Best Guarantee on the planet

[pwd72s]

Best customer service as well. The vietnam zippos thread here prompted me to look at my old lighters. Among them, a chrome "slimline". It's spark wheel didn't turn, probably a piece of old flint jammed in sideways...I probed & fiddled, couldn't remove the blockage. So, what the hell...I put it in a padded envelope, mailed it off to zippo, along with a note asking when it was made...I couldn't remember.

Not long ago..the phone rang. Probably yet another scammer call, right? Nope..it was Zippo! A customer service guy letting me know my old zippo was being shipped and that it was made in 1964...he congratulated me for hanging on to it so long.

Who sez customer service is dead?

[URY914]

There is no sound more familiar then when someone flips the clover closed on a Zippo lighter after using it.

[Tobra]

Dremel has a pretty darn good warranty too.

You have one of their rotary tools stop working, send it back and they fix it on the cheap, or send you another, equivalent tool for cost.

I got a few of them when I took over a retiring guy's practice. One quit working, so I sent it in. Got a call a few days later. "Jim from Dremel in Racine, calling about your rotary tool" Yeah, how much to fix it. "Yeah, uh, I can't fix it." What is the problem? "Where did you get this, we have not made anything like this in 50 years, I don't have parts for it." What do we do? "We sell you an equivalent tool for cost." How much is that? "This was the top of the line when new, so we will sell you our current top of the line for $50" Sold. Sent the other one in, and when one of the replacements died 10 years later, they sent another new one for $50, not bad.


List price was $170 on the last one.

[cabmandone]

I have offer a taillight warranty on my equipment!

[shadowjack1]

Dillion reloading equip. has a great warranty. My 550 was under water for Katrina. Got home two weeks later the thing was as rusty as it could be, saltwater. Anyway I wrote it off, six months later I call Dillion, tell them that I would like to see if they could rebuild it or What????. Guy asked me does it work, I tell him know it went underwater and was rusty, very rusty. Again he asks me does it work? I tell him no. He then states its under warranty. Please send in the old rusty unit and they will replace it. They did. No BS warranty.

[TimT]

Believe it or not... Bose has or had a pretty stand up guarantee..

I bought Bose 901 speakers in the early 80's I think they were like $1800 through AAfes

In the mid 90's I noticed they were sounding off... so I pulled the covers and saw that all the foam surrounds were cracked or gone..

I wrote Bose a nastygram , and was surprised that they said they would take care of it.

So I boxed up the speakers and sent them back..

About a month later I received two boxes from Bose....

With new 901 speakers

[herr_oberst]

LL Bean used to have a lifetime warranty on all the gear they sold. They quit that siht in 2018; people bringing in rags bought in the 40's and demanding brand new garments eventually cost the company more than the hype was worth.

[LWJ]

And to think, last night I cut myself on the razor sharp plating on a craftsman 17mm socket.

I can’t imagine there is any warranty on this.

Damn.

[svandamme]

Leupold is pretty good as well, had one of their Kenai scopes, it really didn't focus properly.
called em up, explained the problem and did some troubleshooting, turns out it should have been air tight, wasn't.

sent me a new one, keep the old one they said (as I was in europe)

[Cairo94507]

Last year I had an old, mid-70's Craftsman 1/2" ratchet that broke. Sears, where I bought it, of course is out of business. I took it into Ace Hardwire, they now carry Craftsman and I explained I bought this in the mid-70's when they had the lifetime guarantee. The pimple-faced clerk said no warranty. I went to the store manager and he said of course it is covered. Pick out the one you want. I selected a like replacement and was good to go.

I found it amusing that the generation that wants everything for free and believes they have a "hack" to get everything free, was the one that said no without hesitation. The old guy manager didn't bat an eye and replaced the ratchet.

[Amail]

My dad's coworker gave him an HP 11C calculator that he'd found smashed in the street as a gag gift. On a whim my dad sent it to HP with a note saying it was broken. They sent him a new calculator, same model! This would have been mid-80's.

