Hi, the walking foot on my basic Brother died last November -- the front "frame" section that sits on the fabric just reared up in the air and wouldn't go down. Repair shop couldn't rejiggle it so I bought a new one ($50) and my problems started! Unlike my previous foot this one would slow down and not feed the fabric smoothly so that I ended up with knots underneath and lots of very very small stitches -- too small to ever unpick. After 2-3 weeks at repair shop and ($150) general service it was pronounced OK but when I tried to sew the same problem happened. Repairman finely declared that the problem was the older, thicker Coats thread I was using with an 80 needle, so used a 90 needle and it seemed to sew OK. Have decided to avoid the issue completely by only using a finer Gutterman thread as much as possible-- hard to do when I have a drawer full of inherited thread in every colour. I will never take a working walking foot for granted again!