What he means by prohibitive is for the labor and part, you're looking at about $150. You can buy 4 or 5 of those machines on CL for that. And honestly, if you love the machine so much, why don't you start looking for one? I bet you see someone list the same model in the near future. We have Kenmores on our local CL constantly. And I bet you can get one for much less than repairing yours. It will be the same machine and you will be happy once again:>