Pacemaster seems to have quality control problems
Written: May 07 '05 (Updated May 07 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Long belt, cushioned running, 15% incline, programs to automatically adjust treadmill to heart rate
Cons: Poor quality
The Bottom Line: Not recommended. Very irritating squeak in first treadmill. Same squeak, bushing misfit, and heart rate monitor malfunction in replacement.
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| leptonhead's Full Review: Pacemaster Gold Elite Treadmill |
My wife and I wanted the convenience of exercising at home, so we decided to buy a treadmill. We wanted to use it for both walking and running. From what I had read from various reviews on the Internet, treadmills below $1000 were not typically suitable for running. I read a Consumer Reports article on treadmills and one of their suggestions was a Horizon Fitness Elite 5.1T with an estimated price of $1800. Even if we didn't buy the Horizon, we figured that something around $1500 - $2000 would give us a treadmill with sufficient features and solid quality (to us, the most important deciding factor). I searched for a local dealer and found the Horizon at “The Fitness Store”. While there, we also came across the PaceMaster Gold Elite on sale at $1800 (normally around $2000). The salesperson told us that the PaceMaster had a record of being very durable and was recommended by Runner's World and Treadmill Doctor. Having never heard of PaceMaster and not being sure which to choose we went back home to investigate a found high praises for the PaceMaster at the sites mentioned above and favorable reviews for older models from epinions.
In addition to the favorable reviews, we also liked the treadmill itself. It has a long belt that was sufficient for my long strides (I'm 6'3''). There seemed to be a good amount of cushioning (which is nothing more than flexing of a piece of particle board) which made the treadmill comfortable to use. My favorite feature was the choice of having the machine automatically adjust the speed and incline based on my heart rate. You simply wear a thin strap (included) around your chest that wirelessly transmits your heart rate to a receiver embedded in the tower of the treadmill. None of the other features really stood out at this price point, but they can be found at http://www.pacemaster.com/gold.htm. A couple of notes are that the user interface wasn't completely intuitive (but easily learned) and that when using the option of automatically adjusting the treadmill by heart rate, the machine maxed out at a 13% incline even though the machine could go up to 15% normally.
We purchased the Gold Elite and I began using it immediately.
We only had the treadmill for a week or so when I noticed a fairly loud high-pitched squeak like that of metal rubbing. We called "The Fitness Store" and they sent a repairman. He found that the four deck bolts (that can be seen from the bottom of the treadmill) were loose. In fact, they were barely finger-tight. He tightened the bolts and that seemed to do the trick until a day or two later when the sound returned. The repairman came out again and couldn't fix the problem so were given a completely new treadmill. When the second treadmill came and after the delivery men assembled it, my wife noticed that the right handle was only loosely attached to the tower. The connecting plastic bushing was apparently defective since when I got the delivery men to use the bushing from the first treadmill, it fit properly. Besides the bushing, the treadmill looked nice and solid. A few days later however, we noticed the same sound that we had heard from the first treadmill. Additionally, the heart-rate monitor that receives its signal from a Polar chest strap was malfunctioning. The heart-rate would mostly be stable but occasionally (a few times per minute) would jump to very high numbers or simply go blank. We had a repairman come out again. He tightened up the deck bolts and the squeaking sound went away. At the time, he mentioned that he had seen the loose deck bolt problem lately. From the experience with the first treadmill, we weren't convinced that tightening the bolts would really fix the problem, but we gave him the benefit of the doubt. In addition, the repairman verified that the heart-rate monitor was faulty and ordered a new replacement part.
Before the replacement part arrived, the squeaking noise had returned and at that point we had had enough and asked "The Fitness Store" for a refund. They have agreed and they will be picking up the treadmill soon.
It may just have been a fluke that we had two treadmills with the problems described above. The treadmill does come with a warranty that covers 1 year labor, 5 years parts, and 12 years motor, which can help ease fears. Of course we were pretty lucky that "The Fitness Store" handled our situation very well.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
leptonhead
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Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
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