tl;dr: good job!

Last month, I blogged about my new treaddesking experience on my new Livestrong treadmill. Among other things, I said:

The annoying squeaking that the treadmill made when I first turned it on is getting quieter. If it doesn't go away entirely, though, I need to call the manufacturer.

The squeaking, while quiet, didn’t go away, and the manufacturer’s web site said that it shouldn’t squeak and to call customer support.

I was not excited about the idea of calling customer support. I imagined long wait times followed by sceptical or powerless customer support agents.

Imagine my surprise when the agent took me seriously, and after I described what I had checked so far offered to immediately send out a new motor, apologizing that it would take a few days. I asked for more things I could check first, because I didn’t want to make them send a part that would turn out not to be the right thing, and so she gave me two more things I could look at if I wanted. This involved removing some screws and temporarily taking things apart, and there were no warnings that by doing so I would be voiding my warranty. What a refreshing change from “no user-serviceable parts inside!”

I called back a few days later to confirm that I had checked the things we had discussed and to ask whether there was anything else I could do. I got a different customer service representative this time, but he was just as helpful as the first. He said no, nothing else to check, they’d happily send me a new motor and then have a technician come to my house to install it after it arrived. I asked if it would be OK if I installed it myself, and he cheerfully agreed to include an instruction sheet and said that was just fine for me to do the installation myself.

I now have a quieter treadmill.