We love the Do it yourself market!

The DIY’ers are our target market at Treadmill Doctor and we love that we can save people a ton of money on their fitness equipment repairs. However, sometimes a well-intended DIYer is misled by bad information they find on the web or by a lack of knowledge. We hope the following story will help at least one of you in your next treadmill repair experience.
John T. is a fantastic customer and has a huge assortment of fitness equipment in his home. He does a ton of the repairs himself, but when he gets stumped he calls us or has one of our guys come out. Knowing he is quite handy, when he calls into our call center he is usually calling for a quick question or to verify his own findings in troubleshooting. EXCEPT for the 1 time he chose to go with his gut!
John has a Proform 525 and had just called to order a new walking deck to replace the existing deck. He was thrilled to find out that our decks are reversible! He was able to save some money! John, excited about the savings, takes the treadmill apart and reverses the deck. We had always instructed John that if you replace a deck you most certainly should replace the belt.
New treadmill deck = New walking Belt
Commercial Treadmills are unique. If a belt or deck is changed, the corresponding part should also be changed. Residential treadmills are used only by the owners of the machine; therefore, users may change a walking belt without changing the deck, but only if the proper maintenance schedule has been maintained and the deck is still in good physical condition.
John, thinking that his Treadmill Doctor deck is reversible assumes the Proform 525 walking belt must be also! So he moves forward with the repair and reverses the 525’s walking belt inside out. He gets it put back together, and Voile! Looks like a new treadmill!
A day later, John starts his treadmill up and begins his workout. A few minutes into warm up, his treadmill shuts down! Puzzled, he checks the breaker, safety key, and outlet….everything is in working order. He was thrilled after checking these common culprits, the 525 starts up again! Within 3 to 5 minutes his machine shuts down yet again! He takes the motor cover off and turns the treadmill on again. He realizes that the thermo switch is opening up and shutting his machine down. John is knowledgeable about wiring and electricity. He decides to bypass the thermo switch. He turns the machine back on and walks a couple of minutes, he is pleased with himself! The machine is going strong for 8 minutes! Unfortunately, a few minutes later he smells a slight odor, and then sees smoke! He quickly shuts the machine down and looks to see what has occurred! Melted wires! The treadmill has over heated and is no longer functioning! Mortified, he calls our service department. He tells Steve everything that has occurred and waits for the diagnosis.
Steve tells John that the first error: no walking belt is reversible,….ever! The 2nd issue is that any bypass of a manufacturer overload protection is a sure fire way to void your warranty and experience “thermal impact” or complete overheating of your internal components.
The result:
After going thru the treadmill, Steve informs John that he will need to order a new Motor Control Board, new treadmill motor and new walking belt…total $349.97