cassette players and walkman

I have this unit and the two Panasonic boomboxes that can be used for dubbing tapes. I found the quality of the dub was a little better (higher s/n) than on the Panasonic 570 or the other one (530? 470?). However after not much time I found that the record head did not always engage properly. On this unit the head moves at an angle, it moves 90 degrees or less into position instead of moving straight ahead when record is pressed. I did have less reception problems with this than the Panasonics; on the P's the station has often drifted by the time I've recorded 45 minutes. I had forgotten about "AFC" until that problem with the panasonics. I have both this model and a very similar one the model # I think sony 318, which keep stations in a little better when recording while mobile. But that had a body hardware problem as well - the door came off very easily! No wonder the guy sold it to me for $15 on ebay.