The wattage tip is a good one, the higher wattage makes it better for heavy doughs etc. without overheating the motor. I'm glad to see someone mentioned the rubber beater, I've not seen one and am going to look into it. Also, I think there is an adjustment you can make to bring the beater as close as possible to the bowl without actually scraping it. As I said mine is 35 years old and still going strong, the only thing that happened was the knobby nipple thing on the back of the bowl fell off and I had to have it soldered back on. I've heard newer machines are not what they use to be so maybe try to find one on ebay or craigslist etc.