Spa Cover-Mate III Piston-Assisted Lifter - Deck Mount

Apparently it used to be made out of metal, which led to many issues ??? So now it's made out of cheap plastic which leads to the angle arm getting warped by the sun, which in turn affects the shock arm rendering it BROKE and useless! Lasted less than 4 months in the PA sun. Awaiting a new shock, but have been informed that the warped angle arm will cause this issue again, yet no replacement being sent for the angle arm.... save your money & your sanity or you will be blamed for causing the angle arm to warp by not operating the shock correctly!! We are 2 adults - careful & responsible, with knowledge of engineering & mechanics.

We have a partially buried tub with a stone perimeter ""deck"". This is exactly what we needed.

Once put together seems to be working well. Agree with the other reviews on the instructions - really could use a rewrite.

First at M. from Breckenridge: You're not supposed to lift it from the hooks! you fold the cover over the bar and then lift it, folded up. Second, instructions: The instructions (made in China?) are really not that bad, granted they could use some TLC. I assembled the thing by glancing over it and went with my instincts (Jack of All Trades, Master of Most). Overal, After many years of frustration having no cover and debris, contemplating making a cover I finally found this solution and love it. Wish I'd found it years ago! Yes, I would def. recommend!

We bought this for our sunken hot tub. Mounting per the instructions lifted the cover but left it still hanging over the tub making one side unusable. Moving it back to clear the tub caused the cover to sit too high and swing back and forth. After just a few uses the ‘locking mechanism failed. It is flimsy plastic and very poor quality. It jammed and broke the lift mechanism.

One end of lift cylinder is popping off ball end connector. At this price, quality should be better quality.

The lift is a piece of garbage that didn’t work from the get go, and they don’t accept returns after the box has been opened. Do not buy this or any other product from this company. You’ll thank yourself for not wasting your money. Also the agents are condescending and rude.

Second I've had. Works great

Comes in a million pieces and instructions are terrible. Save your money.

I had read other reviews that said the directions were less that good. I concur. It took quite a bit of time to assemble and in the end, as we feared whole assembling, the system wasn't going to endure the process of raising and lowering for long. The main unit is made of a hard plastic and just will not hold up to the demands placed on it. It's our intention to return it as soon as we unbolt it from the deck. Disappointing. We now have 10 holes in a brand new deck.

You tube shows a metal bracket, that's not what you get. The shock strut was so stiff that it pushes itself out of the ball and socket. The plastic gives when hot outside.

The aluminum hook that captures the center of the spa cover could be stronger. I have had two fail at this point.

Good lifter - works well so far Installation not too bad - but instructions are weak The nuts and bolts included were indoor zinc plated - seems that would rust quickly. I went out and bought stainless steel bolts and screws. They also included plastic caps for the nuts - which seem they would come loose and expose a sharp edge. I replaced those with stainless steel acorn nuts

I was designing a lifter and this one was close to my design so I decided to use it. It works very good however I couldn't get it to work well as per instructions. My tub has some rock like designs all around that stick out past the sides. This made the arms stick out far past the sides so I swapped sides with the bases and that allowed the arms to set much closer to the tub. The cylinders on the arms want to lift the center and was stretching my cover in the middle and was pulling the seams apart so I added small budgie cords to hold the cross bar down and the problem was solved.

I love this product because it makes it so much easier getting the hot tub cover back. I don't have to have my husband home now whenever I want to get in the hot tub. The one thing that I dont like is the lock that holds the cover up is nothing but plastic and it feels like it would break at nothing.

Lifter works once you figure out how to assemble and install it. The instructions are the worst I have ever encountered. The pictures do not accurately represent the product in the box and the instructions are often wrong. You know this is a problem. Why don't you fix it.

Worst assembly instructions I have ever encountered. And I have worked in the trades for forty years.

The cover is exceptionally well made and with the hydrolic lift, raising it is easy. I'll say that the directions to put it together were much like other directions I've encountered, misleading at times and not easy to follow. I'd love to see a video of the deck mount version that I bought put on YouTube. There's a free standing hottub video out there, but not a deck mount version. Two points to mention that may impact others: 1. The cover does not fully remove from the tub. It hangs over the one side. It's not obtrusive, but it doesn't remove from the tub like a traditional cover. 2. There is a safety on the arm of the cover that you must push in to close it so it doesn't fall on you. Nothing in the paperwork mentions that so when we first put it together we thought we'd done something wrong with the installation. The 4, instead of 5 stars, is based on no video, no photo on the website to show it opened so that you know what it looks like open and no info about the safety arm.

We have a hot tub built into our deck. The cover lifter works great every time we use the tub!

Perfect fit and color!

easy to install easy to use, great customer service

Product is good quality and works well. Manufacture needs to supply better installation instructions!!!

The small hooks which only go a few inches into the cover on each side does not give enough support for lifting the cover. Ours tore on each side and then broke off one of the arms because there is no bar to go all the way through the lift. There is also other attachment of the lifter to the cover like a velcro strap in the middle to help support the weight.

Ordered two for our new swim spa which measures 8 x 16, with two 8 foot sections. With replaced metal shoulders trying to get one section off and back on again was almost impossible, making this hydraulic mechanism much easier to move off the covers off and then back on again, times 2. That's the good part of the review. The bad part is echoed by almost every other buyer of this product. It's obvious the assembly instructions are written by a foreign engineer who never put this sucker together. There are some valid points but mostly it's garbage. The You Tube video is of little help, it's not updated for the correct unit and the dude is using channel locks to assemble the nut/bolt pieces for crying out loud. It takes two 1/2 x 7/16 hand wrenches, one for turning and the other for holding. The two plastic bracket supports have hex head depressions for the head or nut so in some cases you'll only need one wrench. Assembly is a challenge but once you get it assembled, all the little screw head covers and the bracket covers are on you will like it very much.

I really like this product, but the installation instructions are awful. This is the second one of these I've installed and it was only slightly easier the second time around.

I finally got this lifter assembled & installed but not without some major frustration. Took a solid two hours and I'm pretty handy. The instructions & images are very hard to make sense of. I'm pretty handy and this was an absolute challenge. There is a YouTube video link but it is super fast paced - almost like in fast forward - and skips over many steps. Not to me Tom sometimes strange background music. Leisure Concepts should really take a look at making some more thorough, clear, user friendly assembly instructions. Make a complete YouTube video yourselves. I hate to pile it on but those were some of the worst instructions I've ever had to use considering what I was assembling which after doing it - really shouldn't be that difficult. I do appreciate their help on the phone and honestly probably couldn't have completed the job without the phone support. Such terrible instructions. Nice product once assembled and installed though!