Just buy another brand for less. They went so far as to Photoshop ‘enhance’ my warranty photos to increase contrast to support their claim, and they admit it.
My very expensive Tempur / Tempurpedic mattress is cracking all over on top after 8 years, and my wife can’t sleep in it. Tempur quickly voided the warranty claim saying it’s water damaged - after they ‘enhanced’ a single image, mostly highlighting shadows.
I think the memory foam bed is actually only good for 4-5 years depending how big you are and you local humidity. The warranty at 10 years is a total scam for anyone but tiny fairies living in a plastic bubbles. If they said “this lasts 5 year’s” sales would crater or cheap alternatives would win out. Instead they say ‘full 10 year warranty’ but Don’t honor it.
There is no water damage on my bed. Some slight soiling on the mattress cover where you lay (8 years, not washable) plus some shadows due to the window, and they say stained and water damage no warranty. ‘Enhanced’ my photo to make it look worse. Wouldn’t even look at additional photos or send someone out.
Since no one has posted this yet so far, the Mattress Underground is the place to go for high-quality information about mattresses.
You’ll learn far more than you’d ever want to know about mattresses. And you’ll probably end up paying more too if you buy from one of the recommended retailers. But if quality is your main concern, then this is how you figure out what’s real and what’s not.
Slightly off-topic: Is there a similar website for sofas?
When I moved out, I was in a hurry and bought one after testing it for comfort for about thirty seconds. Turns out, it is, and most their product are, drop-shipped, low quality garbage.
It started falling apart after a month. Been postponing the purchase for about two years because I am not able to find reliable sources of information to guide my purchase decision.
Great sources for a mattress though. Guess I will cop one soon, as I bought my current one from Wayfair, same shit. Good riddance!
This is a list of notes I put together when shopping for couches. Some of it requires getting hands-on with the couch so it won’t work well for online purchases, but you should be at least sitting on a couch before buying it. My notes were cobbled together from information I found online, so big grain of salt.
Old couches are almost always going to be better than new ones because so many companies have dropped in quality over the years.
Take a black light to look for pee spots or stains. Look for bugs (fleas, bedbugs).
Things to look for:
- Touch back of sofa & area under arm rest and see if it’s just fabric. Something solid usually means attention to detail / quality
- Seat cushions that are solid foam wrapped in breathable layer (cotton, down, etc) are the worst quality cushions (degrade quickly over time)
- Seat cushions that have layered foam or glued foam is a good sign and may mean springs in the foam (springs are generally a good thing)
- Take off the seat cushions and see how far apart the springs underneath the cushions are / how many there are. More & tighter packed the better
- Take off seat cushions and look for horizontal connection wires. There should be 2 minimum. Should be able to feel and see through fabric
- Lift up the sofa. If it’s light weight, that’s bad. If it flexes, that’s bad. Good sofas are heavy and don’t flex when lifted
- Don’t buy leather, buy polyester. This is personal preference, but leather is a lot more work to take care of & keep it looking nice
- “Eight way hand tied” isn’t necessarily a sign of quality, but it’s better than s-springs. There can be fake “eight way hand tied”, which is why it isn’t always better
Good brands:
- Room & Board
- What A Room
- Arhaus
- Maiden Home
- Stickley
- Thos. Moser
- Ethan Allen
- Stuart David (Amish)
- Hancock and Moore
- Bradington and Young
- Classic Leather
- American Leather
Ok brands:
- Bernhardt
- Palliser
- Lovesac
- La-Z-Boy
- Flexsteel
Bad brands:
- Crate & Barrel
- Ashley
- Article & Joybird
- Wayfair
- Natuzzi
- Restoration Hardware
When I bought my couches a few years ago, I got them used off Facebook Marketplace. It took a couple weeks for some decent Ethan Allen couches to pop up, but I got them for ~$400 each.
Would love this for sofas. Last one I got was crap and I find myself regretting not continuing to fix up our old 80s era leather sofa. That thing was built to survive the Cold War.
https://www.sleeplikethedead.com/ is pretty good, too.
