I love the Stir Crazy. My first one lasted over 15 years. The second one was pretty good, but lasted 5 years. Lately I've bought two in a row that didn't work well. All of them failed in the same way: the heat didn't work properly. The first one stopped heating altogether, but the others had a problem with the thermostat. If you look inside, there's a part that is designed to stop heating if it gets too hot. It seems to be stopping the heat too soon - leaving lots of unpopped kernels. Sometimes it does very well, sometimes less than 1/3 of the kernels, all from the same bag of popcorn, so I know it's not the grade of corn.