Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the Hayward AQR15 AquaRite from Amazon.com via Pool Supply Warehouse back in August 2015. The unity worked well for a year, I maintain the unit well during this time, cleaning with muriatic acid once to twice a month. A month ago the problems began. The unit stopped detecting my pool salt level correctly. I took the unit to my local Leslie's Pool for a free water test and cell diagnostic, they confirmed the salt level detector is malfunctioned and the cell needs to be replaced. Since the cell has a 3-year warranty, I figure no problem, contact Hayward and get the unit replaced! It's been two weeks, I have had to argue with support on what replacing a defective unit under warantee means - they want me to send the defective unit to Hayward first and will ship a new unit in 7-10 days. I said this was not possible as my filter cannot run for 7-10 days without the cell unit, and asked for a local Hayward service repair to swap my unit - Hayward replied I will be charged for the service call. So I asked for an authorized dealer or cell station where I can drive to and swap out the unit, and so far I've been ignored. This is simply not how you treat your customer who bought a defective unit. I've called tech support a couple of times, do not have the time to be put on hold to wait for support, so resorted to email and can have a record trail. A month after my cell broke, I am still without a working chlorinator. --- Update 4/19/17 My final followup to this review - After posting in 11/7/2016 and going through the headache of working with Hayward support for over a month, I finally got a replacement salt cell about 6 weeks after reporting a defective cell. I had to drive 90 minutes out to the nearest authorized Hayward dealer and repairer (Leslie's Pool isn't), get a stub cell and swap out defective cell so dealer can return to Hayward, start the replacement process, and drive back to dealer to get the new replacement. The pool store owner was actually very helpful and lamented that the Hayward warranty replacement process did change for the worse; he use to be able to give a new cell to customer without submitting the broken cell back to the factory first. I have been running the new cell for 4 months now and it works perfectly - generating an abundance of chlorine with the exact water chemistry I always maintained my water at (salt level, calcium level, pH and conditioner) and there has been zero calcium build up on the plates, hence no need for scraping nor acid wash in 4 months. To all those who replied and questioned my review - you should read it again. It was about a defective cell that occurred one year after purchase, and the 6 week+ painful process to get it replaced through Hayward's arcane warranty replacement process. Don't speculate on my pool water chemistry, maintenance process or anything else that is completely out of topic. I am an end-user, not a Hayward middle man or professional pool man. Your adamant insistence that this is my fault and not the defective cell simply make you look like a Hayward shill. I will upgrade my rating from 1 star to 2 stars as my problem as finally resolved; however the low rating still stands until Hayward changes their warranty replacement policy and treat their customer better.