Wow, their website is really shitty on a phone, though (not sure about on a desktop). Half of all the pages are taken up with ads. Much too easy to hit one by mistake.
If only there was some sort of…blocker… of ads… on websites…
Derek from NapLab is also a great source. I did my own research before finding his website, but his recommendations matched what I had chosen. It also makes me chuckle to tell friends that a man named Derek will personally email you to tell you what mattress to buy.
Not only will he personally email you, but he will keep engaging to help you out. He recommended a mattress that fit the budget but didn’t ship to Alaska. After I told him that, he went out of his way to help me find another company that did. Ended up emailing back and forth with him a few times before landing on one of his recommendations.
I found him via and old AskReddit thread he started and kept going.
A+ effort from him.
Maximum Derek!
At this point, I assume about any warranty is bullshit. I definitely won’t pay extra for a warranty, because these companies aren’t in business to give money back.
A “great” warranty has always been the clearest sign of a shit product, but even so, defects do happen, and plenty of warranties are real and valid.
Our perception of warranties is distorted because we sell purchase protection and breakdown insurance for damn near everything now, and we call it an “extended warranty” rather than the insurance product it is.
This one is tough. A longer warranty is a way to reassure customers that it’s made better, with the promise that it will be repaired/replaced if it breaks. And if they honor their warranties as promised, it’s probably valid. Warranty claims are expensive, regardless of industry, so they go to great lengths to minimize claims. Whatever the warranty is, you can reasonably be sure that it will last that long, but probably not a second longer. Again, assuming a trustworthy company that will honor the warranty.
Otherwise, anyone can shit in a box and mark it guaranteed. If it’s from Amazon/AliExpress, the company probably won’t even exist in 6 months (but a strangely similar new company will).
The flip side is that an unusually short/weak warranty, below that of its competitors, is almost certainly a shit product. They aren’t even going to pretend it’s up to industry standards.
You could take them to small claims court and you’d likely win. A headache, but a solution.
A slightly smaller headache in the US is to file a complaint with your states attorney general.
Adding onto this, every state AG regularly pursues companies for not honoring their warranty. It takes some paperwork (usually original purchase receipt, original warranty terms, and your desired resolution), but it’s usually not too bad. Yours might even list it as a common category for your complaint. Probably takes about 20 minutes.
Companies don’t usually fuck around when the AG is watching. You probably aren’t the only one to complain, and too many complaints can lead to a full-blown lawsuit from one of the most capable organizations in the state. The penalties can include your entire company - including parent, children, and sibling companies, being banned from doing business in the state.
Unless they are yet another company hiding behind bullshit arbitration T’s and C’s.
those arbitration clauses generally only cover class action, but regardless in this case going through arbitration would be cheaper for them anyway since it’s very likely the third party will side with them. Additionally, I’m fairly certain if they went through the AG it becomes a criminal case not a civil due to them violating consumer protection laws, which would likely make the arbitration clause obsolete anyway as a consumer contract or agreement can not override law.
While the AG has a number of options available, most common are civil suits. But even before that, simply having the AG in the middle is putting them on notice that they need to really, REALLY be confident that they are in the right. In most circumstances, they will simply approve your warranty claim to avoid the risk.
When you see headlines of “[state] AG sues XYZ Corp for not honoring warranty claims”, it means there have been a ton of complaints, or a lot of complaints where they still refused. You should never purchase from a company that’s had one of these headlines recently.
I work in this industry, and Tempur is notorious for declining a warranty. Every claim I ever heard tried for compressed foam is declined due to “normal wear and tear” or other cause such as this.
Tempur-Pedic are super expensive too. Can’t imagine why water would lead to cracking in any case.
I don’t see mattresses as a BIFL item because they get dirty, full of dust mites etc. I currently have a midrange IKEA (I don’t think they sell it anymore; it’s foam but didn’t come vacuum-packed) and it’s working well but after 6 or 7 years it’s getting a little flat where I sleep. But it was $500 or so, not $3500 like a mattress store wanted.
