Don't get me wrong, the laminator works, it's just a VERY entry level machine. laminating full rolls of vinyl, get ready to pull your hair out, the tracking is really bad! I haven't noticed any issues that I would attribute to the lack of tension bar though.
Also, when I called up Seal for help with my tracking issue when the machine was 9 months old, i was told that the machine only has a 6 month warantee and I was SOL unless I wanted to pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars for a tech to come out and "take a peek at it", even the dealer I bought it from didn't know the warantee was only 6 months!
To summarize, the machine is priced quite a bit higher than where it should be, you are paying for the Seal name on the side, but the quality is about on par with one of the Chinese machines you can pick up for 1/3 of the price, Don't be fooled that the machine is better because it's a Seal, it carries pretty much the same warantee as the Chinese units ZERO!