)

Any suggestions gladly accepted.

Thanks very much. I checked the heating element resistance and it was right on target, with no path to ground. Then, as I prepared to repair the power wire, I noticed that the connector had a very loose fit to the spade on the heater -- almost no grasp. I gently tightened it up with pliers, soldered the connector onto the wire, hooked it up, and tried it. Works fine!

This could explain my wife's complaint for months that the dryer didn't seem to be drying correctly. The heating element wasn't getting full power, and instead we were heating up the connector. Finally it just gave up.

Happy camper here. Thanks again.