Help! Just found this site and was wondering if you could advise me on the way to go with these options. Our 1 year old king size Beautyrest True Energy Kailey Plush Eurotop is deemed defective. With all the hoops I had to go thru, Macys has agreed to replace our mattress with an upgraded version since ours is no longer available. First they were only willing to replace the mattress, but I had to argue for them to take the boxspring as well. I would not agree to the upgrade on the spot so they then said i could get another mattress for credit. They were not going to give a refund. This was a innerspring/cool gel/memory foam/ latex
hybrid (supposed to be) . I thought it was comfortable, my husband thought it was too soft and felt like sinking in. The problem within the mattress was the inner area where the memory foam/gel foams are seamed.; the stitching was bursting at the seams. Also when the inspector came I was able to point out sagging on each of our sides. One was a half inch and the other at least an inch. Ive read here that the “S” brand manufactures are not as good quality and I can see this. Also mentioned that local Licensees may have better quality. I am in the Boston area and would appreciate any advice with the options I have at Macys. I had bought a mattress about 10 years ago at a local smaller mattress company but have found it to be much to firm for my comfort now. We are using it in a guest room. The quality was much better with that one and I am kicking myself for not buying there again
Hi alyoops,
You are in a rather difficult position where you are exchanging a mattress that is defective but your only replacements options are major brands that don’t disclose the quality of the materials in their mattress and in many cases tend to use lower quality materials in the comfort layers which can soften and impress faster than higher quality materials. Post #2 here and the other posts and threads it links to has some suggestions to other members here that were in similar circumstances (exchanging a mattress at a retailer that didn’t have any good quality/value options available for the exchange).
In this case … you basically have 2 options.
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Exchange for another major brand mattress that you have tested carefully and objectively for PPP using the testing guidelines in post #1 here. The risk of this is that you likely won’t be able to find out the quality of the materials in the mattress for most of the mattresses they carry … particularly in the upper layers which are the most important. A mattress is only as good as the quality of its construction and the materials inside it. A mattress tends to soften and break down from the top down and most major manufacturers use lower quality foams or other materials in their comfort layers and the ones that don’t tend to have poor value. This means that you would be either be exchanging for a mattress that is poor value or for a mattress where you can’t identify the weak link of the mattress and the odds are much higher that the comfort layers will soften and break down much more quickly than they should. This leads to the premature loss of comfort and/or support and this isn’t covered by a warranty unless the impressions are more than the warranty exclusions which isn’t usually the case.
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Exchange for a mattress that uses the absolute least possible amount of lower quality, questionable, or unknown materials and then adding a high quality topper to give you the comfort and pressure relief that you need. This will usually be an ultra firm mattress with little padding on top of the support layers (either an innerspring, polyfoam, or latex). This can also be risky because you won’t be able to test the mattress/topper combination before you purchase the topper and you won’t be certain that you have chosen the best option for a topper until you sleep on the combination but if you get it right then you would have a much higher quality and more durable sleeping system. The advantage of this is that you will have higher quality comfort layers in your sleeping system and the topper will also extend the life of the materials in the mattress that are under the topper. It also gives you the option of just replacing the topper if it softens or breaks down faster than the mattress (which would be likely) without having to replace the mattress itself. If you do choose to go in this direction there are some topper guidelines and sources in post #8 here and the posts it links to that may be useful.
If the only issue with this mattress is that the comfort layers are too firm and the surface is still even with no significant soft spots or sagging then this is exactly the circumstances where a topper can be very useful to provide the extra softness and pressure relief that you need. The mattress itself likely has good quality and durable materials … it just needs a little bit more softness/thickness in the comfort layers to be suitable for you.
I know that you are limited to doing the exchange at Macy’s because a refund is not likely to be a possibility but for future reference some of the better options and possibilities I’m aware of in the Boston area are listed in post #2 here. There are some very good options in the area.
Phoenix