Don't Waste Your Money

I'd heard a lot of good things about Zooper and their customer service. I liked the look of their strollers and I was impressed with all of the features. We weren't really in the market for such an expensive stroller, but it seemed to include a lot of extras, I was swayed by the promise of a super smooth ride for baby and we live in New England where the weather sucks and the sidewalks and streets suck worse, so the large inflatable wheels really sold me. We figured we would pay good money for a quality product, and that it would be better to make one investment purchase than to have to go through a bunch of strollers in three or four years.

Since we received the stroller (we bought it on-line), we have had nothing but problems. Pieces were falling off when we got it, one of the wheels was completely warped, all three wheels were just about impossible to inflate (once we called Zooper and they told us where to find the pump, that is. The instructions that come with the stroller are insufficient and we had no idea where to look for the pump). When Zooper sent us a new wheel, we realized that the other wheels must be messed up, because the new wheel was actually quite easy to inflate.

There are a number of design flaws in this stroller. In a less expensive stroller I would overlook them, but this stroller cost over three hundred dollars, so you would think that they might actually put a little effort into the function of it and not just the design appearance (it is a very nice looking stroller, particularly when the seat is facing front).
There is no bottom bar to help you push the stroller up big curbs. This is something my husband and I have done instinctively (push on the bottom bar), and have locked the wheels instead of gotten over a the curb and out of the street. You can lower the handlebars to give more leverage for this, yes, but it means stopping, adjusting them, and then clearing the curb and readjusting. I suppose you could leave them in a lower position to have easy access leverage all the time, but it isn't comfortable for us to push like that.

The swivel wheel is great, but when the seat is facing forward and the carriage top is back, it is very difficult to access the little handle that engages and disengages the swivel wheel. Stupid design.
And when the carriage top is all the way up to block sun, it falls back a good three inches every time you go over a bump and then has to be pushed back into place, only to fall back again. This is infuriating when you have bumpy sidewalks and it is a sunny day and you are trying to keep the sun out of the baby's eyes.
Another problem with the carriage top is that when the seat is fully reclined it is extremely difficult to get a baby in and out without hitting his head on the canopy.

There is a little "peek-a-boo" feature in the top of the carriage for checking on the baby. That's fine, but there is no way to keep it open, so you have to open the velcro closure, peek, and then it falls right back down again.. Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to just be able to keep it open so I could look at the baby without having to take one hand off the handlebar to open the thing.

I can't remember all of the other problems we have had with it. Most of them are little, niggling things that are mostly just annoying, but I didn't pay over three hundred dollars to be annoyed. Customer service is good, it is true, but I would rather have mediocre customer service and a really good product than the other way around.