After much research back in 2016, we decided the best juicer would be the Tribest Slowstar Juicer Canada. Here’s our thoughts on the juicer’s performance, reliability, as well as a review of Tribest’s warranty service.
Slowstar Juicer Ease of Use
When we started looking at options for the best juicer in Canada, we pretty quickly realized that a masticating juicer (that’s fancy talk for a slow, grinding type juicer) was the healthier option.
Next up, we wanted a juicer that was safe to use because our kids often help by feeding the juicer. Most of the popular juicers have a small feed hole for safety, and the Slowstar juicer definitely fit the bill.
We also wanted a juicer that was relatively easy to assemble, and then disassemble and clean. While the Slowstar is a hassle to clean, so are all the other juicers too (although now in 2020, it looks like Slowstar has come out with new technology that has much less moving parts).
Tribest Slowstar Juicer Review
We are very happy with the juicer – it seems to get more juice out of the vegetables than our previous juicer – a horizontal auger by Omega. The pulp at the end is drier from the Slowstar.
Plus, the vertical augur seems to take the bites out of the carrots with less pressure needing to be applied as you feed it in – a great benefit for kids that love to help juicing with the Slowstar Juicer, Canada!
The juicing augur is made out of plastic, and it seems that the sharpness of the augur edges have been worn smooth over the years. It also seems like the augur doesn’t self feed as well as it used to, and for stringy vegetables like big leaves of kale, or slightly dehydrated and rubbery celery, the augur doesn’t slice through them. Instead, now, it wraps the long fibery vegetable strings around the augur and plugs up the machine.
With a little bit of work of cutting the stringy vegetables into smaller pieces, and alternating with something like crunchy carrots to help push and pull the strings through the machine, juicing is still manageable. We’re starting to wonder if we’ve worn out the Slowstar Juicer or if we should just look at buying a replacement augur from Tribest – it’s just that they’re $70 USD!
Tribest Slowstar Juicer Warranty
After 3 and a half years of use, the juicer stopped working. The motor was making noise, the auger was spinning, but the wipers weren’t spinning around the juicing screen. And there was a horrible grinding noise.
As you can see in the image, the drive gear for the juicing squeegee came loose – it looked like the metal shaft had corroded right apart.
I took photos of it, and went to Tribest.com. The only information I found about warranty was the Warranty Registration page. Uh-oh. I bought the juicer 3 years ago, and why would I ever bother with those pesky product registration cards?
I went to the contact page, and filled out the contact form asking how to submit a warranty claim. It was only a few hours before I had received a reply with a checklist of information I needed to send to submit the warranty claim.
I sent the serial number, my contact information, the purchase date and location, and some photos and a description of the problem.
The Tribest representative deemed that it was actually an issue that was available for a warranty claim, and they provided me with shipping instructions.
I did have to pay the shipping cost to send the juicer base in, but after I shipped in the base, I received a call from Tribest about 2 weeks later. They were letting me know that the juicer was fixed and they were shipping it back.
When I received the package, the juicer base had been cleaned and repaired, and it worked great! All in all, the warranty process was painless and quick. We were impressed with Tribest!
