Treadmills: The Final Chapter!

Treadmills: The Final Chapter!

Okay, Sears delivered the replacement walking belt. It was a major task, but I replaced it, and I had even reached the point where I had everything adjusted correctly so that the belt wasn't "walking" off to the side. And then the combination flywheel/driving wheel that turns the drive belt that turns the walking belt came off the motor shaft.

Okay, what happened here? My first thought was that it was a press fit on the shaft--but it didn't press back on. So I tapped it gently with a hammer. It didn't go on. Hmmm. Are those threads on the motor shaft? Indeed they were--and backward from the usual threads. So I rotated it back on to the shaft--and now the motor doesn't turn. And the 15 amp circuit breaker on the electronics pops, as though something is shorting out in the motor.

So I call a local repair operation. They tell me that it is possible that the motor failure might be something as simple as a brush having broken. (Yes, I suspect that trying to tap the flywheel/driving wheel back on the shaft might be the culprit.) If so, it would be a $65 service call and perhaps $40 to $50 to repair the motor. Or the armature might be broken--in which case, it's not so cheap.

Gee, this could be getting perilously close to the price of buying a new treadmill, and having a warranty--as opposed to a pretty ratty treadmill that might have something else break in a few weeks.

I've learned my lesson: trying to save money is a wonderful way to burn through time, and end up with junk. The five hours wasted this week on treadmill autopsy and repair I could have been spent writing unit tests that would have paid most of the cost of a new treadmill--with much less aggravation.

I have a theory, based on my childhood, and a few mistakes of my own, that used cars cause poverty (not the other way around). Often, poor people end up with old cars because they don't have the credit history or the down payment to buy a reasonably new car. Some cars are in such poor condition that they can, in a year, eat through as much in repairs as a new car would eat in payments--and without the excitement of being stranded at the side of the road, or doing repairs in a parking lot.

I have some unpleasant memories of helping my father repair a radiator leak in a parking lot in the dark, 30 miles from home. My father was a wonderful guy, and I learned a lot from him, but I would have preferred learning what I know about cars and repair from him in a more congenial environment!

Anyway, I sent the walking belt back to Sears, and went to Wal-Mart last night (in between lecturing about the history of apartheid and discussing nuclear terror in the 1950s in my wife's drama class) to get a new treadmill. The cheapest was a Weslo 250 (what's a Weslo?) that they wanted $286 for--and it had a one year warranty on the motor. The next step up was the Gold's Gym 450, for $386--with a five year warranty on the motor. It has a pulse monitor on the handle bars, up to a 10 degree slope, and whizbang electronics that lets you plug in how many calories to burn, and over what time, and it sets up the rest. (And a fan to blow air across your face. If only it would peel me grapes and pop them in my mouth, and massage my back at the same time--that would be perfect!)

One of my readers suggested something so viciously cynical that I suspect he is only slightly exaggerating. He claimed that the cheap consumer treadmills are designed around the idea that the average consumer will use the treadmill for 3 1/2 weeks, before exercise ceases to be interesting, and the treadmill is banished to the garage. This is the same reason that many gyms in the 1980s and 1990s had you sign a one year contract--knowing full well that a big fraction of those doing so would show up to use the gym for 4-6 weeks--and then come back only occasionally (if at all) thereafter. But they would be making those payments well past the point where they used the gym!

So I look at the warranty periods on the motors and it tells me that the makers have specified a warranty based on their experience with these motors. A one year warranty means that some clever statistician has figured out that the vast majority of these motors will last at least one year--but at two years, or three years, we might be seeing as much as 5-10% of these motors will be dead. The five year warranty probably means that the vast majority of these motors will survive at least five years (or the owner will have sold it, lost the warranty information, or the original receipt showing when he bought the treadmill, when the motor breaks). Spending an extra $100 looks like a good deal--and may also be an indication that the maker expects this treadmill to be used for more than a few weeks.

I could not get the enormous box off the shelf by myself. I went over to the sporting goods section, and asked the clerk there to help me. Now, I don't want to be insulting, but this was the most clean-cut, youngest, most buff Wal-Mart employee that I think I have ever seen. My first thought was, "This kid is fresh out of the Iraqi sandbox, still wearing a very military haircut." When I explained my problem he gave me this very serious look and said, "If you can't lift the treadmill, you aren't qualified to buy it." Then he came over and helped me load it up, and another Wal-Mart employee helped load it in my wife's TrailBlazer.

Unloading it this morning was a major undertaking for my wife and me. We had to walk the box back and forth to the front door, then slide it across the floor. Assembly was theoretically a two person job, but I managed to do all but one step by myself--and it seems like a pretty solid piece of machinery. Not quite at the level of the treadmills you find in gyms, but not terribly cheesy.

Anyway, everything is together. The enormous box it came in will be the "coffin" in which we take the myriad pieces of the old treadmill to the county dump tomorrow.