Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

### UPDATE ### My boyfriend was able to study and "repair" the bottom two rungs - putting in METAL parts to replace the "Gum ball" engineering Xtend-n-climb are so fond of. Not an elegant solution to have to redesign a product you paid over two bills for. ALSO of import: A fellow that we work often (sub contractor) with saw how I was setting up my ladder - having the buttons facing the climber (for the convenience of adjustments), but as he pointed out - the feet are prone to kicking the button (which are made of cheapoo soft plastic with a simple friction connections - not even plastic threads!), so he suggested the the buttons be placed facing away from the climber. Perhaps, if you were to only use this ladder with the buttons facing the wall - maybe it would last. I don't know for sure. ### END UPDATE ### My boyfriend and I run a business where we need a ladder often during the week. Before we got this ladder, he would have to logistically figure out when he needed to put his roof-rack on his car and strap down the extension ladder. Sometimes, we'd be sunk at an account when surprised with the need for a ladder when we didn't bring one. Roof racks and ladders cut down gas mileage, so we wouldn't want to always lug it around! But when we got this puppy that all changed! We could tuck this ladder behind the driver seat and always have a generous 15' ladder with us (which is enough for almost every need we have!). Yes it is a bit hard to extend this ladder. But there is a trick to it! Turn it upside down and extend the bottom parts out first until you get it up about 5'. Then simply turn it over (I spin it over almost), then extend it the rest of the way. No complaints from me here with this method. BUT, after a few months of use the plastic sliding button/lever on the bottom right rung started popping out! We've put it back in and it would pop out again! Worse still was the fact that after a few times, the mechanical components of the works inside fell out and inside the bottom right leg of this ladder! There was no way I or my boyfriend could see to fix it! So we taped the bottom rung closed and hoped this was an anomaly. Our 15.5' ladder was now a 13.5' ladder. See pictures of how we taped off the rungs. But unfortunately, the second rung's button at the right also popped out and its works fell into the legs as well - no conceivable way to repair. So we had to tape that off. Now the once 15.5' ladder is now an 11.5' ladder! I wend to Xtend & Climb's website hoping for a FAQ or customer support info about this. There seemed to be none. This it seems is a disposable ladder. So here we are. We still use it because fortunately it's only the bottom two rungs that are now worthless. It makes this ladder very heavy for just 11.5', but we still get use out of it. But if one of the works fails in the middle somewhere, we'll have to scrap it out for its aluminum at the local recycle center. We won't be buying another though - not if it's still made of PLASTIC!!! Yikes! That's no way to make a ladder Xtend & Climb! Plus, please have some support! (We didn't buy this from Amazon BTW - at that time Amazon didn't sell it). If they came out with a new model that didn't self destruct, we would be all over that. We are forgiving people. We would give this another chance since it's so convenient. But since there is no way to know if Xtend & Climb has address these issues - and from the looks of the ladder's pics they still use PLASTIC!!!! - there's no way we'll be buying another one.