I was wondering what would happen to them if one left them in the oven during the self-cleaning cycle.

I had to go look at my racks to see if they are chrome. They are not. I wonder if they used to be and I just never noticed I burned it off? With me, that's possible! I never slide mine unless I'm changing their position, so I wouldn't even know if they used to slide more smoothly.

Now I'm really wondering about me!

I use the self cleaning feature exclusively. Usually I run it on a very cold night in winter. The heat from it helps to warm the house.

Spraying anything irritates my allergies, so I never clean the oven manually.

I vote for trying the self-cleaning. It works great. afterward I put aluminun foil on the bottom and it is easy to just replace when it is dirty.
Fall is coming and with the cool weather maybe you can open some window to let fresh air circulate.
good luck.

Do all ovens smell during the process? When I've used mine, it took a while to get rid of that smell.

I use cleaner in mine.

I have heard that if you put a dish of ammonia in a closed oven overnight it will soften almost everything and you can just wipe it out.

My appliance repair person told me that these "cleaning cycles" on stoves destroy the electronics on the stove. When I moved into our new home, there was a 6 year old gas range, nice shape, reasonable amount of features. I had trouble with it not wanting to light and the smell of gas. That always scares me! When the repairman came out, he said that he thought that the seller of the home had cleaned the oven several times to have it clean when the home was sold, and that cleaning had harmed the electronics. He also said to get a new stove and if I wanted it to last, to make sure I cleaned it with regular oven cleaner and not use the cleaning cycle on the stove. I did him one better; I bought a range without the cleaning feature on it. Cost less, and no burning up of the electronics!

Thanks everyone. I'm going to go the old fashioned oven cleaner, and a whole pile of elbow grease. route. Just as a note, I had not planned on using the oven cleaner WITH the self cleaning feature, but instead of.

Seems like a design flaw if that was the case.

If the manufacturer wanted to sell more stoves - it would seem counterproductive. If I was a buyer, I would go for a different brand.