Why Buying A Cheap Treadmill Is Expensive

Why Buying A Cheap Treadmill Is Expensive
Is it really necessary to spend $1000 for a treadmill when you only occasionally jog on it? To answer that question, let's go over an imaginary but probable scenario.

Mary picks up the daily newspaper from her home Thursday morning. Within the newspaper is this week's flyer which she immediately flips through. She sees a treadmill sale going on at Sears. In fact, it's a clearance sale. A Proform originally going for $999 is now just $749! Mary has noticed that her thighs have gotten a little thicker lately all thanks to one too many dinner parties she's been having lately. Mary thinks to herself, "I think it's about time to get a treadmill for the family. Taking care of little Michael has just been eating up too much of my time lately and my gym membership is expiring soon too. Maybe getting a treadmill isn't such a bad idea." With those thoughts in mind, Mary decides to head over to Sears Saturday morning.

Saturday morning, Mary arrives at her local mall and heads straight to Sears. She quickly heads to the treadmill section of the store. My gosh! These treadmills look spiffy! They're also marked down too from 10% to as much as 30%. She immediately gets on one of the treadmills and tries to start it. Nothing. "That's strange, all the treadmills at the gym always start up when I press the start button. Why isn't it moving?" Just in the nick of time, an employee in charge of the Health department of the store approaches Mary asking if she needs help. "Yes. The machine won't start," Mary responds. The employee explains that the treadmills here require a magnetic key to start. To demonstrate this, the employee pulls something out of his pocket and attaches it to the middle of the control panel. All of a sudden, the treadmill lights up. Mary is ecstatic. She first sets a walking pace at 3.5 M.P.H and off she goes. Immediately, Mary notices how different the treadmill feels from the one she's used to working on a gym. This treadmill feels flimsier and less comfortable. After a few minutes, Mary gets off and tries the one going for $749 - the one that drew her here in the first place. This one feels about the same as well and gets off after a few minutes. The employee approaches Mary once again letting her know all about the Proform brand and the company behind it, Icon Health and Fitness. The employee then goes on to describe the benefits of the magnetic key. "It's to prevent someone from starting it automatically. You wouldn't want your little boy to turn it on accidentally and hurt himself." This struck a chord with Mary. Little Michael is seven and just starting the first grade. He's been really active lately and just goes around and plays with everything. What would happen if he started fooling around with the treadmill? He'll probably get hurt.

Mary talks a bit more with the employee and tries a few other machines. None of them feel particularly like the ones she's been used to at the gym. Mary thanks the employee and decides to leave to do some research on the brand and company behind it. Just before she leaves, the employee lets Mary know that the sale is only active until the end of Sunday, which is tomorrow. With this in mind, Mary heads home and starts researching on the internet. She types "Proform" in Google and arrives at the official Proform webpage. Clicking here and there, she soon notices that Proform is indeed owned by ICON Health and Fitness. She searches for Icon Health and Fitness and arrives at their official home page. Looking at their company profile, Mary immediately gets the impression that ICON is one big company and she would be absolutely right. Mary then comes to the conclusion that if a company is that big, their products must be somewhat decent. The console looks downright cool as well but the machine just didn't feel quite right. "Maybe it's just my imagination." Just to be on the safe side, Mary decides to do a search for "LifeFitness treadmills" in Google. LifeFitness is the brand that her gym uses as she vaguely recalls. After browsing through a few sites, Mary learns the truth. A commercial grade treadmill costs in many cases over $4000. So that's why there's such a difference - you get what you pay for. Now Mary's getting curious. Maybe I'll try to get something between $400 and $749. She does a little searching here and a little searching there. She soon discovers a mountain of information on treadmill parts, brands, models, companies. It was all too much to absorb! Mary decides to sleep on it.

The next morning, Mary's husband Peter returns from work. Peter is a truck driver so he's often not home. Mary starts to discuss with Peter her decision on getting a treadmill. "I think it's about time we got a treadmill for the family. Our membership at the gym is ending soon and it's getting more and more inconvenient to go there anyways. Why don't we get ourselves a treadmill so we can workout at home whenever we want?" Peter agrees and Mary shows him the sale Sears is having this weekend. Off they go to their neighborhood Sears.

Once there, Mary sees the employee she talked to yesterday and the whole process starts over but with Peter this time. Peter immediately notices how different the treadmill feels from the one he uses at the gym. But he also knows that he can't afford the $4000 commercial treadmill that Mary was detailing him about when they were driving to the store. What to do. The sale is ending today. Cash is tight. It'll probably be a few months later before he saves enough from the job to get something in between this one and the commercial treadmill. They decide to buy. It can't be all bad right? ICON is a huge company after all.

Happily ever after?

For the first three months, everything's fine. Mary jogs on the treadmill regularly 4 to 5 times a week while Peter does the occasional run, 2 to 3 times a week.

Another three months pass. Still nothing wrong.

But on the 7th month after the purchase, the treadmill starts becoming really loud. This hasn't happened before and both Peter and Mary are becoming very worried. They start praying and hoping that the problem would go away. It didn't. Finally, on the tenth month, the treadmill bit the dust. Luckily, their one year parts and labor warranty covers them. A technician comes in, works his magic and the treadmill is up and running.

The treadmill worked fine for half a year or so until problems start creeping up again. Another 10 months pass and the treadmill breaks down a second time. In twenty months, two breakdowns. This time unfortunately, their parts warranty has expired. The technician that came in told them it's going to cause them $200 or so to get it back up and running.

The couple in this story would probably be paying $200 every year to keep the treadmill in working condition. So the true cost of using the treadmill is $749 + $200 * per year of use.

The $749 treadmill is not so cheap anymore.

Disclaimer: This story is in no way meant to attack ICON in anyway. Any other brand that sells treadmills in this price range can be inserted into this story and the end result would still be the same. The moral of the story is that you get what you pay for. $749 often doesn't buy that much treadmill to sustain that much use. You need to consider how long and how often you’re going to use the treadmill and then budget appropriately. If you think you can get by by under spending, the labor and parts cost will eat into those original “savings” in no time. Please take a look at our Treadmill Buying Guide for more information on selecting the right treadmill for your needs.