Important Consumer Information- Not all Massage Chairs are Built to Last

When it comes to massage chairs, if the price seems too good to be true, that's a big red flag! Massage chairs are high-tech pieces of machinery, and quality simply doesn't come cheap. Good chairs can last 10 years or more with no problems at all, while poor quality chairs won't make it much more than a year.

4 Rules to Remember

1. Call and talk to the company you are going to purchase from!!! Is there a person on the other end of the phone that is knowledgeable? Do they even answer the phone? Can they answer questions about any chair on the market? If they can't even answer easy questions what will happen when you need repair?

2. Warranties tell you a lot, but get the details. Just because they say "In-Home service" does not necessarily mean it will be available in your area! And most are only for the 1st year. Read below for the "truth behind in home warranty service".

3. Find out where the chair is manufactured. It's no longer the country that makes the best massage chairs, it's the factory.

4. Most importantly, if the price seems too good to be true, then most likely, IT IS!

Inexpensive Imported Chairs
We've been a massage chair designeer and manufacturer for over 10 years and take pride in our industry. But in the past few years, a lot of new massage chair brands/importers have hit the U.S. market selling cheap chairs, giving our industry a bad name. Often these chairs are made in China. That's not to say all Chinese-made chairs are bad, but many are. They look great on paper, with loads of impressive features, and a truly AMAZING price, but buyer beware! Chairs "originally" priced at $5000 that are discounted to $1500 were never worth $5000 in the first place! Don't be fooled.

The Difference is Quality
Naturally, people want to know how certain chairs can look almost identical to each other, and yet be so much cheaper. The answer is simple: quality. What's on the outside has nothing to do with what's on the inside. Cheap imitators are just not as well-made as the brands that we offer. Remember, in life you get what you pay for!

Good Massage Chairs Are Extremely Reliable!
Just like quality cars, quality massage chairs rarely have problems. Here is a list of brands we trust (please note we do not represent all of these brands). If a brand is not on this list, we don't recommend them based on past experience and research.

• Panasonic
• Elite
• Inada
• Sanyo

The brands above have a long, positive history in the business with quality technical service departments, parts on hand and have been in the business at least 10 years.

Great Chairs On A Budget
Not all chairs under $2000 dollars are low quality. But you have to know the factory that they come out of. There are some good factories in China and some bad. It is good to ask if the chair is manufactured in China or just assembled there. Even great companies like Panasonic now have factories in China, but only for assembly, the parts still come from their high end plants.

How to Get A Great Chair and Avoid a Mistake
1. Call and ask the seller where the chair was made.
2. Call and ask about warranty coverage, and get a copy IN WRITING or print the page that it contains!
3. Ask about the Mean Time Failure rate (Average life span of the chair before it breaks down). If they don’t know what it is, or won’t tell you, beware…

How They Make Chairs Cheap
The most common way companies cut costs is by substituting cheaper components when assembling their chairs. The chair looks the same from the outside, and the features look the same on paper, but chairs like this will not hold up in the long term. They use plastic parts where they should be metal; they use flimsy drive belts where there should be gears; they use cheap motors with short life-spans, and the chair costs you less as a result. It may seem tempting, but you will end up with an unreliable chair that breaks down, and poor quality massage that’s loud, clunky and rough.

Chairs That Have Very High Failure Rates
As with anything else in life, you get what you pay for. The massage chair industry uses a measurement called MTF rate, or Mean Time Failure rate, to describe the life span of electronic motors. MTF is the number of hours the chair can run before half of them fail and break down. A good chair may have an MTF of 5000-7000 hours. Most cheaper competitors have MTF rates of 500-750 hours. The Elite Optima has an MTF of 17,200 hours, the best in the industry and why we offer a built in 5 year warranty.

What If The Chair Has A Good Warranty?
I know what you’re thinking, “who cares if my chair breaks… I have a 5 year warranty.” That’s fine, but remember, a warranty is only as good as the company that’s backing it up. Over the years, we have seen literally dozens of fly-by-night massage chair companies set up shop and then close down before the chairs fail. Companies like ours have been in the massage chair business for a decade or more, so you know we will be around to back up our warranties.

Warranties That Cost You Later
Even if you can get one of these shady companies to honor your warranty you will be asked to ship the entire chair back to the place of purchase at your expense. This will cost you time, money, and a huge hassle, IF the company is even still around! Companies like ours allow customers to ship just a small portion of the chair, say one motor or a circuit board, saving you hundreds in shipping costs, besides we even cover the shipping for your entire first year.

Service Issues – Most of the cheaper massage chairs are impossible to service. We recently purchased one of the "too good to be true" massage chairs to look under the hood. Our chief service tech said "Man I'm glad I don't have to work on this chair. One thing goes wrong and the whole chair is toast." By the way, that company is now out of business.

The Truth About "In-Home" service
In-Home service is almost never in your home. In home service is 99% of the time a 3rd party contracted service company that may or may not actually come out to your home. You have to 1st be in their service area, if you are not they either charge you a service fee and mileage or require you to bring the chair to them for service which could be 100 miles away. 2nd, when and if they come out to your home to diagnose the problem (on the phone with the manufacturer) they then have to remove the chair for service back at their facility, which could take months.

Elite chairs are modular. All the individual components can be removed by the average person, we help you every step of the way and we have detailed color coded step by step instructions. The turn around time is around a week and because the chair is modular, the rest of the chair will continue to work while we repair the problem part.

Plastic Massage Roller Arms - Roller arms on a good quality chair from Elite will be made of extra durable, long-lasting steel. The massage arms are what drive the functions of your massage chair, and they’re probably the most important part of the massage. Plastic or flimsy metal in cheaper chairs can bend or even snap over time. In addition, flimsy metal arms that bend might not even be covered in the warranty, if you have one. Believe it or not, we have heard of companies denying these claims, saying that the arm is just bent, not broken, thus not under warranty! In some cases, damage like this occurs in as little as 1 month!

Things To Ask Before You Buy

Origins of Chair - Before you buy any massage chair, call and ask the seller where the chair is made, and try to get the phone number of the manufacturer. Make sure you find out how long the company itself has been in business. Web sites can be made in a day! So don’t be fooled, find out how long they have been in the massage chair business and how long the chair has been on the market

Service Specifics - Also, if the chair carries a warranty, make sure to get a copy of the warranty IN WRITING! If they won’t provide this, do not buy their product. If you really want to be sure, call and pretend you’re a customer with a broken chair. See how they handle your claim. More than likely they will route you to someone, who will route you to someone else who will put you on hold and then give you the number that you originally called. Find out how fast you can get to technical service and an actual person, how long are you on hold, are you speaking with "John" who happens to have a thick accent and not a clue what a massage chair is? Do your homework, this is an investment that could last for the next 15 years.

If you follow these tips you will be able to spot the brands that aren't worth their salt when you see them. They will promise the world and deliver far less. Don't get hustled, do your research and you will love your new massage chair!

If you have any questions about this article or any massage chair on the market, let one of our experts help you make the right decision!

EliteMassageChairs.com
(800) 592-0548

Click here for our quality massage chair inventory.