Well, for what it's worth, I'm on my fifth year since new, I got in-floor popups and wouldn't be without them. It's been nearly maintenance free all along, and it works great. One thing I do to maintain it is every time I clean out the pump baskets, I pop the lid off the distribution manifold and clean the little bit of grit that builds up, there are lots of plastic gears in there and if I didn't do that it would probably have worn out before now. Other than that I absolutely love the system.