Once upon a time, a son of France rose, drank his bowl of cafe au lait, smoked a morning Gauloise, and made machines until lunchtime. Fortified by the lunch packed by his young bride, a carafe of vin ordinaire, and more Gauloises, in the afternoon he made more machines. The next day, and the next week, he did it all over again. Those machines traveled all over the world of the swingin' seventies, to kitchens from Helsinki to Hackensack, and set to work. Chopping and dicing, whirring and kneading, they worked in kitchens grand and small, just as their big commercial Robot Coupe brothers were working in the world's restaurants. Like the solid French ouvriers who made them, the machines worked and worked. The years passed, decades went by, generations came and went. The sturdy young Gaul who screwed together this food processor and riveted the engraved label to its underside grew old, stooped, and was buried in the old cemetery by the wood, next to his beloved wife. The machines he made outlive him, and may outlive their children, and their children. In 1970s France, they hadn't learned to shave thicknesses and cheapen materials so that their products would fail just after the warranties expired. Your Robot Coupe in Kitchen Aid livery was made to keep working indefinitely. It was meant to be the last food processor its owner would ever have to buy. We live in the twilight of quality consumer goods. Everything is made in China of thin plastic and pot metal, cost-engineered to fall apart after an average of X years, with a standard deviation of Y that the company's accountants compute into the warranty reserves and balance against the manufacturing cost, to achieve maximum profit for the corporate parent. There is no red wine, or indeed time for lunch, in the factories. Yes, there are sturdy machines in the factories, some even made in France. They are used to make the cheap new machines that we consumers buy. Or, that we don't buy. You can get a used bowl, lid, blades, and stem for your KFP 700 for about $50 on eBay. See link for a typical auction. Or a new work bowl for about $60 from a few companies who stock parts for old machines. Try Gourmet Depot. Obvious, as a grouchy old sentimentalist, I would keep using the old French machine instead of junking the work of our Gauloise-puffing and vin rouge-imbibing hero. But I'm not a nutter about this stuff. Why, only today I dumped a box of old stuff - 56K modems, parallel printer cables, floppy disks, Celeron processors - at the freegeek computer recycle place. But I kept the old acoustic coupler and 1200 baud modem that I used to go online with, from pay phones on dusty roads all over France. Maybe, even the side road where the factory once stood. Maybe, even the phone where our hero would call his young wife, to take her out for dinner with the francs earned from his long day of making machines. Maybe, even the sturdy machine on your kitchen counter. Here is a link that might be useful: Example

I have a Cuisinart custom 11 that i have to hold to work, the lid is cracked alittle so I bought a new Cusinart 14 cup but didnt open it. Does anyone think the newer one is superior to older one....thinking I should have just gotten replacement part.

Oh, boy. Sorry to hear your bad news. I hope my Cuis. FP never breaks! I'm really worried lately to because my BF has been doing a lot of cooking and he loves the "power tools" of the kitchen. But I couldn't live without my shredder for that long. Couldn't imagine not making carrot cake, zucchini bread, hashbrowns and coleslaw. (I'd never make any of them without my shredder.) I second the idea to keep the old one for parts!

My Cuisinart is part of the same generation. I think I got it in 1978. It's still working fine, never had a problem other than the lid and top of the bowl must be worn down a little because sometimes it is hard to remove the top of the lid. If I remember to put a drop of water or olive oil on the edge of the bowl I don't have any difficulty. I've thought about a new one because mine is only a 10 cup bowl. But I have slicing and shredding disks that I use a lot and I'm sure they would not fit a larger new model. I don't know anyone who has a new Cuisinart, guess I would be reading reviews on Amazon if I was shopping for a new one. I'm glad to hear that Linda's experience with a new one at her church is good. Lee