I got my 360 elite in 2007 and it only failed the day Mass Effect 2 came out (Crashed during gameplay) and due to the error being an E74 error I had it fixed for free and no problems since.
So in all I have had the 1st 360 I ever owned.
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2. One got a broken disc tray, I would have probably got it fixed but I wanted a new slim one with the extra storage so I got that.