I have become physically limited and am actively preparing for my upcoming hip replacement. After reading what I would encounter, I realized I needed a chair with arms and a certain height, none of which we had in our new apartment. This chair seemed to be the solution. It arrived quickly in a slim rectangular box that indicated it was going to be "assembly required". Although the box was sturdy and intact, two ends of metal tubes were poking through the package. As is often the case, my husband was out of town, so it would be up to me to lug it upstairs to our apartment and put it together. In actuality, I like putting together furniture. In fact, I've built most of the furniture in our new apartment in the past year and a half. But with this bad hip and two bad knees, it took some time for me to get the box upstairs, take it apart, and so on. The assembly went fine, even though it was exhausting for my poor depleted body. Two of the screw holes were not completely punched out, but I was able to poke them through. Part of the seat assembly required partially removing some screws a bit to get others in, but that's good--that means that final fit is tight. The problem was that one of the tube support end caps, one of the ones that had poked through the package, was missing. This meant there was a sharp, uncovered edge in an otherwise sturdy chair. I spent some time sifting through all the packaging to determine that nope, there was no cap to cover this sharp edge. I checked downstairs to make sure, and I followed up "my trail" to the apartment. Nothing there. Fine. I'd just get a replacement. I immediately emailed the manufacturer, Drive Medical. They responded within 12 hours to indicate that they refused to deal with this problem. !!!! I was supposed to "contact the seller." In this case, it was Amazon LLC. No help there. Oh, the Amazon phone rep was willing to stand behind the product. This fact has to be upfront and out there. I could receive a NEW chair. But no one seemed to get that there was no way I could get the old chair into a shipped-back state. Plus no one seemed to get that dragging another box upstairs, unpacking it and assembling it might put this old body into full tilt. Why in the heck couldn't I JUST GET A CHEAP REPLACEMENT PART? After a flurry of emails, it was decided that I would shop for a new part and they would reimburse me. Of course, a couple of the reps didn't understand that I was no longer capable of cruising Lowes and Home Depot anytime soon to play "matchy-matchy". And no one--and I mean NO ONE--could give me the part proper name and specs. I did strongly suggest that THEY could order another chair, take the package apart, pry off an end cap and send it to me in the mail, but no one seemed to take that as a logical solution. It was all up to me. And I mean ALL UP TO ME. No one could be bothered to give me the proper name and the specs of the missing part. I guessed at the possible name of the missing part (tube end? cap end? end cap?), Googled Images, and was able to find something that looked similar after some time online. I just was unable to determine, even after measuring, the precise specs with the part I needed. I ordered two (I had to make sure the cap would match the other visible cap) of two possibles in hopes that one would fit. These things were cheap--around $1.30--but the shipping was around $15. The replacements arrived, and one set did fit. I immediately tried to get my refund using automatic reply form sent me by Amazon. Guess what? Nothing in that reply allowed me to upload AN ATTACHMENT OF INVOICE. Grrrr. Luckily, I was able to find an accurate email adress online through Google--CIS@amazon.com--created my OWN email form, copied the pertinent info from their "official" reply form, and zapped them back. But yes, within 12 hours my account was credited. So let's review the actual chair. Chair: One thing for sure, this puppy is sturdy. Its dark brown color makes it unobtrusive in my apartment. Is it comfortable? Nope--no way. The sturdy seat back and chair have no give--they are hard as rocks. Does it fit the bill for what I'm going to encounter with the hip? Absolutely. Packaging: If two tubes had not been poking out of the package, I'd say this packaging was very good. As it was, the company's failure to contain curving ends of the metal support tubes were certainly what caused my eventual missing part problem. Some UPS truck has my end cap. Assembly Time: I'd say the assembly time WOULD HAVE BEEN 1/2 hour if I had been "able". The directions were not fabulous but they were not horrendous by any means. The fitting was quite logical. Assembly if you are disabled a bit: I'd say it was one hour for me because I'm now a weakling and unpacking the thing was really tough for me and then trying to get up and down to position the parts was a bit more taxing than I am now capable. Searching for the missing part was maybe 15 minutes. Time dealing with Drive Medical, Amazon reps, online ordering and so on was what took forever! Amazon Support: Good and bad. Yes, they were willing to stand behind the product, and that is good. No, they just did not come up with logical solutions, and I am still sort of stunned that they placed all burden of "making this right" on me, especially since Amazon has been a godsend to me up to now.
