Call Kurtis: Don't Tread On Me
A sudden lurch, and then nothing; that's the extent of any free motion Molly Carter, of Sacramento, gets from her new treadmill. She bought it at Costco in Sacramento in March of 2010.
But a month into ownership it started stopping, on its own.
"I say the last time my son was on it, it lurched, he kind of fell off of it, and that's when I said 'uh uh, no more."
She began emailing Icon Fitness and Health, the maker of her Freemotion treadmill. But their replies made Molly feel dismissed.
"Get it in the house or we don't want to talk to you," she says.
Even worse, they said keeping the treadmill in the garage killed the factory warranty, and the extended warranty, she paid $90 for.
"Null and void, bye; see 'ya later'," was her interpretation.
The manual lists as an important precaution: "Do not put the treadmill in a garage or covered patio..."
It does not say using the unit in a garage voids the warranty. She says this isn't what she paid over a thousand bucks for.
Molly says "I just thought it was a lot of money to spend on a treadmill that wasn't working."
So we contacted Icon Health and Fitness; we asked them to look into this warranty issue and get back to us. A week later Icon had an independent technician make a quick, and we mean very quick, service call.
Angela Carter, Molly's daughter, who also uses the treadmill, says "he knew it within like 2 seconds what was wrong just by hearing the noise."
But he did not want to be on camera. He had Angela sign a form and he promptly left.
"So, yeah, nothing really got fixed except for knowing now it's something to do with the dry motor," she says.
The tech had ordered a part and later installed it after our cameras were long gone, but the fix was short-lived. Molly says that part was also defective, so the tech ordered another one.
It's arrived at Molly's and is ready for installation.
So it appears that Icon is making a good effort to fix Molly's treadmill, although they've quit communicating with us. We'll follow up on how it goes.
