EXCELLENT box & great customer care (read further for Gear details).We have been using this for about six or seven months. It is great for the price because we don’t have to buy specific parts, etc. and it’s very easy to dump & keep bags for many uses, or replace bags cheaply. I researched a ton of auto litter boxes before deciding on this one based on long-term value.The box arrives in massive packaging, but is easy to set up. We have a 15 pound cat who got used to it immediately. It is a little bit larger than most manual boxes (about an extra inch or so all around) which gives cats some extra room without consuming too much extra space. We were concerned about the extra size when ordering, but it turned out to be nicely compact, & our large cat likes the extra room. Very sturdy design with high walls that prevent cats from kicking out much litter. It is also fairly quiet, but the sound of scooping is definitely noticeable. It reminds me of the volume of our roomba, or even a running dishwasher, but only makes the noise when it is doing its scooping cycle. Not a problem for us. If you use a good clumping litter (we use Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal) you will have no problems, & absolutely No Smell (which was most important to us).Make sure you splurge on the GOOD LITTER because this box will save you so much extra time and trouble in the future. A&H clump n seal litter is about eleven bucks ($11 at the grocery store) and lasts forever, with No Smell. I think it actually Saves money on wasted litter.There is very little maintainance involved. We generally dump the waste out about once a week and occasionally use a foot to lift the edge of the non-motor side, in order to disperse the litter more evenly- (litter tends to gather up toward that end of the box if you are not maintaining it, because of the scooping mechanism).Occasionally (about once a month) we also scoop any tiny clumps that may lie on or around the rake when kitty pees directly on it (not a real problem with A&H clumping litter), & scrape any hardened urine from our cat peeing where there is little or no litter, on the bottom. Those little clumps generally don’t interfere with the box’s function, so we could leave them, but want to keep it prestine for our cat.All littler boxes require some maintenance and this is pretty minimum for such a well designed box. With One Exception..We had one problem with the box when the motor made the sad cracking sound other reviewers wrote about. Just like other reviewers, it was because of the white plastic gear that lifts the rake that could not handle the stuck litter, and therefore one sprocket on the gear broke off. I called the company and they immediately sent a brand new motor (with a newly designed METAL gear) that arrived about two days later. Instillation was so easy- just slide out the old motor and slide on the new one, then replace the scooper. Very easy and very fast.The customer service has been excellent & even let me order extra bags with free shipping for the new replacement motor.The new motor has been working wonderfully for the past months, despite us adding undue pressure to it at times. Embarrassingly, the box is so great that we sometimes forget to empty it. The motor works through the strain of a fully overflowed bag/waste compartment (sad to say that when we changed it, the weight of the soiled litter/bag was so heavy we could barely lift it– so much waste from our pampered fatty). We clearly shouldn’t do this, and will attempt to maintain it properly, but it goes to show the extremes the metal gear motor can handle. We have had the new motor installed for several months and it is working excellently.We are so grateful for this litterbox. So glad we researched an easy (& cheap to maintain) auto litterbox that makes our lives so much easier! It really saves a ton of hassle, and the nastiness of having to deal with litter. If by chance I have a problem with this box after the one year warranty expires (will try to update this review if that happens), I would buy another one in a heartbeat. That is how incredble I find the value of this box to be.Highly recommend!!
