Slamming tapes into any VCR is going to ruin the machine eventually, especially the newer ones with plastic gears (near the end of the VCR era).
No wonder that demonstration Magnavox TV-VCR kept shutting itself off--someone probably tried to slam a cassette into the loading area, instantly ruining the gears. Why don't people realize that you just don't do that with a VCR?
I have a Panasonic VCR I bought over ten years ago that still works, and is a part of my video system alongside (or should I say above) my DVD player.
I learned long ago not to slam cassettes into a front-loading VCR, which is one reason my Panny VCR still works today--almost as well as it did when it was new over a decade ago (I don't use it much anymore, since I've had a DVD player). I lost a Panny VCR with VCR+ after only a year or two, but that was due to a cassette jamming in the machine, not because I slammed the cassette in the loading area. Too bad, as that cassette had a TV show on it I had just taped, but never got to watch--I had to practically wreck the VCR
and then cut the tape to get the cassette out.