Treadmill Maintenance: Part 3 - Maintenance-free for 11 years

Over a dozen years ago in 2010 and 2013, I published a very popular series of two posts about maintaining my Smooth Fitness 5.25 running treadmill that can be found here and here.

The first post walked through how I replaced the rear roller after it completely blew out while I was running on it 3 years after purchase, and the second post walked through how I replaced the control board after it stopped working 2 years later or 5 years after purchase.

In one of my comments to the second post nearly 2 years later or 7 years after purchase, I mentioned that the replacement control board had stopped working. The Smooth Fitness service / parts hotline told me that control boards were on back order like they had communicated the first time, giving me the impression that these parts were made-to-order, and on hearing nothing after waiting over a week to hear back from them, I decided to shop for a new treadmill.

Besides the expected multi-month wait involved during the Fall season of the Chicago area when temperatures tend to drop, purchasing another control board at the dollar amount indicated in my blog post was not very appealing to me, since it would have brought the out-of-pocket parts total to about $700 for a treadmill which initially cost me $1000.