Joshua and his wife moved their first child’s Graco Sweetpeace swing downstairs from storage in order to rock their adorable new son. They added fresh batteries to the two-year-old toy and fired it up. They were alarmed when the swing began to play music, the lights flashed, and the swing suddenly sped up, all without anyone touching the controls. Was the newest Joshua Jr. some kind of demon baby, or was the swing defective? Had other parents experienced the nightmare of having their newborns in a smoking rogue swing? Josh went online to find out.

I decided to write to Graco a very short, informative letter after researching our swing and finding no recalls or safety warnings. Before writing them, I attempted to find the parts I wanted to order on the Graco website, but the motor assembly was Out of Stock indefinitely.

The letter I wrote to them was as follows:

I have been a user of Graco baby products for a long time and have never had any issues up until now.

my wife and I just had a baby 3 days ago and tried using our Graco swing from our previous son. mind you this swing has been in the kids room with no one touching it or doing anything with it. We powered it on with the baby in it and it worked fine for a few minutes, then began playing music on and off randomly and quickly, the swing motor began rapidly accelerating, and then smoke came out of the motor and it died.

this was terrifying as we had no idea what was going on…

we are looking to get a replacement motor / main section. is there anything you can do to help us out? I am a Sergeant of marines and we do not make very lunch money, so affording a replacement for this is very difficult, not to mention wondering if the product we have is defective due to the erratic nature it exhibited before dying today. I look forward to speaking with you. thank you.

This letter was sent on March 31st, 2013, the same date as the swing malfunctioned. I did not receive a response until the morning of April 3rd and didnt read it until later that evening. On that same date, the UPS delivery guy for my neighborhood showed up with a package for me. I didn’t recall ordering anything, nor did my wife, but we do a lot of online shopping so didnt think anything of it. We opened the unmarked box and found a brand new motor assembly from Graco.

After opening said package, I checked my email and, sure enough, I had a response from that afternoon from Graco:

Joshua,
We are sorry you are having these issues with your swing. We have placed an order for a new motor unit to be shipped to you. Please allow 7 to 10 business days for delivery. Thank You.

Short, sweet, and unbelievably helpful. Graco didn’t waste any time in helping me and my family out and gave me absolutely no hassles or problems. This is how customer service should be and I am extremely thankful to Graco for taking care of me so delightfully.

Even with the free replacement from Graco, it might be a good idea to file a complaint with the Consumer Products Safety Commission, in order to make sure that the federal government has a formal record of this happening, in addition to his report to the company.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.