the machine i bought was brand new and they demo'd it in front of everyone and they also let us try it. I brought it especially for doing jeans and the material they had to try with was actual jean material and it was doubled and tripled and really worked. I have since hemmed several pairs of jeans on there and no problem doing it even my dh didn't believe it. I have used it for other things with no problems. I'm sorry to hear yours didn't work out good for you. Did you contact the manager of Singer about it? I had a Singer yrs ago and I was not happy with it but this one is different. They had three different machines and I bought the middle one. Maybe I was just lucky. Sue