I decided to purchase this elliptical because of the good reviews it got and I was really, really excited about using it during the Boston winters. I bought it in February and now it's April. It worked well for about two months - it was silent, everything looked good except the fact that the calorie counter is 3x your actual calorie loss (if 10,000 steps = 500 calories is the standard, the counter will show that 10,000 steps = 1,500 calories lost). I was able to get in my 10,000 steps a day without bugging my roommates. Three weeks ago, it started making really bad grinding noises and black pieces of plastic(?) started shooting out from the back of it. So I thought, "Okay, it just needs some grease!" Yeah.... no. The grease worked for about 20 minutes. And now I've been taking it apart every 10 minutes to re-grease it, otherwise it's just loud grinding noises. I'm almost afraid it's something else and any minute now, if I step on it, it'll all fall apart. I was told that if you exceed the weight limit (250 lbs), you'll start getting these problems. Problem is I'm half the weight limit. I contacted Stamina Products and I'm still waiting for a real reply. Thank goodness it's spring.