Did anything change with Tempur-Pedic Mattresses when their warranty changed

[phoenix]

Hi Koeppl,

To me though reducing the warranty terms dosent benefit the consumer in any way, rather it just keep more money in Tempurpedics pockets.

I’d suggest that having a longer mattress warranty (like 25 years) really doesn’t add much value at all to a consumer, as there are very few people who will keep a mattress that long, and overall the loss of comfort, not defects, is the largest reason consumers replace products, and comfort is not a warrantable defect. Even if someone kept a mattress for 20 years and discovered there was a warranty issue with the product, there is a large chance they would have some sort of soiling on the product that would disqualify warranty coverage. Overall, it would be reasonable to expect a useful lifetime in the range of 7 - 10 years for a good quality mattress and with higher quality and more durable materials like latex or higher density memory foam or polyfoam (in the comfort layers especially) it would likely be in the higher end of that range and the chances that you would have additional “bonus time” could be higher as well. Even a warranty of ten years is very long for the most used piece of furniture in your home, and I’m happy to see that there are some manufacturers who are adopting more “realistic” warranty terms and using the warranty as less of a marketing item.

If the differences between mattresses is hard to compare, would it be possible that different quality materials are used in Canadian vs US mattresses even though they have the exact same model name?

The only way to know if two models are the same would be to have details (density, thickness, ILD) of all of the foam layers on the inside of the mattress, regardless of the name placed on the outside. Unfortunately, Tempurpedic does not provide such information about their products to the public, which makes it difficult to objectively compare. As for pricing, authorized Tempurpedic retailers do have a dealer agreement to which they are supposed to abide regarding advertising and selling prices. There are frequent “sales events” for Tempurpedic products in the US and Canada, but these are generally outlined with specific guidelines by Tempurpedic to retailers on what is and isn’t allowed in “discounting” or “free offers”.

After trying both mattresses of the same brand and the same model the differences were so significant that I would find it hard to believe that a change in temperature could have caused them.

Unless you have complete specifications of the products, you can’t be sure that they were the exact same model at each store. You may wish to look at the law tag and compare model numbers to see if they match up. It does happen that stores will keep a floor model on display longer than they should and it can be misrepresentative of the current model, even if the name is the same and there was a “running change” made in the design.

I was of the impression that the differences in names were more or less just a measure to prevent consumers from price shopping.

Some mattress manufacturers will use different names or different covers for the same mattress model to make cross-shopping more difficult for consumers, and to also allow some stores to create (essentially worthless) “exact-match price guarantees” within a geographic region. And sometimes the different names denote truly unique models.

It would be great if some form of regulation came into place making manufacturers state what quality of product (density and dimensions) of foam are used to manufacturer the bed so that consumers can best assess quality.

I won’t argue that more transparency within the mattress industry would be welcome, but by and large I am not a fan of advocating government mandating of such things like foam densities, and instead I think consumer demand and “voting with dollars” better helps to guide manufacturer’s decisions.

By not readily providing essential information on what is in the mattress It makes me very wary of purchasing from the company, especially when they vary the names of their products to prevent consumers getting value for their money.

I advise caution against making a purchase when you can’t acquire the information you need to know in order to make an educated decision with any mattress.

When I inquired about what amounts and densities of foam were used in Novaform they replied within hours with a full break down.

I’m happy you were able to acquire information from Novaform about the mattress model you were considering. If you’d like to post that information here I’ll be happy to comment upon it. Unfortunately, there are some Novaform models that have been discussed here on the forum in the past that use lower density memory foams.

You mentioned that there are some smaller producers that would make a similar if not better quality mattress for less money, if you happened to know of any in Ontario Canada I would greatly appreciate that.

In Canada, you may wish to look at these site members who specialize in memory foam mattresses:
Memory Foam Comfort – Quebec and online
Novosbed – online only

I have discontinued the provision of listings of potential retailers in various geographic regions (unless they are already approved site members), because of the difficulty in maintaining such lists in a retail landscape that is constantly changing, and most importantly the confusion it was creating with the consumer members who incorrectly assumed that these businesses had indeed gone through the strict vetting and qualification process that is part of becoming an approved member of The Mattress Underground. Such an assumption is unfair to both the consumers seeking assistance, as well as the very businesses and manufacturers who have indeed qualified the be members here of The Mattress Underground.

You can perform a forum search on Ontario or any other specific area and see what other businesses have been discussed in that region which may be helpful to you.

Whatever business you’re considering, I would always confirm that any retailer or manufacturer that you wish to visit is completely transparent (see this article) and also make sure that any mattress that you are considering meets the quality/value guidelines here.

If you have any questions about specifications or certain products you discover, feel free to post back on the forum and I’ll do my best to be assistive.

Phoenix