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Keys Fitness - Garland, TX
www.keysfitness.com
My husband & I purchased a Discovery 100 Treadmill from Academy January 11, 2003. The treadmill has been used primarily by myself, a 130 lb female, an average of 2x/week for the past 3 3/4 years. It was essentially in excellent condition. The treadmill has a weight limit of 275 lb. The motor is warrantied for 10 years.
My husband was jogging on the machine on Oct. 30, 2007 when the deck split up the middle from top to bottom, also ruining the belt. Thankfully, he was not injured, but could have been badly hurt.
I called Keys, first to seek a replacement deck & belt and was quoted a price by the customer service rep. I also asked the rep. if the material on the replacement deck was more durable, as I did not wish to replace it if it would split again. My husband & I both have knee issues that could greatly be exacerbated by a sudden break in the deck. I was told the part was obsolete on a treadmill with a 10 year motor warranty. I was given a consumer number and a parts website to check availability there. It was not available. I called Keys back & talked to another rep, Bryan Browning to find out why the part was not available even though the motor was still under warranty, and he was told by his supervisor, Lynard Benevides, that the treadmill was obsolete & when parts are gone, they are under no obligation to replace them. This policy seems illogical to me, to warranty a motor for 10 years with no guarantee of replacement parts on the rest of the treadmill.
Both reps seemed unconcerned that the sudden splitting of the deck could have severely injured my husband, or myself had I been on it.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
I will say one thing about treadmill repairs when it comes to parts. I have been working on exercise equipment for many years now and I was very impressed with Spirit on a repair issue.
I had a retired elderly lady call me about her Spirit treadmill that she has had for over seventeen years at that time which had survived three major moves from state to state and she had her first issue with it. It was a Spirit SR-277. The rear roller was making a noise and so we went there to make an assesment of the problem. We found that the bearings were bad in the rear roller.
This was not a bad track record for a 17 tear plus machine. I called Spirit about the new roller and was told that they do not stock that roller, but if I would pull it off and ship it to them they would rebuild it and ship it back right away. Guess what, withing 5 business days after I shipped it to Spirit we had it back and she was using her treadmill again.
I will say this. After dealing with several equipment companies over the years my hat is off to Spirit for maintaining such GREAT customer service. This customer is happy with her machine and estatic with Spirit and we have again succedded in making another satisfied customer happy with the repair.
This goes to show that some companies will work hard to maintain their customers issues and some don't. I will always give kudos to Spirit.
I have since had to replace this same customers start button on her machine and they had it in stock. Amazing to say the least.