>Anybody have any bad experience with tapes breaking in 3575 libraries?

David - Don't have a 3575, but tape handling is largely governed by
        drive microcode.  It's possible for microcode to cause excessive
tension to be placed on the tape during some phases of its handling.
Or, as you additionally disovered, it could be a basic hardware problem
in the drive.  Your CE should be able to search the hardware database
for such problems, whatever is causing them, and should fix the problem.
There is no good reason for you to have to live with such a problem.

  Richard Sims, BU