My advice would be that if you are going to be tearing it apart to replace an auger, motor, or controller that you should replace the igniter rod and be done with it. They don't last very long and you have it for five years and use it quite a bit. It is also not very expensive. You can keep the one you pull out to use in an emergency or just manually ignite pellets in the fire pot, get a good fire going, and then turn on the controller and it should stay lit.