It seems a lot of us started on that little piece of c r a p. Like Dana mine worked just fine got me over 1 yr of use. The only problem was the air. I do just as Dana does keep it for friends who say they might want to give Cajun accordion a try. Let them take it home for as long as they want. Brings new players into the mix. If you can enjoy playing it then you belong to the group.

Nout is right, it's time consuming work.
But the good news is that changing out the crappy "simulated leather" valves for ventile (not natural leather) valves WILL make quite a difference in one of these cheap accordions.

I have done it and it does help.
Other things that help are completely removing the bellows from the accordion and flexing it in ALL directions to it's extremes (like some exercise device) for an hour while watching TV or listening to your favorite album.

The third and final thing to make it play better is to painstakingly adjust the reed gap on each reed to achieve the most sound with the least air. (for the expert repair tech)

Now that you have spent $500 of time trying to put "lipstick on a pig", you might just be better off selling the thing, adding $500 and buying a good used box!

DP

I have 2 of these and mine are also short of breath, tho maybe not as bad as yours? Might be the humidity? I'm in San Diego. The one I mainly use was hung on a door knob over night a couple times when I first got it in order to get the bellows to stretch out- they were so stiff! I bought the second one new for $160 just to have in case some friends here wanted to mess around.
The great thing about the Ariettes is that they allow a newbie like me to do two things without spending big bucks on a good LA built box. One is learn where the notes are on the push/pulls, BUT just as important, they let people try one of these accordions to see if they want to stick with it. You get to find out first whether you WANT to play one, then whether you CAN play one.
My Arriette is crap, but I was so thrilled to pick it up and bring it home after waiting so long to get a Cajun type box. Literally had tears in my eyes over a piece of crap. I bought 6 or so smaller ones before that just to learn about them.
Got another accordion on the way now! An old 3 stop Eagle in G.
CHEERS!