To make a long story short......

I got a Singer Serger about 4-5 years ago as a Christmas gift from my parents. It's a basic, no frills serger. I has worked ok for all this time, but then I noticed last weekend when I was serging fabrics to prewash that there is now a little piece missing (the first thread guide). Called a bunch of local repair shops and they either want $$ for me to even have them look at it, or have told me that's a part they can't order and to contact the mfgr. So, I tried calling Singer last week. Spent over an hour on hold only to have been disconnected because they're customer service lines are only open until 4 pm CT. Apparently, even if you're on hold, they shut the lines down and you're just disconnected out of the blue. Not a happy camper! Decided to try and send them an email to their customer service address. Got the standard "we've received your request and you should hear back within 48 hours" response. Well... didn't hear anything back until yesterday. The email I received from them basically told me I'm out of luck as that is not a replaceable part (which I knew, but had hoped they could maybe still help me out) and to contact one of my local Singer dealers to purchase a new machine!!! UGH!!! So, got nowhere with them.

The piece I'm missing is causing major tension problems with my machine. My dad (the engineer) took a look at it, we tried a few things, but still can't get it to work properly. We've literally tried just about everything, but nothing seems to work. I can make it work if I hold onto the thread before it goes into the machine to give it some tension, but it makes the sewing that much more difficult trying to do it one handed.

My dilemma is that, especially after the crummy response I got from Singer, Hubby wants me to just go ahead and buy a new one. I did a bunch of research and all I really need is a standard one... not one of the fru-fru fancy ones. Found one that has great reviews on Amazon (a Brother), but I feel guilty about buying it. It's not like my current one doesn't work at all... just takes some finagling to get it work right. It's $200... and Hubby is pressuring me to buy it.... but I keep talking myself out of it. His thinking is.... buy a new one, put the old one up on Craig's List and get what I can get for it... someone may buy it for parts.

What would you do???