Update #1 :
My elliptical is fixed and working fine. I finally got the attention of the service people at Smooth Fitness, but had to resort to subterfuge. If you call their number with a service or repair problem, my experience is that you should NOT select the menu option for service or repair. That one invariably dumps you into voicemail where your message might get answered eventually, but it won't be anytime soon. Instead, pick the option for people who want to buy equipment. That way you get an actual human being on the phone. Not the RIGHT human being, but the one who answered my call and listened to my tale of woe apparently went over to the service department and rapped someone on the head because I got a call back from them 10 minutes later. They took down my information, told me I would receive a parts order in the next few days and that I would hear from the repair guy shortly thereafter.
That's pretty much what happened. The parts they shipped me were the two halves of the plastic shroud that covers the flywheel mechanism. I guess they figured out from my problem report that they would need to be replaced, and they were right. Chris from Atlantic Fitness showed up a couple of days ago as scheduled and had me fixed up within an hour. Chris seemed to think that whoever originally assembled the machine might have overtightened the shroud mounting screws to the point where something broke. Could be, but it seems equally possible that it happened during the shipping process. This machine is very heavy and it's easy to imagine how rough handling during shipping could generate enough torque to damage the shroud mountings. Anyway, Chris was able to fix that problem with the new parts. The noise it turns out was the result of a drive belt rubbing against the housing. Chris said there were several internal positioning adjustments that could be made to get the drive train all lined up, and he got the belt positioned correctly. The machine is now whisper quiet.
I'm going to upgrade my rating to three stars. I'm still not impressed with the Smooth Fitness customer service operation. This appears to be a good piece of equipment, reasonably inexpensive, apparently well designed, and mechanically solid. However, getting it serviced should be a lot easier. Chris the repair guy from Atlantic Fitness was great to deal with. I wouldn't hesitate to do business with him or his company in the future. But it's pretty faint praise when the best thing about your customer service operation is the performance of a subcontractor.
Anyway, the equipment is working now and working well. Let's see how it holds up over the next few months. I will be updating this review as things develop.
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After weeks of scouring the internet for information and reviews on elliptical trainers, I settled on the Smooth CE 7.4 as the leading option. I was impressed with low price, reported quality, a good warranty, and dimensions apparently designed for a relatively tall person like me.
I ordered the machine over the holidays when I'm sure the company was dealing with a surge of orders and holiday absences, so it took a little longer than expected to hear back. But it was just a few days longer, so no big deal. Shipping was timely and the shipping company delivered the crate right to my garage vs. the curb. Good thing too because that box is ginormous! Heed what everyone else says about the need for a couple of able bodied people to hoist this thing around. You are definitely NOT going to be dragging the main assembly up any stairs by yourself.
It went together easily. The whole assembly probably took just a little over an hour. While assembling the machine, I noticed that the two halves of the flywheel cover (the big wheel in the back) didn't exactly mate. It seemed as if there was possibly some damage in shipping. But it didn't look serious.
During my first session, it was obvious that something was not right. Instead of the smooth quiet mechanism I was expecting, I got a machine that generated a loud scraping noise with each revolution of the flywheel. Maybe that shipping damage wasn't so trivial after all. Oh well, I told myself, good thing I went with a company that offered a decent warranty.
What I didn't count on was the difficulty of getting any response from the company when I called to take advantage of that warranty. Forget about emailing the customer service department. If anyone is actually reading that email, you would never know it. I've written them half a dozen times with no response. And calling is not much better. I left a number of messages on the customer service line before finally getting a return call from "Jimmy". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to answer the call, so all I really have is voicemail apologizing for the delay in responding and citing a phone outage. Phone outage? Well maybe, but it sounded a lot like the old dog ate my homework excuse.
I have now left some more voicemail on Jimmy's phone, so hopefully he'll call and I will have some better news to report. If so, I will update this review. But at this point, I'm not feeling like a well-served customer. Smooth Fitness needs to hire some folks to answer the phones and read the incoming email. Otherwise, what is probably a fairly decent product is going to be eclipsed by stories like this one and customers are going to shop elsewhere.
Jimmy, I really want to love my CE 7.4, so please give me a call and let's get this thing fixed. Get more detail about Smooth Fitness CE 7.4 Elliptical Trainer.
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