I bought my Viking #1 plus in 1996 new, at the time it was the top-of-the-line machine for Viking. I've not a put a whole lot of hours on it, I've never had a problem. A unscrupulous Viking authorized repair store told me when I took it in to be cleaned, that the Mother board was about to go out and did I want to trade up....I couldn't afford at the time a new Mother board @ $500 plus labor. DH did a thorough cleaning and 7 years later it's still working flawlessly. (I found a new Viking dealer to deal with)
Last summer I purchased via eBay the Viking #1 which doesn't have the embroidery which I only used on my 1+ I think one time, I hated babysitting the machine and changing threads.
I took the eBay purchased machine #1 in to authorized Viking dealer/repair 2.5 hours away but his reputation is over the moon great! He deemed the eBay purchased machine pristine so I have two wonderful Vikings. The dealer/repair guy also confirmed what others have said on this thread, that the newer machines are not as well made as the older ones. He's repaired Vikings for 30 years, He went on to say there is a lot more plastic and a lot of the parts are Chinese made.