Good but not Great (2008-10-30)
When I opened the box to put this together it did have rust on it. It did clean up easily and did not have damage to the bar itself. The rust was apparently from the warehouse and clean up envolved just a quick wipe down. My 12 year old son put it together that was not difficult. The foam padding that contacts the door frame it not enough and has split with just three weeks of use. This has caused damage to my door frame. I had to put more padding on this portion of the bar. The function of the bar is good, solid and offers a variety of hand hold positions.

it is what it is... (2008-10-21)
Ive had this thing about a year and do about 150 pullups once per week. I use the outter grips for about 65-70 pullups and the narrow for about the same. I use a palms forward grip and try not to torque out the grips but they, never the less have begun to fall apart now. The inner ones are still ok for now but the outter ones are both torn.

The unit itself has not bent or broken and for the amount of use I give it (my friend does about 75 with me while I do mine most weeks) it has more than paid for itself. Just buy some bicycle grips that go on with alcohol so when it dries they are on tight and you should be fine. Also, make sure that your door frame works with its width. Mine was fine but another friend of mine that I got into pullups had to have a pipe cut to extend each side by about 3 inches for his door frame.

Overall, buy it... its worth the money if you use it... and remember, real men do pullups!!! so just shut up and do em'

Overall a really great product... (2008-10-16)
I understand what people are saying about the assembly directions and if you are mechanically challenged you may want to find someone to help you assemble it--I actually didn't have that much trouble and just went off the pictures. Also, be sure to check your door ways and measure before you order, I wasn't able to use it in the doorway that I had intended, but luckily I had a back-up plan. It's great to have a bar that gets you out and away from the doorway, I always felt so cramped with the old school bars. Also Definitely take the advice of a previous post and use some gaff tape on the rubber to keep it from getting gooey.

This is how you install it (2008-10-12)
Mine came with no instructions, so here's what I did.

What you need:

- 2 adjustable wrenches
- socket wrench (15mm worked for me)
- standard screwdriver
- masking or gaffers tape.

1. Tape up gooey mess that purports to be the rubber square backrest piece.

2. Attached taped up backrest piece to top of j-bars, opposite the ends with the square brackets. To do this use the shorter, thicker 2 bolts and most importantly REMOVE THE END-CAPS FROM THE SQUARE BACKREST USING THE SCREWDRIVER. This allows you to use washers on both sides of the joint. If you don't do this you can't fit a washer in the hollow body of the backrest. Plus you now can gain purchase with two wrenches. When you are done attaching the bolts, tap the end caps back on.

3. Attach the long straight bar to the j-bars below the backrest. Use the longer bolts with locking nuts. Use your socket wrench to get these tight, otherwise it looks like the bolts are too long and things seem loose.

4. Use the big round-ey knobs to attach the long curved bar to the bottom of the unit.

You are done! Position the pull-up bar in the door frame and grow those batwings. If you have crumbly drywall above your door molding, you may want to proceed with caution.

Overall a good unit.

All in All Satisfied With ONE Exception (2008-10-03)
I looked at all of the different leverage-based pull-up bars before picking this one up. In my opinion, it offers the greatest variety of workout for the dollar (neutral grip, narrow, wide). The Iron Gym was too simplistic and the PX90 was overkill and a half and too expensive. And after giving it a good session, I can say that I'm pretty satisfied overall. It's true that the instructions are horrible but you'd have to be a middle school drop out to not be able to figure this one out. After it's assembled, the unit definitely feels and performs like a heavy duty piece. That said I'm only 135 lbs (all muscle so don't hate!) so I'm not exactly stressing this unit to the max or anything. I don't really see how this unit could leave any marks or damage on your door trim as the foam cushion is pretty high quality.

My ONE complaint is the really poor quality adhesive used for the hard rubber strips that make contact on the opposite side top door trim piece. It's not sticky enough to hold the stripping in place but sticky enough to be messy! I suppose you could get some super glue and fix this problem yourself but I expected that part of the product to be better thought out. Anyways all in all, a very solid addition to my home gym and I for the price, I'm happy!