This is in the interest of FULL DISCLOSURE. I received a Private Message (PM) asking about my experience with our Nitro Wall Climber one year later. Interestingly enough, our Nitro had issues about a week before this message arrived. I will copy this same post to the other threads where I recomended Nitro to ensure others are not unintentionally misled by our past positive experience with the product.
The bottom line (at least for us) is that the Nitro Wall Climber did a great job while it worked, but longevity now seems to be the issue we are having trouble with. Ours went in for service 2 times and was replaced with another unit the second time. The second unit had a 1 year life span before we had any problems. The symptoms were the same each time so with this being the third occurrence in roughly 18 months I think it may be a systemic problem with the unit's design. As far as our use of Nitro, we take it out of the pool and clean the bag and give the unit a freshwater rinse after each use and allow it to dry in order to prevent water from permeating everything. We store it out of the elements and not in direct sunlight when not in use. Our experience was better than that of some others, so this may not be indicitave of everyone's experience. (Some are probably better.) I hope this helps others.
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It is interesting that I would get your message this week as our beloved Nitro quit working properly last week. Had I gotten the message 2 weeks sooner, (before it quit working) I would have reported all is well and I am still very happy with the product, so I am glad you wrote when you did.
I have contacted Smart Pool and unfortunately we are now out of warranty coverage. They were awesome to deal with while under warranty as they essentially replaced our unit with another one when it failed. Figuring that it was merely a fluke we continued on as happy customers, but now I an having second thoughts given that almost one year to the day later we are experiencing the exact same problem with our Nitro. They are willing to send me a RMA to have one of their service centers troubleshoot and repair the unit at my expense, so they are still doing well on customer service I guess, but given that this is the exact same problem that led to us getting a replacement unit under warranty last year, it seems more than coincidental to me and perhaps more systemic.
Basically, the pump moves water and still vaccums for the entire cycle (3 hour or 1 hour as selected) and the Nitro will vaccum the pool as long as we move it around from place to place. We used the brush to move the dirt all to one part of the pool and then move Nitro over to that location and it will move back and forth in about a 2 foot area and clean that area well. Of course, this totally defeats the purpose of having a robot in the first place if we have to move it around the pool as it works.
I have read a post on the following site:
http://www.fixya.com/support/t5651905-n ... imber_only
According to the diagnosis listed there the fix is a new pump motor since that controls the actual programming of the unit. A bit more research and I have located a pump motor for $213 at
http://www.backyardpoolsuperstore.com and I am still shopping for a better price. I have also placed a call to Smart Pool's nearest service center for a phone consult about the diagnosis and repair parts to confirm my theory before I spend what will surely be non-refundable money to fix our Nitro.
All in all, the Nitro Wall Climber did a great job cleaning our pool and for that we have been very satisfied with the product. However, if we have to spend $200 annually to keep it working it will probably get replaced by something else and we will no longer be fans of this product.
Anyone else got any ideas as far as the fix for the problem we are having with our Nitro or any similar experiences?
I will be posting this on the thread where I praised the Nitro earlier to ensure full disclosure and I will be amending my Amazon review of the product with this same information so that others can make a more informed decision.
I hope this helps you and others.