As clt3 said, do try to keep your machine. My Kenmore is from the 60's and a repair man once told me they don't make them like that anymore and to never get rid of it....all metal parts.....today they're plastic. Your local Hancock or Jo-Ann's may be able to point you to a good repair person.

I have one of the older kenmore machines and it has been a wonderful machine. I still use it. I took it in to be cleaned and the guy told me to never get rid of it. It is mostly all metal unlike the ones today. My hubby bought it for me 30 some years ago for Christmas. The last time I took it in all it needed was to be oiled.

When our daughter graduated from college 25 years ago she wanted a sewing machine, too. A friend was selling her old Kenmore. We bought it for $50.00. She is still using it..it ha been a great machine.

Hope your daughter enjoys sewing. There is so much out there.

I too have one of these. I got it for a graduation present from my parents... I would not part with it for the world!. I have taken good care of it, kept it oiled and cleaned etc. If you lived in my area I would take a look at it for you...

The tension doesn't seem right though. I am wondering if we should find a repair place and have this one fixed up or just buy a new one for her

Give it to her, with a downloaded manual, and let her learn to maintain a sewing machine.

Usually a thorough cleaning and oiling - just all the long ignored maintenance - is all they need, maybe a small adjustment to the tension AFTER cleaning. Sitting unused makes them stiffen up.

The maintenance folks can fix the tension (though I like lazy_gardens' suggestion of downloading a repair manual and doing it herself). It's not phenomenally hard--theoretically you could change the tension yourself. And the cleaning (and even the changing of belts, if that were needed) is usually pretty straightforward. The manual could walk her through it.

I have a 12492 that I bought in 1983 or 1984; it's a great machine, still runs like a top. I think it was the last year they used metal parts (or close to it); when I realized it was going to change, I ran out and bought one.