Hello all,
I’m looking for a decent piece of home excercise equipment, because I hate the gym and running in the dark, and in the rain does not thrill me.
We were at Sears today looking at their stuff. The salesguy recommended the Proform XP model 550e/550s treadmill. It’s middle of the range, price and feature-wise. I cannot afford a gym quality piece of equipment, but I also don’t want to buy something that’s going to break down in a year.
Poking around online, I am finding drastically mixed reviews of this product line (suspiciously can’t find anything on that model number, but there do seem to be a hell of a lot of Proform model treadmills out there)–some people say it’s great, and others say the motor died two months after purchase, and so on and so forth.
Any advice on what to buy? I’m mainly looking for a treadmill, because I think it’s going to serve me the best in a wide range of capacities, and I never feel like excercise bikes do much for me the way a good run does.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I’ve had my re-manufactured commercial Precor treadmill for over ten years. It has had some minor repairs done to it, but overall it has preformed well. The company I got it from bought from a gym and striped it down to the bare metal and replaced everything. The price was about $1,500.00 compared to a new one at $6,000. This might be more than you want to pay, but I’m just telling you to look into this kind of re-manufactured treadmill. You can get a “top of the line” for about 25% of the cost of a new one.
Also I’m not easy on mine. After warming up for a mile at 4.2 mph, I crank it up to 8.6 for another 3 miles. If you’re just going to walk or jog, it’ll last you almost forever.
Where are good places to look for quality used equipment? The only thing I can come up with is Play it Again Sports, which, despite the stated intent of the place, has only new treadmills in stock, and only over $1500.
Look online. There are several places in every major city in the USA that sell them.
Some places even have free shipping, a big plus for a heavy thing like a treadmill.