Are they complete junk or did I just get a bad one?

Bought a used grinder/mixer a little over a year ago.   The machine is 5 or so yrs old currently.

Since we've had the machine we've had the scale head worked on twice and now the other night a weigh bar apparently went bad.    

We've already spent nearly a grand on repairs for the head, what's a new bar gonna cost?

Not completely sure what brand scale is on the old grinder but in the 15+ yrs that I've had it the only repair work done to that scale was fixing a bad power cord.  

Scale on the old grinder looks like the one in the link.  http://www.tractorhouse.com/listingsdetail/detail.aspx?OHID=6854551  

Not the most user friendly scale but the thing just works, more than I can say for the new one.