Sewing Machine Service Company Inc

I bought a Bernina 880 Silver edition here.
I shopped all the Washington Bernina stores and a few in California.
their price was so competitive.
The new owner class was good.
I would highly recommend this dealer.

It is ironic that this company has the word «Service» in its name, because I didn’t get much of that. I paid over $ 2,000 to service a lot of industrial sewing machines with them. Two had to be taken to their shop for repair. I expected to see them back in a few weeks as I was originally told. I got one machine back 3 months later and the other back 5 months later. In no business is it acceptable to provide a time frame of a few weeks and then come through months later. Especially at $ 400 per machine. And worst of all, they never thought they were at fault or apologized for the inconvenience.
I will never use their «Service» again.

I have done business with this company 30+ years. This is the only place I takes Bernina’s for repair. I have also purchased a variety of machines for the schools I worked at here. I can count on good service with trained mechanics.
It saves money to buy your machines from an authorized dealer. You have a company with good support and training.

A part fell off of my ten year old Bernette 50 as I was hemming yesterday and I was at a lost. I called SMS after finding them online and was glad to hear they provide free estimates. However, I was told the assessment would take about a week and a half since they had a backlog of machine repairs. Nevertheless, I took in my Bernette today thinking I would have to drop it off and wait for the estimate. One of the nice service men greeted me and was able to take a quick look at my Bernette. He determined it was a minor repair (a screw came loose by the needle) and quoted me $ 25, which is their minimum charge for even the smallest of repairs. I agreed thinking that was way cheaper than the cost of a new machine anyway. He returned a few minutes later and told me it was ‘no charge” after all. I was relieved and overjoyed! I was expecting to have to wait at least a few weeks for an estimate and possibly an expensive repair, but nope he fixed it immediately and in no time. And he even offered to carry my Bernette out to the car. I would definitely consider their services again in the future.

Because this place was so highly recommended by a friend, I took my machine in for reconditioning before I moved to Silicon Valley. I paid them well over $ 100 (several years ago) and they assured me that the machine would be better than it was. I didn’t do any sewing for a year or two„ and when I tried to use it I found that the spring tensioner was defective –poorly installed or something– and never worked properly. But I was able to get it to work well enough by continuously fiddling with it and the bobbin tension. And today, while I’m trying to finish up the wedding dress and groom’s suit for my son’s wedding in two days, it broke down completely — the assembly disengaged and it’s obvious that the spring was improperly installed. If you have them work on your machine, make sure you use it a lot immediately after getting it back, although after reading a few other comments, if they screwed up, you’re SOL. I would never go back here again, even if I still lived in Seattle.

I’ve been going here for years and really like this shop. I work with industrial machines, so I mostly deal with the service department. They’re very knowledgeable and have done quick repairs on my machine for free if it was a simple «pop» or something. Most the people I’ve dealt with there are extremely friendly and I never feel rushed when dealing with them in person or over the phone.
If I had one complaint it would be that sometimes there can be a lack of communication. For example, might have a machine in and servicing is finished, but nobody calls to let me know.
Better communication and they’d get 5 stars from me, but I still love this shop and give them 4 stars.

One because zero isn’t an option.
Unfortunately after 17 years of doing business with SMS I have to recommend that you call someone else. They sold me a bad machine and let me pay them over and over to service it. Cevin then said that it was too late to get a refund because we’d had it too long! The gall. I hadn’t even asked them to refund us for the service calls.
It seems that their good mechanics have moved on to better pastures. At this point I won’t even buy needles there.
*edited to add*
I recently heard from my new mechanic (who costs less than half the amount, comes right away and actually gets the job done the first time) that Cevin has sold this machine to another small businesswoman. Taking advantage yet again. The machine still doesn’t work properly…

Sewing Machine Service is hands down the best Bernina dealership in the greater Seattle area. Owner Cevin Waffle is amazingly knowledgeable about all things sewing, and for a sewing geek like me, he is a joy to talk to. Mary really knows how to demo machines features, and is very helpful with any of my construction questions. There are 2 Bernina factory-​trained mechanics on site, and all of my machines come back in top notch order. SMS staff are always friendly, courteous, and definitely provide excellent customer service. I am a sewing instructor, and always recommend them to all my students when they are looking for a quality dealer. In my book, their customer and machine service are as good as it gets!

They have a strict no returns policy, which benefits them especially when the staff is incompetent.
I purchased a pedal for my sewing machine with the help of a salesperson. I tried for weeks to get the pedal to work, without success. When I tried to return the pedal because it didn’t ever work, I was told by the salesperson that he couldn’t give me anything for it because of their policy. Essentially, I gave that store $ 40 for poor customer service.
I will never go there again and recommend that anyone that needs sewing machine repair or parts go somewhere else.