I have a bit of a different plan for my machine's maintenance. I bought a Bernina 440QE in 2007 and I opted for the extra 3 years (in addition to factory's one year) service maintenance agreement offered by the store where I purchased it. (This store is nearby and has an excellent reputation.) This year, when the 4 years was up, I renewed the SMA for another 3 years. I can bring the machine in as often as I want for a cleaning and checkup, and if anything does go wrong I will not have to pay anything. I clean and oil regularly, but I also drop the machine off every time we go out of town for a week or more (at least twice a year). I believe the 440 is a very reliable machine, but things can go wrong with any machine and with all the electronics in there it could very well be expensive to fix, so I plan on keeping my service agreement in effect. Part of the agreement is that the cost of the SMA won't increase, ever.