I don’t see mattresses as a BIFL item
Absolutely they aren’t. You could maybe make a case for a waterbed mattress, provided you never move it. Those can hold up for a long time because they are impermeable.
IMHO everyone should invest in waterproof mattress barriers. Being waterproof, they prevent all the night sweat and body oils from soaking in and degrading the mattress faster (which is a legit issue that contributes to the body valley), but it also makes them dirt and bedbug proof. And if you put it under a mattress pad, you won’t even know it’s there. They aren’t like the thick noisy plastic of days gone by. If it’s directly under sheets you might hear it, but they are not particularly loud.
They are also dirt cheap; the last one I bought was $13 for a queen size, and as long as it doesn’t tear, it’ll last basically forever. It rarely even needs to be washed. Small price to pay to keep my mattress a bit nicer a bit longer, even though it won’t make it last forever. :)
The vast majority of memory foam is made in bulk by only a few companies, who sell to all the various mattress makers. So with memory foam mattresses, pillows, etc, it doesn’t really matter which brand you buy; the foam is coming from the same suppliers regardless. And the foam itself is actually dirt cheap. The raw materials for the mattress are only like $50-100 total when they’re bought in bulk.
The only real difference between a $3500 Tempur Pedic and a $300 Amazon Basics mattress is which warehouse it was assembled in and shipped from. And you could buy a brand new $300 mattress every single year, spend less money, and be more comfortable at year 10 than someone on a decade-old Tempur Pedic.
I fully agree.
I bought like a $400-600 Costco mattress because one of my friends has one that’s super comfy. But it’s only been two ish years and I’m ready for something new.
To be fair, i think I did get my money’s worth.
I’ve had mine for 20 years and still like it but I think that’s because they just don’t make them like they used to…like most things
I also have a Tempur bed with mattress and it’s still going strong. Before I got it (maybe 4-5 years ago?) my dad owned it for maybe 10 years.
The only problem with it is that my stepmom didn’t like it and that’s why I bought it from them. And right now my current girlfriend doesn’t like it… But she doesn’t live with me and I still like the bed.
Yeah I havnt met many people that like it. Mine is super firm and I also side sleep and use their wavy pillow and have always liked it. I just cannot sleep on a soft bed and i have no back or posture problems so im gonna keep it until I can’t.
Ill probably get another one but it’ll be fun to do some research when the time comes
Firm innersprung IKEA, still going strong after around 14 years. Wish it was a.little softer tho.
I think the memory foam bed is actually only good for 4-5 years depending how big you are and you local humidity.
Yeah my Casper was noticeably worn in the center (single life) after about 3 years. I’m now onto like 4.5 and it’s really starting to annoy me. Trying to sleep on the sides makes me roll into the center lol.
I was always under the impression that mattresses should be changed every 7 years or so. I mean, that’s a lot of use over a long period of time! A quick Google suggests a lifespan of 7 to 10 years is about right. One article on this topic is here:
If that’s the case then Tempurpedic shouldn’t offer a 10 year warranty they don’t intend to honor.
Eh, the article even says with proper care you can push a mattress well beyond 10 years
The only reasons mattresses aren’t lasting long is companies are making crappy ones and people aren’t caring for them
How do you care for it?
Mostly rotating, flipping, and keeping it protected/cleaned
Now that you mention it, it’s time for me to rotate my mattress.
My wife and I have been on our Sleep Number for almost 6 years now and it’s still going strong. Never had an issue with the pumps or anything. We got the thinnest top version and put our own 4 inch memory foam topper on top, it’s pretty nice.
We are thinking of changing to whatever they use at Disney World’s Grand Floridian Resort. Walked 30k steps in a single day, which for an overweight inactive guy like me was absolutely brutal. Normally the next day I’d be so sore (got bad joints, they hate me), but whatever magic is in those mattresses had me up next morning feeling just fine.
Simmons BeautyRest Pillow Top mattresses from the BeautyRest Hospitality Collection. Apparently you can buy them even if you don’t own a hotel!
