Is a gas oven igniter really this expensive for a Bosch?

Did this exact swap on my Bosch last fall and you're right, the dealer price is mostly markup. The part itself is a generic ceramic igniter that a half dozen factories make. Bosch just stamps thier number on it and the 'updated replacement' listing is where they bury the profit.

What I did was measure the old one first. Length of the ceramic block, spacing between the mounting holes, and where the wires come off it. Then I ordered a universal igniter with the same amp rating, which matters because a gas valve needs the right amount of current to open. If the replacement draws way less, the valve may never click open even though the element glows cherry red and you'll swear you got a bad part. Check the rating on the old one or in the parts diagram before you buy. The install itself is genuinely a half hour job. Unplug the range, shut the gas valve behind it, pull the oven floor and the burner tube cover, two screws hold the igniter bracket, cut the old wires and splice the new ones with high temp ceramic connectors. Don't use regular wire nuts from the hardware store, they'll cook. Also keep the gas shut off til everythign's back togather and sniff around the connection after you relight it the first time. One warning from my own install: match the mounting style. Mine came with a bracket and a metal cage option, and I used whatever matched the original setup. The igniter position relative to the burner ports actually matters for how the gas lights, so don't improvise there.

So no, you're not missing something special about the part. It's a consumable that costs a few bucks to make. Between the universal options and a little patience with the splicing, you shoud land way under that quote.

One thing I'd seperate out before you order anything: the cooktop needing several clicks is probly not the same problem as the oven. The surface burners spark off a module and the oven uses that glow bar setup, so a weak oven igniter wouldn't explain lazy lighting upstairs. On mine the slow ignition turned out to be the burner heads sitting slightly off their seats after a deep clean, and reseating them fixed it in two minutes. Might be worth wiggling each cap and checking the little electrode gap while you've got the drawer out anyway, since you're allready in there.

Same story here but with a wrinkle. I bought a universal one first and it lit fine for two weeks, then started taking forever to open the valve again. Turns out the cheap one I grabbed had a lower draw than the original, exactly the trap mentioned above. So if you go that route, actualy check the amp rating on the box before you install it, not after. I ended up searching the generic part number online instead of going through the dealer site and found the same thing for about a third of the price. Took some digging through parts diagrams to match the number, but it fit perfect and has been going two years now.

This thread is making me second guess what happened at our place last winter. The glowing stick in our oven lit up orange like normal but the oven still wouldn't get hot, and I assumed it was something way more expensive like the brain of the oven. Repair guy changed that little part and it was fixed in twenty minutes. So it can look fine and still be too weak to open the gas, which I never whould have guessed. Does that match what you're seeing, where it glows but no heat? Also is the giant quote just for the part or does it include the guy coming out? That might explain some of the sticker shock.

A cheap multimeter ended the guessing game on mine. The igniter glowed fine but the oven stayed cold, so before ordering anything I measured the amp draw through the circuit and it was way under spec. That told me the part was weak, not dead, which is why it looked okay to the eye. Also worth knowing your range's full model number is usually on a sticker inside the door frame or behind the bottom drawer, and searching that pulls up the correct replacement instead of the generic listings that half of them don't match.