Advice on Buying Refurbished Fitness Equipment

In an article yesterday, we discussed how to save money on fitness equipment by purchasing from private sellers, people who in all likelihood have not used the treadmlll or whatever from the time when they purchased it. In today’s article, let’s investigate refurbished or remanufactured exercise equipment. This refers to equipment which has maybe been in use recently, but which has been repaired to some 0 and is then marketed as being “nearly new”.

The market for remanufactured equipment sprang up as lots of bigger gyms started leasing their equipment as opposed to purchasing it. This reduced their opening costs , and also made it cheaper to replace their equipment a few years down the road, to obtain the latest version on a regular basis, before it being devaluing to nothing. Then, the second-hand machines are sent by the production company to a remanufacturing company, who then remanufacture and put the machine up for resell.

Moreover, some people believe that “refurbished” indicates something flawed within the product. True, a fraction of refurbished equipment may have been returned for a fault, but countless others would have been just customer returns for non-failure reasons. If the vendor has a good quality returns and refunds policy, they would refund the customer and send the product to the producer. At that point, the producer is not allowed to market the product by describing it as “new” – it can only be resold via the refurbishing market. And this applies even in circumstances where the gear has been neither damaged nor faulty. For instance, if a home gym is delivered to the buyer, and the protective packaging is spoiled, the buyer can refuse to accept the parcel. Even though the machine itself is undamaged, the producer is not supposed re-market the machine as if it were new to another buyer. Even if there is damage, it might only be a slight dent.

Similarly if the buyer purchased on credit, received the goods, and then went on to reject the credit terms under a a relevant consumer law, the equipment might still be contained in it’s packaging, but once more is only allowed to be sold through a remanufacturer. Further remanufacturing reasons include: presentation machines which were too long on the shop floor; packaging opened by mistake; and a piece of equipment which has items missing, and which are therefore swapped at some point in the remanufacturing.

The main problem with remanufactured equipment is quality. Many remanufacturers will take products down to their smallest parts, swap everything that’s defective, systematically analyze the machine, maybe even sandblast the bodywork and re-paint it, and then get rid of it. However, some companies may just slap a coat of paint on to conceal any corrosion patches, and do no more.

So before you depart with your cash, the first thing to do is to assess the refurbisher’s history. Run a handful of searches online for discussions about them, or find out if you can get hold of other clients by some other method. Then, confirm if the company offers a refund or returns policy. Surprisingly, you can even obtain a warranty on refurbished equipment. It might cost you a little bit more, and the warranty may not be as long as the comparable current product, but it reassures you that the company should be around for a while

Next, as soon as you have been in touch with the company and got an idea of the machine you want, search for an instruction manual for that precise model number. You may be able to order one from the manufacturer, or somewhere else via the internet. Take the handbook when you are on the point of buying the equipment, and run through what’s described in the manual to make certain all functionality is operational. If possible, ask for a background on the machine: why has it been entered into refurbishment? Furthermore, get advice on how to maintain the equipment.

To summarize: Obviously, there are various gambles involved in buying renovated exercise equipment, although if you keep to the instructions in this article, you should be much closer to receiving an outstanding machine at an equally excellent price.