WARNING! - DO NOT BUY A BESTWAY POOL!! - READ ON...

I feel the need to urgently hurt this company financially - as they have done to myself, my wife, and my kids. These pools are sold by people with a ravenous appetite for cash combined with a total neglect for product and fellow human beings. You will never find a Bestway Pool in any of their backyards!

We purchased a medium size Bestway pool only last Christmas - ‘2015’ and within 24 hours of setting up the pool, the pool-frame had buckled at two different positions. Fair enough, the kids may have treated it like a ‘real’ pool with their actions and hence they have been advised to only stand quietly in the pool since the additional ‘hefty’ cost of a replacement frame.

It was within a few weeks of use that we started to notice the first signs of rust in the pool frame, pool ladder, pool motor, and well, anything that was made of metal. Unconvinced readers may be swayed to think that this anomaly is standard and not overly concerning, but the rust was immense! It was like a total engineering oversight to associate this cheap steel within a 100metres of a saltwater pool! Removing the pool ladder from the pool incurred a flood of brown rusty water gushing out of the metal piping – this would certainly be undermining the integrity of the ladders support and who knows how long it will be before the ladder collapses with somebody aboard and potentially maims them or worse.

Winter came and went and on removing the pool cover we found that the chlorinator had apparently ceased to operate, a call to a local pool shop informed us to try using a mild acid wash on the chlorinator as it had most likely become grimy during the winter period. We opened the chlorinator casing and lo and behold – you guessed it, ‘rust’ on the metal inserts of the chlorinator.

We therefore completed the repair tasks as per instruction and replaced the unit to hence establish that the chlorinator had developed a leak. Hours later we resolved ourselves to the fact that it was irreparable.

Off to the local pool shop we ventured and purchased another chlorinator for around $400 and came home and installed it. That was only a few hours ago, we then turned on the pump to give it all a go and…. wait for it…. the pool pump motor had ceased! It now only hums when powered on and basically the potentiality of the additional expense of purchasing another motor has traumatised my wife and myself that Christmas is on the verge of being ruined.

We haven’t yet attempted repair of this unit as it has begun raining outside but online pool representatives apparently denote the humming with the fact that ‘corrosion’ has developed within the interior of the motor and this has caused the seizure – yep ‘corrosion’, are you noting the familiar pattern developing here?

We set this pool up for the kids for Christmas last year and it would have only been swum in less than a dozen times. It is now nearly Christmas one year later and the pool has been nothing but a regretful, money wasting, experience. If we can’t get the motor fixed we will need to fork out another $600 or so for another motor and this is only a guess, it could even be a whole lot more. This will then only provide us a partial hope that we can at least make it to the back end of Summer before the rust eventually brings the pool come crumbling down to the ground.

A rough ratio calculation of swim to cash output would be around $300 per swim, this including the cost of land development and basic landscaping features. Why would you! The reason why people buy Bestway pools is that they’re cheap but caution people, what price the mental health costs of overcoming a nervous breakdown. Save your money, work a little harder, set your goals higher, and buy a real pool! In the meantime, go to the beach, pull out the garden hose, go to the town pool, but never, ever, buy a Bestway pool!