The shakespear that came with my uglystick combo i bought a few years ago did it last year. seems like it had been about as old as yours. the line stopped setting in the bearing area that it was suppossed to and start catch in the plastic. took me a while to realize what was causing my line to get shreaded so quick. Had a crack in the eye of the tip so i fixed it and it was still doing it. then i ound the problem. thrashed the reel and haven't had a problem with it since.