Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I shopped around for a long time looking for an exercise bike around this price range. After reading many online reviews and comparing several models, I bought into the award winning reviews for the Diamondback 910sr recumbent bike and purchased it locally from a Diamondback dealer back in June of 2012. Around the 10th day of ownership, I started hearing squeaking and popping noises and smelled a burning rubber smell coming from the flywheel housing. I called Diamondback and asked for an exchange rather than having a brand new recumbent bike serviced. They refused and referred me back to the dealer. The dealer also refused a refund/exchange, and said that the bike had to be serviced. So began my adventure. It is now May 6th of 2013, approaching the expiration of the 1 year labor warranty, and the popping in the bearings still has not been repaired. I keep going in circles trying to get this fixed. Diamondback won't reply to my emails. I have to deal with the local dealer, who told me that I had to start by calling their service repair company that they contract with. After waiting a few weeks, I finally got a tech to come out to look at it. He took the housing apart to try to fix the squeak -- by oiling the tension spring -- and broke the alignment teeth off the enclosure housing in the process. I had showed him that the squeak seemed to be coming from the tension arm pivot bolt, but he oiled the spring instead. Obviously that didn't fix anything. I put up with it for a while and then called back nearly two months later. The service company said that Diamondback never paid for the warranty repairs, and the service company was no longer working with dealer from whom I bought the bike. I called the dealer, and they told me I had to work it out with the same service company that just told me that they were no longer working with this dealer. Neither one could figure out who I needed to work with, so I was in limbo for a while. The dealer told me they'd get it straightened out and call me back. However, the dealer has yet to ever call me back on a single call since the day I took ownership of the bike. In mid-December I called back again to the dealer, and they referred me to a new service company. By then the pivot arm squeaking had stopped, but the popping in the flywheel bearings was still hit or miss. Based on my descriptions and the sounds they could hear over the phone, the service tech also determined that it was the flywheel bearings (the popping continued even when I stopped pedaling, but the flywheel was still spinning). So supposedly they ordered parts and would call me back. I waited two weeks, but no callback. So I called the service company again. To my surprise, I was told that there was a recent policy change and that I now had to have prior permission from the dealer's service headquarters to have my bike serviced. I called the dealer's service headquarters but I could never reach the person to talk to for scheduling warranty work; all I could do was leave voicemail messages, and never ever received a call back. Fast forward a little -- in February 2013, almost two months later and no communication with anyone, the service company surprised me by calling to schedule repair work for the bearings. Great! Except when they arrived, Diamondback had sent the wrong replacement parts. So their trip and all my waiting was for nothing. New replacement parts would have to be ordered. It is now May 2013. There are no replacement parts, nor has there been any contact from anyone. The problem has not been fixed since I received the bike in June of 2012, and it has now developed yet another problem. Today the speed sensor stopped registering. Hence, the bike does not detect any movement, and resets itself after about one minute. It is now completely non-functional. Here I go again, trying to contact the service company, still waiting for the original replacement parts, plus the new repair which will now likely need more replacement parts. The service company said they'd call me back... I can't begin to fully express my disappointment with this bike, and would never recommend it to anyone. It has been bad since the very beginning, and I should not be experiencing problems with a brand new $800 bike like this. As of now this product is landfill waste. Diamondback's lack of response to rectify the problem and the hassle with the dealer and their service vendors has been extremely frustrating. It is unbelievable that it has taken this long to get this issue resolved. Steer clear of the Diamondback 910sr recumbent bike, unless you want an exercise in frustration! Additional review notes: during all my research, there was one website review that warned that Diamondback had internal quality issues. That's the review I wish I would have paid more attention to. The bike frame itself feels solid, but that means nothing if it doesn't work functionally. The computer controls also feel cheap; it is a membrane type entry and does not feel durable. The built-in fan is completely worthless, and trickles a hot circuit-board smell into your face while exercising. Not good, and I never use it. One last item -- if you press the stop button for two seconds, it erases all the user settings. You then have to reprogram all your user settings for the bike again. This is frustrating, as they should have separated the "reset" into another button. Very much regretting this purchase. My previous recumbent bike was a $250 cheap Edge 491 bike which lasted nearly 10 years. I expected a lot more from the Diamondback bike, and received a lot less.