The first step is to establish your budget. What is the max you want to pay for a machine? This eliminates a lot of machines. If your budget is a max of $200, then a Brother from Walmart is probably your best bet. I would buy a Brother over a Singer any day.

If you want a great machine for piecing and not for machine quilting you might find a great bargain at a thrift store for $20, vintage mechanical machines last a long time.

For me brother/babylock and juki would be my first choice simply because you can get a great machine without shelling out a lot of money and they sew great. My walmart brother SQ-9050 sews through anything and has always sewn beautifully. It is about 4 years never one issue still sews like a champ. personally I have never gone to any of the shows looking for machines so don't know whats available. Almost every brand should have something in different spectrums of price worth seeing. I have sewn on singer, brother, babylock, viking, and bernina and still love my brothers and have loyally stuck with them or babylock if amazingly by chance you get one cheaper than a brother as I did almost 6 years ago on my first high end before I upgraded. I could go on and on about my dreamweaver but not sure what your budget is so don't want to suggest things that maybe you are not interested in

I'll second the Brother PRW-420. At $400 it's equipped with all the bells and whistles - thread cutter, auto threader, needle down and a great straight stitch and at 16 lbs it's fairly light and easy to take along to classes etc. Not picky about thread or needles and does a nice job FMQ.

Im going to really look into trying test runs on some these machines. I had called Singer this morning and she said it could be an internal problem and a tension problem for my machine, so that was the bad news this morning. But to buy one its gonna have to wait a bit as this morning I got some good news . I will be moving into my apt. soon so that means some extra expenses.
I really want to Thank Everyone for your help and suggestions.
I will let you know when I decide to buy my new machine.

I love my janome. I hope to upgrade some day. I really want the 15000

I have a Bernina 180 that that i take where ever I go. and my cpa machine goes with me also. I sew on a Bernina 550 at home. I love Berninas.

I finally learned that "the one that is the most expensive with the most bells and whistles" is not always the best choice for me.

I also learned long ago that rinky-dink, el cheapo (as in poor quality) is not a good choice, either.

Any machine made by Brother. They are an easy machine to learn, instruction book is very easy to use, and they are durable. Prices can start at approx. $150 and go up from there to the top of the line machines at over $1000. If you will be taking it to classes, these machines travel real well. I shipped my low end Walmart Brother machine across the country from Washington state to Texas, under a Greyhound, twice, and never had any issues. I have sewn thin leather and vinyl with both machines and as long as I use the correct needle, it works like a dream.

Establish a budget, determine what you need in a machine, shop around.

Me, I am old school; I don't sew anything but quilts so fancy stitches are not a requirement. You might like a self threading needle. Other than that...
I sew on a 1970s Bernina 830. The back up is a 1960s Elna Super. If and when the Bernina falls apart (I'll probably be long gone from this earth), I'll buy another.

I know this doesn't help much but just figure out what you need, buy the most solid machine you can find and run it into the ground.

tim in sanjose