FitDesk Under Desk Elliptical

I have a FitDesk 2 and love it, wrote a 5-star review for it. I bought the under desk elliptical for my office, thinking the quality would be the same. It did not arrive with any visible damage, but the unit is too stiff to pedal even on the lowest setting, and makes a squeal and hiss.from inside the mechanism. It feels like it is grinding against something when trying to pedal. I contacted FitDesk's customer service twice before getting a response, and that response was my question (how do I fix this?) was forwarded to a tech, who has not responded. I wasn't given the tech's contact information. My only real option is to return this item at this point.UPDATE: Customer service finally got in touch with me, and wrote back that the mechanism was faulty. They said they would send me a new one. One arrived yesterday, and it knocks continuously on the left side. It also is not new; it has scratches and dirt on the floor-side of the mechanism, and oil stains by the pedal shaft and on the brand sticker from where someone presumably tried to fix the knocking my lubricating the pedal. I think I was given someone else's returned defective unit.

This is a fantastic product!! I absolutely LOVE using it!!1. Took about 25 minutes to put together2. Fits perfect under my desk, but it is a little long, so be sure to measure. It cannot be seen under my desk!3. Very quiet, but keep a can of WD-40 handy in case it starts to squeak. It does need a little bit after initial use.4. Even on low, it's great for the legs all the way up to the glutes5. You can pedal forward or backward, and backwards is even more challenging6. The timer cord fits perfect around the back of my desk, and sits up by my monitors, so I can easily read all the stats. Plus it can be reset at any time, so I can track all day calories. The time only goes up to 100 minutes, then restarts at 0.7. Because I like wearing sandals, heels and boots, I bought a pair of slip on sneakers to leave on the pedals. This way no outside dirt, salt or water will get on it, and I always have something to slip into to use the elliptical. They work great!!8. I have a keyboard tray, and my knees do not touch it. My knees barely move up and down. Mostly the motion is stretched out a little, and goes down versus way up. Hard to explain, but bottom line is I have no issue with my knees hitting, which is awesome!!9. I always have my rolling chair hooked on the foot massage, which keeps me stable as I use it.Overall a great product!! Even my co-workers have tried it, and were surprised at how well it works!! It's a must buy for those who don't have time to get to the gym, don't want to hit the gym after a long day or are sitting so much all day. It's a time saver for sure! Also, it keeps me moving all day!

I'm not sure if none of these work, or if the one I got was just defective. But after I set it up, carefully following the directions (which was difficult-- the washers kept popping off and stuff, and it was frustrating), the pedals would not move in a circle like an elliptical. I had my grandfather check it to be sure I hadn't just made a mistake, and he agreed that there was no way to get it to work (without possibly breaking it). Even if it had, it was so big that even with my tall desk even though I'm 5 feet tall we don't think it would've worked for me.It also said in the description something about it being light and easily portable. It probably is compared to a full size elliptical, but for a five foot tall person, I would NOT describe it as light and easily portable. It wasn't when I lugged it through the parking garage, down the stairs, into my office to assemble, and it wasn't when I lugged it out of my office, up the stairs, through the parking garage, and to UPS to return. (It was quite miserable, actually). (On the bright side, Amazon makes doing returns super easy, so I at least easily shipped it and got my money back very quickly).I tried to email the company but none of their suggestions would make the product work.After returning this one a few months ago, I got the nerve up to order a different (cheaper) one for Christmas, and it works great so far! (Stamina 55-1610 InMotion E1000 Elliptical Trainer)