Treadmill Repair Frustrations

The perfect solution

While we (well, me a little more than my boyfriend lol) were very happy when the treadmill finally arrived and we could start using this at home rather than having to go for mandatory walks outside, I did certainly not see coming what came after this.

The treadmill was a perfect way to get the needed exercise (especially for me with the high blood pressure issue) every single day that I wanted to. And let me tell you that the past month or so, there were many days that going for a walk was not that easy simply because of the extreme wind gusts here at the coast.

Personally, I have to be careful not making any missteps with my bad knees and therefore a treadmill at home is a much safer and controlled environment for me to get my blood moving while not risking a lot of injury (unless I start using the uphill function, but that's another story).

Broken

Although we could use it, something was not right with the treadmill from the very first moment we used it. We first thought it just needed some oil and then the sound would be better, so that was the first go to as a DIY solution by my boyfriend. I'm gifted with a very handy boyfriend who can repair a lot of things himself and if not, at least has the technical knowledge to understand what's going on. This was not the issue.

The horrifying squeaking sound

I seriously thought we'd get our downstairs neighbours knocking on the door for making this much noise every day using the treadmill. I got accustomed to using it twice a day sometimes because I felt that it helped me clear my mind and I saw it having a positive affect on my blood pressure. It motivated me to keep going.

My boyfriend on the other hand started to hate the thing more and more because he put the thing on high speed to run his ass off and when he did that, the thing was even worse to listen to. The one using it has earplugs in with music so is not as aware as the others in the house, but boy, I often hoped he'd be fed up using it for the sake of my sanity. The sound was getting ridiculous and he already dismantled it twice until the point where he said that this was not smart to keep doing, otherwise they may even blame us for opening it up.

Mechanic

A friendly mechanic came twice, one time he spent 2,5 hours on the thing, the other time a bit shorter but he also noticed that there was a new problem added and this time the poor man had to run test it himself because two days before he came, I injured my knee on the treadmill using the uphill function which meant I had to take it easy for several days to let it heal.

He came in his suit and I felt bad for him having to do this. If we'd know he'd come sooner, I could have asked to come after my boyfriend had his business meeting but he came on short notice. He said this time he didn't know what was wrong, and it needed to be send to the repair centre. Fine by me, just take the thing and fix it please, I've had enough of the noise and already started to hate using it. This was not what I signed up for!

Weeks of waiting

We waited weeks and weeks and when they finally picked it up, it took weeks before it arrived at the centre and the very next day we got a report by email. I wasn't sure if it was good news or not because to me it seemed there was not one mention of the mechanic's findings who spent hours trying to fix the thing and I mostly noticed the fact that it stated "doesn't turn on" which was not the reason of sending it there.

Ticket system flaw

Although their online ticket environment is very intuitive when asking for technical support and has a list of reasons you can select and not one of them was similar to what our reason for support was. In this case you just pick one and state clearly that this is not the reason but this is because our reason is not there to choose from and explain what the reason is.

It was clear to us that they only used that first ticket for the repair and no notification of any findings from the mechanic because the report stated that the motor was broken (it wasn't!) and they replaced it (they didn't!) and that the belt had an issue (this was possible) and that they replaced it with an unbranded one (they didn't!).

Pictures of the opened box

They added pictures of the opened box (which btw was a freaking nightmare to handle, such a huge thing, so heavy and the box was already damaged when it arrived here the first time). On the pictures you could see what was inside and they also stated this in the report, fine.

When the box returned, it looked as if it was unopened to us but I had seen pictures of it being opened in the report, so that could not be the case. We weren't that far from right though..

We are quite sure that on top of the lies they wrote (see above) they also never even checked the belt as we can see that from a few parts that were not in place correctly. Nothing changed. Some proof:

How it's not supposed to be

vs How it should be

The damaged old belt

They flat out lied and even though this was "free" I have not been able to use the thing for way too long and I've definitely been feeling less healthy since it left for repair.

You may understand that I'm pissed off.

It's still inside the box

As the part of getting the heavy bottom of the treadmill in the box was horrifying for both our backs, my boyfriend tried to put it together leaving it in the bottom side of the box, which worked. I'm now looking at a boxed treadmill with a huge upper part of the box inside that room and dreading for the complaint I have to send them because I already know it will either bounce, they won't respond or postpone and postpone some more..

Lost energy

It's probably all going to be wasted energy but I have to try and see if we somehow can undo the sale or have them pick it up again but it will be a pain because the box is so damaged already, I can hardly imagine it will survive another trip. For now, I'm just going to walk on it without upping the hill function because I did that the evening we tested it and I instantly had a sore knee. Great, I have to start all over again to build some muscle and stamina.

I really hope some good person is handling my complaint and things are handled well, send me tons of lucky vibes and fairy dust please because I really hope that this issue gets resolved.

Thanks for reading my rant/frustrating post about the treadmill, I feel relieved already...

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All pictures above are mine..

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