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I have purchased three Littermaid automatic cat boxes. The first box was their original Littermaid, it worked well and it lasted a long time.

After the first box died I found that Littermaid had redesigned the box. The first box had a pair of gears on both ends of the rake assembly that pushed the rake through the litter. The second box was a Littermaid II. The rake assembly was redesigned using a string to pull the rake along. The string broke after about a year.

The last box I purchased was also a Littermaid II and again it had been redesigned. This time the rake had been redesigned; the rake fingers were made of wire. The wire fingers were an improvement because they did not clog as easily as the earlier design, but the box had the same string design as the second box and this time the plastic gears that spooled the string got stripped and the box again failed after about a year of service.

I have purchased three Littermaid boxes in the last ten years. All three boxes failed because of their drive assemblies, the first box lasted about 8 years, the last two barely lasted a year. Can you say engineered obsolescence? Next time I will consider another brand.