Phil & Teds Sport Pushchair Review or Rant

14th September 2009 14 Comments

Ive titled this post in such a way that it is picked up by search engines, so people about to buy this pushchair will have to look at this.

Nearly a month ago, I sent this letter off to the UK distributor of Phil & Teds, where you are supposed to write to with any issues. I have not received any response. Needless to say I am unhappy with the pushchair, particularly in light of the cost of it and also with their lack of response.

Dear Sir/ Madam
I am writing this letter to notify you of a potentially fatal problem with your Phil and Teds Sport buggy; The pulleys on the zips can be pulled off by the child sitting in the pushchair. I realised that this has occurred with my own pushchair when I found my two year old son with it in his mouth. The first one, came off in my hand. A few more seconds and I feel that there was a very strong possibility that he would have choked himself.

My pushchair has been used for 7 months and to be honest it is in an appalling state of wear and tear, I try to look after my things so I have been amazed by the poor quality of it. I can only assume that this is perhaps a batch of pushchairs that were sub-standard or something. Some of the stitching is coming undone on the twin seat which will soon render it useless and the reflective material around the edges of the mesh on the buggy have almost worn off.

However, I am really annoyed about the zips, as I have been left with a pushchair which is very difficult to easily adjust alongside the potential choking issue.

I would appreciate it if you could either replace my buggy, or provide a solution to the zip problem. It might also be worth alerting head office to this issue before a child actually does choke themselves!

I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours Sincerely

Being a Mummy

Therein, if you are considering the purchase of this buggy, which serves its purpose brilliantly bear in mind that it may not last for as long as you think.

Addendum
Today (21st September) I finally got a response from Phil & Teds. The power of the blog. Here it is. I must say I am rather pleased with the response;
Good afternoon,

Phil and Teds have already identified that the zip pulls have not been successful and the seat fabrics are now coming through with fabric pulls as you would get on a fleece top. We would be pleased to send you one of these new seat units with our compliments and, regarding the Double Kit Fabric, we would be pleased to send you a new one of these as well also with our compliments.

Hope you find this acceptable and if you could forward us your full postal name and address we will send them out to you on a Next Day courier service all at our expense.

Best regards

Customer Services Manager

Claire Walsh

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14 Comments

  • Muddling Along Mummy 14th September 2009 at 8:12 am

    That is not good – we&#39;ve just bought one and I love it BUT we&#39;ve already had a wheel go flat (virtually out of the box) which is just so inconvenient and difficult to deal with<br /><br />Trouble is that its about the only double that does what we need it to … wish Bugaboo would do a double

  • Aussie Mum 14th September 2009 at 8:36 am

    Sorry to hear you have had so many problems. My P&amp;T&#39;s has been great but thanks for the warning on the zippers I will keep an eye on them just in case!

  • TheMadHouse 14th September 2009 at 8:40 am

    Hmm. I had the old E3 through both boys and it served us well throughout nearly 4 years. It is so disappointing when people fail to get back to you or even acknowledge your e-mail. Keep trying, hopefully someone will pick up on this and get it all sorted for you.

  • Michelle 14th September 2009 at 9:03 am

    Surprised to hear of the problems that you&#39;ve been having with the Sport Pushchair, sounds like it must be a substandard batch as I&#39;ve known of some who have had theirs for years without any real problems.<br /><br />What though is most disappointing is to hear that Phil &amp; Teds haven&#39;t been forthcoming with sorting your problem out – I always thought their customer service skills

  • Brit in Bosnia / Fraught Mummy 14th September 2009 at 9:16 am

    we had a Phil and Ted&#39;s too. It has totally collapsed – although it had been put through the mill a bit. Although it did its job, I found that the basket underneath never stayed up and ended up scraping along the ground, despite a lot of putting it back together and restitching it. Lots of stitching all over the buggy started coming undone and I could never manage to hook the baby seat back

  • Vic 14th September 2009 at 10:30 am

    That&#39;s another one I&#39;ll mark off my potentials list then.

  • Kitschy Coo 14th September 2009 at 11:33 am

    I&#39;ve got one too, and although it was the best buggy for us because of the width issue we&#39;ve had a lot of problems too. I just can&#39;t keep the tires inflated despite constant pumping, repairing and even replacing the tubes. It&#39;s <i>really</i> hard to push even when the tires are full, I think there is a suspension / balance problem as it always pulls to the right so I have to

  • Liz@Violet Posy 14th September 2009 at 7:33 pm

    That&#39;s terrible and they cost a bloody fortune. I really hope you hear from the company and they sort it out for you. It&#39;s less than a year old and falling apart, very worrying.

  • Coding Mamma (Tasha) 18th September 2009 at 10:52 am

    How awful. And that they haven&#39;t responded is even more so. I had an issue with our Maclaren and emailed them about it – heard back with an explanation within a day or two (not a solution, but at least a response). They are hugely expensive products as well, so you&#39;d really expect them to last better than that.

  • xbz 21st September 2009 at 3:17 pm

    We have the same problem with stitching on the twin seat coming undone on a Phil and Ted&#39;s Sport. Have been trying to contact Phil and Ted&#39;s through the original retailer since 1st September, so that is 3 weeks – still no luck!

  • Alex 22nd September 2009 at 8:53 am

    So rather than do a product recall on a know issue, they&#39;re leaving it until people complain? How long until a little one chokes on one of these tags? P&amp;T, do the responsible thing (like you did with another issue in the states that lead to a recall of 44,000 puschchairs)!

  • Lindy 23rd September 2009 at 2:57 pm

    OMG this JUST happened to me yesterday! What did they do for you? As I now HATE my P&amp;T seeing as I can&#39;t use the zip!

  • Martin 2nd November 2009 at 1:05 pm

    This is no more than a &#39;me too&#39; comment but we&#39;ve also had the zip &quot;pull tab&quot; snap off our P&amp;T Sport. :(<br /><br />Might try contacting the manufacturer to enquire about replacements but not holding my breath…

  • Anonymous 23rd March 2010 at 7:32 am

    I&#39;ve had the same problems with the tyres constantly going flat. Plus you have to be really careful as it is quite imbalanced meaning if you go up or down a curb at a slight angle it can easily topple over and you generally have to fight with it to keep it upright.

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