I bought a cheap one and hated it- they are made more for a clothes hanger! I ended up buying a Nordic Track Solaris and I love it- I have had it for a couple of years and have not had any problems with it at all. I shopped around alot. A lot of sports stores will go down in price if you ask them-
Good luck!

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The miracle is not that I finished, the miracle is that I had the courage to start. (unknown)

Proform makes some good units.
I have the 1000
Purchased at Sports Authority

purchased a precor commercial quality treadmill - refurbished - on ebay. $700 included a new motor. Its for the office weight room. Works great!

I also have a nordic trac at home. I've used it 3 years. Probably put 2000-2500 miles on it. Just a few minor issues. They stand behind their product, warranty seems very fair.

I have a Nordictrac E3100 which I bought refurbed a couple of years ago (in the UK).

The treadmill was fine but the deck split down the middle. I weighed about 105kilos (231lbs) when it broke - the max user weight is stated as 130kilos (286lbs). I think it's because I like to run quite far back on the deck where there is no support underneath.

To be fair to them it was well outside it's 12 month warranty but the engineer came out and fixed it free of charge within a week of calling them. The engineer said it was the first time he'd had to fix the problem on this particular model (i didn't know whether to feel pride or shame)

Apart from that the treadmill has been great and I've put well over 1000 miles on it.