I purchased this toaster 15 November 2011 .. price was good although on arrival the product felt cheap and flimsy. We are an older couple who live alone and constantly diet so this machine has had very little, very light usage. After 8 months the mechanism that holds the bread down failed, clearly a manufacturing defect. The arrogant response from Russell Hobbs is its my responsibility and at my cost to return it to them to have it repaired, problem is I no longer have the packaging and courier costs are 50% of the buy price, it is now out with the trash where it clearly belongs. My advice to avoid shabby products and equally shoddy service is avoid the flimsy rubbish that the Russell Hobbs brand is now associated with.