I have a number of vintage machines that are perfect work horses that I use all the time. My oldest is a 1905 treadle that does the job all the time and great when there are power outages and allows me to stay busy day in and day out. Then there are the Featherweights and several others that are made with metal parts and will out live a number of my other machines I am sure of that. I have had 2 brothers machines that have failed and I have to figure out if they are worth repairing. Right now I am using my 1984 Janome and it works great! It has a hiccup once in awhile but nothing big and at keeps on going. So it is going now for 36 year. IMO a good 20-30 years should be the life time of a good machine if made in the 80+'s because of plastic parts. Newer machines I am not sure of and my vintage machines will last forever with good care.