How to Buy Used Treadmills

It seems pretty obvious to me that buying used is the way to go if you're looking for a treadmill. New treadmills can be extremely expensive. Some of the top-of-the-line units go for over $5000. Even the basic units with the most commonly requested features can cost upwards of $2000.

So how should you go about finding a used one without getting ripped off?

Well first of all let’s find out where the used treadmills come from. The good news is that there are plenty of them. Your best chance to get a good deal on a used treadmill would be in early spring. Here is why:

The biggest event of the new year is not New Year’s Day, oral the college football bowls. The biggest event of the new year is always a huge wave of soon to be unkept New Year's resolutions that are made. Most likely the single most common resolution is to lose weight and get in shape.

What normally happens is that people will go out and buy a set of fitness equipment, use it for a few weeks, and then simply stop. Over the course of the next few months their beautiful new Pro form treadmill becomes the world's most expensive coat hanger. A few months after that their wife convinces them to put the dang thing up on eBay or in their local paper.

That's where you come in. The best part of all of this is that when you're buying used fitness equipment you have a good chance of getting something that is almost brand-new. After all, if they were using a regular basis it wouldn’t be for sell would it?

The first place I would look is eBay. There are two reasons for this. First of all, eBay might be the place where you find the best deal. However, even if it is not -- it gives you a great resource for checking prices. Especially if you have a particular model or brand in mind, you can do research on eBay and then check your local paper. This way you'll have a much better idea of what the treadmill is actually worth.

Once you take a look at eBay and see what kind of deals are available in your price range, move onto Craigslist. Go ahead and use their sorting feature so that you are only looking at results in your local area. You can find some incredible deals on Craigslist, but be careful there were also quite a few scam artists there. Unlike Amazon or eBay, which have significant anti-fraud measures in place, Craigslist is a bit more like the wild wild West.

At this point, you should have a list of used treadmills that you are interested in. You also have a good idea of what kind of feature set you can get with a price that you are willing to pay, and how hard that will be to find.

Next step is to go out and grab your local paper, or look at its classifieds online. You're going to find the pickings are more slim here unless you live in a major metropolitan area, but the plus side of using the classifieds in your local paper are that you can more than likely drive on out and take a look at the treadmill firsthand.

If you do find some treadmills in your price range and they are close enough that you can go see them it's time to do some more extensive research online.

Research your treadmill before you pay a visit!

See if you can find the actual manufacturers website and see if the model is still listed as current. Read up on the features, and see if they have the owner’s manual posted on their site.You may also want to do a search for parts for your new treadmill to make sure that they are readily available.

Finally, go to Amazon.com and other shopping sites and see if you can find a review of your new treadmill. There is nothing like feedback from people who have actually bought the product before you to give you a good idea of any problems that may be in your future.

Whether you're visiting the seller was listed on Craigslist, eBay or in your local paper be cautious. Never ever visit someone you don't know by yourself. Especially if you are female, take a large male friend with you. The odds are the person selling the treadmill is perfectly fine but why take chances.

Once you get there, incist that they plug the treadmill in and give you a chance to use it. If you have done your research, you know what features the treadmill has. Make sure you put it through its paces. If it comes with pre-programmed training routines, select them and try them out for a few minutes. If it is supposed to be able to accept your training recruit teens and save them in memory, try that as well. Really go through the thing from one end to the other operationally.

If you're satisfied with the way the machine is operating, it's time to see what kind of condition it's in. Check the moving parts for wear. Are all the bolts / nuts tight? If it is a foldable model, go ahead and fold up – then set it back up. Is the motor hot to the touch? Did it make any unusual noises when it was running?

It your machine passes all of these tests, - you have just found yourself a bargain.

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