The Waterpik Cordless Plus Water Flosser is a great product, which lists for $50 and usually costs about $40. For that price, though, you aren’t buying it: you’re renting it. That’s what Jeff found out when he bought one. The rechargeable battery stopped working just past the warranty expiration date. He bought another: maybe that was a fluke. The new toothbrush lasted a whole 13 months.

Just a heads-up to your readers concerning the Waterpik Cordless Plus Water Flosser (found here). On the advice of my dentist, I started using a water flosser, but did not want a large counter-top model. I opted for Waterpik’s WP-450. I paid about $40 at my local Walgreen’s for the product. Everything worked dandy for the first year. That is until the unit stopped charging at exactly 12 months of ownership.

I assumed this was a fluke, so purchased another unit. Again for about $40 at my local Walgreen’s. I used it again without problems until 13 months. Once again, the unit stopped charging. This time, I went to Amazon’s product page and started to read the reviews. Customer after customer complained about identical charging failures. A Google search for “Waterpik won’t charge” shows the comment sections across numerous retailer websites with complaints about the same issue.

There is definitely a design flaw with this product that has led to so many failures. I see in several comments that Waterpik customer service has not offered any real help with this issue. I wanted to let the Consumerist know, so that readers do not make the same mistake I’ve already made twice.

It would also be nice if Waterpik took notice and rectified their design flaw.

That’s a good lesson that I still keep forgetting to take to heart: if you’re shopping for something that has been on the market for a while, user reviews are invaluable.

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