I've never had this happen before in any tool. One of the winding pickups on the armature broke off. When I opened up the motor, the pickup was loose in the case. One of the brushes had gotten jammed into the armature.Other than that, I found it to be an okay router. Plenty of power, but weight \ balance wise it was hard to use it smoothly. So I left it permanently mounted in my router table, and bought a Hitachi router for hand use. I am much happier using the Hitachi free hand than I was with the Skil. I won't miss this one.