I know why it rates so poorly - shame on you Sunbeam! – I have had my machine for a long time, and like others here put it aside because of the issues that are again talked about here in these pages. I decided to want to make Ice cream again - and to revisit the GL8200. The motor unit is actually typical in power of all similar and cheaper ice cream machines - including the $20 dollar cheapie I bought from Kmart. The rating is a typical 12Watts, but is geared down to produce a lot of torque and low Revolutions per minute for the task of churning the ice cream. Mine, like others here was always really noisy, (more so than the Cheepie above) and unable to do the job of churning, and since the warranty had long expired - I decided to find out why, I dismantled the motor unit, and delved into the gearbox - I was a little surprised at what I found, i.e. they forgot to install a steel shaft for one of the gears - this means that as the motor load increased the gear would be pushed against the housing and grind its heart out - I was feeling really smug and happy with myself having found an easy solution - i.e. fit a 38mm x 3 mm stainless steel shaft - reassembled it but it did not run at all - so dismantled again to see what was wrong - Now the shame on Sunbeam - I found that the gear was poorly made - eccentric shaft hole - and with the shaft installed, it would bind completely, and never be able to rotate - so it seems that their inventive way of solving the problem (instead of getting the gear re-made accurately - a 5 cent part at best) they just left the shaft out completely - this allowed the crooked gear to rotate (at least a little). Now to be honest - it might not have been Sunbeam in Australia that left that part out - I am confident that Sunbeam would have had this machine made O/S but the Sunbeam technicians and engineers in Australia could not have been unaware of this faulty part - even if they hoped only a few people would have received the faulty appliances - they should have been upfront and recalled them. I used to only buy Sunbeam products due to their reputation - not any more - I have lost my faith. I hope to attach photos and a short video showing some of what I mentioned above. So in short - there is a very logical and simple reason why this ice cream maker has so many poor reviews.