Inside “Project Tinman”: Peloton’s Plan to Conceal Rust in its Exercise Bikes
upstart writes:
Inside "Project Tinman": Peloton's plan to conceal rust in its exercise bikes:
[...] In September last year, staff at Peloton warehouses, which receive high-end bikes originally manufactured in Taiwan, noticed that paint was flaking off some of the exercise machines.
The cause was a build-up of rust on "non-visible parts" of the bike-the inner frame of the seat and handlebars-and did not affect the product's integrity, Peloton recently told the Financial Times.
Instead of returning the bikes to the manufacturer, executives hatched a plan, dubbed internally as "Project Tinman," to conceal the corrosion and sent the machines to customers who had paid between $1,495 and $2,495 to purchase them.
The project was first revealed in FT Magazine last week, but eight current and former Peloton employees across four US states have provided further details on the operation.
They described the plan as a nationwide effort to avoid yet another costly recall just months after the company's most tragic episode-the death of a child due to the design of its treadmill.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.