Piece of junk bed frame

Hospitality Bed Full XL / Queen Size Hook-On Steel Bed Rails With Three Center Supports

This bed frame is absolute garbage. Don't buy it.

In December, out bed broke. The bed is a fairly traditional design. A headboard, a footboard, two wooden rails connecting them, and three wooden planks running between the rails, with mattress and foundation on top. The frame was pretty old, and eventually, one of the wooden rails broke.

Not wanting to go through the same problem again, I thought it would be best to keep the headboard and footboard, but replace the frame with a steel frame. After some Googling, we located Bed Frame Parts and selected the frame seen above. We thought $160 is overpriced (since the steel frame we got with the mattress only cost $100), but it was the best price for something that appeared solid in the picture and its description.

We ordered it in mid-December and it arrived in a few days. Assembly was a little tricky, but nothing I couldn't handle. We put the mattresses on it and considered it done. Until last night.

Last night, we got in to bed and the mattress sank. The bed also moved away from the wall. Looking underneath, the legs that are supposed to hold up the cross-pieces were splayed out toward the headboard. The cross-rails that are supposed to take the weight were twisted as a result.

Looking more closely, we could tell that the frame is broken by design. Note the following photos:

     

The cross-rails are steel, folded at a right-angle. The legs are riveted on to the vertical part of that rail. So when weight is applied to the rail, it is delivered to the side of the leg. When you get the weight of a mattress, foundation, bedding and two people, the leg tilts, slides out to the side, and all support is gone.

After observing this, it is clear that this design can't possibly work. The manufacturer should know better, but either they don't care or they are incompetent. Either way, they sold me a $160 piece of trash, which I can't get a refund on because the store has a no-returns policy on bed frames (as if I would be willing to spend the $50+ it would cost to package and ship all this steel.)

In comparison, here's the leg of our spare bed frame (that came bundled with a mattress):

Note that it's not just a thin piece of metal riveted to the frame. The foot is larger and is mounted in a steel box that is welded to the frame. The weight is distributed to the center of the foot, not to it's side.

If not for the fact that I can't attach our footboard to this frame, I'd be inclined to just keep using it. But I like the bed itself, so we'll have to go shopping for another frame, and buy it from another store. At least this time I know what to look for so I (hopefully) won't buy another piece of trash.