Bowflex Series 7 Treadmill

My machine arrived to my house, the delivery person was great, helped me push it into the house.

Initially, while assembling the treadmill, I noticed the machining of all the hardware was pathetic: bolt threads were poorly matched to slots, some were finished poorly and had smooth hex edges, thus becoming stripped. I didn't make a big fuss about this, as I was able to tighten them with my own tools without fully stripping them (I'm a mechanic). USE YOUR OWN TOOLS if you put this together, because the tools provided are machined poorly as well, and will surely strip the bolts provided.

So I put it all together, I turn the machine on, and it keeps erroring out after 5 seconds. I call Bowflex's parent company Nautilus. Here is where it gets interesting.

I speak to a customer representative, and explain the error message I'm getting. Instead of offering to send someone out, the rep instructs me to remove the motor cover panel to diagnose the problem. I did this with some trepidation, but continuing, we (I) spent about an hour figuring out the problem. Keep in mind, troubleshooting is being done by myself, and secondarily from a customer service rep reading a schematic, not a service technician.

So then, the rep tells me Nautilus will send out the part we are guessing is broken, that I am going to replace it for them, and on top of that, it's going to take 7-10 business days to arrive, as this is Bowflex's "slow" season. So now I'm sitting here waiting, with a defective product.

When a company sends defective machinery like this to a customer, they better make sure to remedy the problem in person IMMEDIATELY. They have a headquarters 15 miles from where I live, Nautilus that is. But this is a Bowflex, and apparently they couldn't care less.

EDITED: Once the part arrived, it was no small task installing. I cannot believe they left this up to me to fix; anyone without an advanced understanding of mechanics would likely break this machine trying to install the part which was broken (no assembly instructions came either).

Unbelievable. The machine stopped erroring, but like the person stated above in another review, my heart rate monitor does not work. Also, the displays keep switching from one to the next, until it stops on the heart rate panel (which does not work on my machine). What a disaster.


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