Had always wanted an Aeron chair.. finally broke down and got one in 2004.... great office chair ~ love it... sat down today, and it cracked... big time ~ thought these were bulletproof...guess not... luckily the warranty is 12 years ....
My friend broke his 3 times now. Apparently if you swing it back and forth a lot and you are a heavy person it will eventrually snap. His snapped on the vertical part swivel part as well.
and here I was thinking they were like unbreakable.. as long as they only break every couple years, and they just give me a new one each time... I am ok with that
Wow, this is amazing. I had no idea they had this fault. I was all hot and bothered to get one of these a few years ago but ended up buying the Leap by Steelcase instead. The fact that I got it for $200 didn't hurt either, but I have nothing but good things to say about it. Granted it's not seen in as many movies and fancy ads as your Aeron chair.
"I'm not fat, I just sit heavy." For the kind of money those chairs cost, I'd expect a bit more in the way of longevity! Are they really worth it? You'd think that they'd beef up that particular component, given it's apparent weakness...
We have Aerons at work and I have one at home. Never had a problem with them in over ten years. You can tweek and finetune them with all sorts of features. Probably overrated but I like them.
We had two Aeron chairs at work. Both were broken (they came to us like this & we didn't buy them....it would be a long story so I'll spare those details) so it was my idea to combine the two chairs since each one was broken in a different way. I knew they were expensive chairs so in an office filled with crappy office chairs I knew it would be worth it to try and fix. One of them was broken exactly as described here. Only problem is I had to take a medium seat and put it on a large frame. After a lot of work hours wasted I finally managed to put it together and it's a bit "rigged" but has been a great chair. It's lasted about 4 years and sadly it just broke a week or so ago. One of the bolts I had attaches to either side of the seat sheared off and it doesn't look like there's anything I can do to fix it. I need a Herman Miller Aeron parts dealer