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

[phoenix]

Hi Koeppl,

Welcome to the Mattress Forum!

Ive been shopping for a new mattress for the last three weeks or so. First and foremost I have found this thread very useful and helpful in determining my preferences.

I’m happy the information presented here has been useful to you.

I noticed something really odd when we went to a few different Sleep Country locations in Toronto. The Tempur-Pedic mattresses at one older more established locations felt much different than at one of the new locations. The mattress at one of the older locations had that really grippy clay like feel that I believe comes from higher density foam. Where as at the newer location we did not feel this at all, the top layers did not grip at all and did not seem to conform very well they just sank and noticeably didnt feel as dense.

The change in feel could be for many reasons, including, but not limited to, the actual makeup of each mattress (they may not be the same models), the age of the floor model mattresses (foams soften with use), the temperature of the showroom, the base under the mattress, the clothes you wore when testing each mattress, your ability to recall feel from one store to another, and so on. Density is not necessarily the determining factor of the softness, recovery and temperature sensitivity of memory foam. It is independent of the softness, and that is determined more by the isocyanate/polyol formulation. The properties of memory foam will have more to do with its chemical formulation than with its density and different memory foams with the same density can have very different properties and “feel” (see post #9 here and post #8 here). In addition to this … the thickness of each layer, the softness of each layer, and the order they are combined together will all affect how a mattress feels and performs or how well it may “match” another mattress. There is more about the different ways that one mattress can match another one in post #9 here.

The mattresses we were testing were the cloud supreme, prima and luxe. When I was talking to the sales rep at the newer Sleep Country location he mentioned that around 2014-2015 the Tempur-Pedic warranty changed from 25 years (prorated after 10) to 10 years on all their mattresses. I started to think that Tempurpedic might have changed something in their foams when they changed the warranty.

The changing of the warranty had nothing to do with new models. I applauded this action by Tempurpedic to shorten their warranty, as did others within the industry, as being more realistic of a timeframe to provide protection against warranty defects. The length of a mattress warranty and the quality and durability of the product have nothing to do with each other, and too many mattress manufacturers place unreasonably long warranties on products, as they know the general public erroneously equates a longer warranty with a higher quality product.

Thinking that possibly the mattresses that we tried at the one older location were made before the warranty change and the one at the new store made after the warranty change.

If a store had a model out on their floor for three years, that would be unrepresentative of what a new mattress would feel like, and might not even be a true representation of the current line up, as Tempurpedic, like all manufactures, make frequent changes to their mattress line ups and designs.

I decided if I was going to buy a Tempur-Pedic mattress I was going to use a friends DirectBuy membership as the price was literally half that of Sleep Country regular pricing and about $6-800 less than any other sale prices on the market. When I looked the Tempur-Pedic up on the Direct Buy site it showed that the equivalent of a cloud supreme (Tempur Finesse - it has all the exact same specs) weighed 160lbs and showed that it had a 25 year warranty, so obviously old product information.
When I checked on a US site RC Wiley www.rcwilley.com/Mattresses/King/Mattres...ud-Supreme--View.jsp
it shows a 10 year warranty and that the mattress weights 137.9lbs.

I don’t believe that your assumption that the two items are the same is correct (“equivalent” does not mean the “same” with mattresses), nor would you be able to make that assessment with either the information you linked here or with the information you’d be provided at places like Direct Buy. What you need to learn about a mattress to make a logical comparison is listed here, the most important being foam layer density, and that is not information that Tempurpedic generally shares. You would need to know the exact layers, their thickness, their order, and their density to begin to make comparisons. Using “weights” by themselves is not a way to compare mattresses as well, as they are not always reliable, and some weights can be for the product including packaging, versus the weight of the mattress itself.

After a totally different feel between two identically branded mattresses at the two different stores as well as the weight differences in the products across two websites 160 vs 137.9lbs I am left with the question as to whether Tempur-Pedic has reduced the density of the foam in their mattresses. I really hope I am wrong…

I think you’re making conclusions based upon very incomplete information. As I mentioned earlier, Tempurpedic, like all brands, is constantly changing the makeup of their products. They still do use some good quality memory foam in their mattresses, and you can go to Jordan’s web site to see the actual densities they use. These are items in the United States, so you will find different offerings in Canada.

Tempurpedic mattresses use good quality materials but as you know they are in much higher (and mostly unjustifiable) budget ranges and for most people they certainly wouldn’t be in the best “value” range compared to many other smaller manufacturers that use similar (or in some cases better) quality materials that are in much lower budget ranges. You can read more about Tempurpedic in general in posts #1 and #2 here.

Phoenix