I'm a professional long armer, but frankly am not familiar with the Babylock Crown Jewel so can't answer specifics on it. Most long arm machines will last a long time--they are commerical machines--or at least the brands I'm familiar with. I bought my Gammill Classic Plus (28" throat) used from someone that had a thriving long arm business prior to health issues. I paid $11,000--but that included a 14' table and about $3,000 of pantos, rulers, books, threads, tools, etc. So the price sounds good. BUT I'm wondering why she's selling if she's in the business and why she could not get the tension issues resolved--I would have thought that she would have been ready to show you the machine and have something on it for you to try and know the tension was set. That being said, it sounds like either a) there are some technical issues with the machine that are going to require a knowledgable service tech to resolve (and $$) or b) she never has learned how to really use the machine--being a long armer means also becoming pretty tech saavy! I think a way to figure which of these is the issue would be to check with her customers and ask to see the type of work the machine is capable of doing.