[GH85Carrera]

Back in the olden days when I lived at home, I was using my dad's old Sears pull handle to loosen the lug nuts on my 60 VW bug that some idiot had used a impact wrench to put on many years before, and they were rusted in place as well. I was literally jumping up and down on a piece of pipe slipped over the wrench with a buddy helping in closer on the wrench. For some reason the wrench broke. I took it to sears and they just told me to go get the replacement, and I swapped the wrench in seconds. No paperwork, no problem. I went back at tried it again, and broke the new wrench as well. I was 16 and only thought I was smart. Anyway, I went to a different Sears, and got yet another one. This time I gave up and went to a local gas station & service station. He used his biggest impact wrench and finally got it to come off.

Also back in the "good ol days" Little Giant Pump was based in Oklahoma City, just a mile from my house. They sold pumps of course, but also outdoor decorative lighting. I bought a house that had the remains of some fixtures that the sun and weed eaters had destroyed. I went into Little Giant's manufacturing plant customer service department and they looked at the old and broken stuff, walked to the back and handed me an all new box of the same lights. No receipt, no paperwork. Unfortunately Little Giant was sold a bigger company, and soon all production was stopped in OKC, and moved overseas and the quality was crap, and the warranty stopped.

[vash]

i believe in my heart a companies customer service is directly proportional to how much you want to vomit when you damage something.

my lifetime CS warranty experience was Leica. i was deer bowhunting in AZ. crawling around, on my belly in rocks. binoculars around my neck in a chest harness. i must have let the glass slip and it bungeed down to the rock. right smack dab in the middle of a lens was a thumbnail sized chip in the glass. i noticed it when i got home and was cleaning them to be put away. i didnt believe it. i tried to wash off the chip!!(thinking it must be a smudge) maybe soap will help!! NOOOOOO!!! i seriously got faint and wanted to vomit.

next day, i went to the shop i bought them at. the salesman remembered me, and i showed him. it took them to the balcony without saying a word and look thru them. he came back and said, "dang, i can see the distortion in the lens!" he took $45 from me for shipping and sent them back ot the motherland. "he said, i sell a lot of binoculars, let me send them in and do all the talking"

i got them back in two months. the entire time not knowing if they were gonna fix them or not. me and the salesman opened the box together. YAY>>>total repair. i even got a note saying something about how they loved how i use the binoculars like they intended, but to be more careful next time.

i'll buy another pair if these ever get lost or stolen.

[GH85Carrera]

At my first job the guy I worked for bought a Leica M3 35 mm camera new. He used it as a professional trough the decades. He was there for the entire Selma to Montgomery march taking pictures. After many years of use, it had some issues. He sent it back to Germany for Leica to repair it. It came back months later with a note: Extremely heavy use, cleaned and minor parts replaced. It was a very small repair cost, under $100.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by vash

i believe in my heart a companies customer service is directly proportional to how much you want to vomit when you damage something.

my lifetime CS warranty experience was Leica. i was deer bowhunting in AZ. crawling around, on my belly in rocks. binoculars around my neck in a chest harness. i must have let the glass slip and it bungeed down to the rock. right smack dab in the middle of a lens was a thumbnail sized chip in the glass. i noticed it when i got home and was cleaning them to be put away. i didnt believe it. i tried to wash off the chip!!(thinking it must be a smudge) maybe soap will help!! NOOOOOO!!! i seriously got faint and wanted to vomit.

next day, i went to the shop i bought them at. the salesman remembered me, and i showed him. it took them to the balcony without saying a word and look thru them. he came back and said, "dang, i can see the distortion in the lens!" he took $45 from me for shipping and sent them back ot the motherland. "he said, i sell a lot of binoculars, let me send them in and do all the talking"

i got them back in two months. the entire time not knowing if they were gonna fix them or not. me and the salesman opened the box together. YAY>>>total repair. i even got a note saying something about how they loved how i use the binoculars like they intended, but to be more careful next time.

i'll buy another pair if these ever get lost or stolen.

That's great, Especially that they knew what it was.

I tend to be honest bout things, My roomba fell of the stairs, It was not a warranty discussion.. I told em up front , hey, the little bastard fell 9 feet down on a ceramic tile.. own fault, forgot the virtual wall and forgot to clean it's sensors. Just need options to repair.

I do not expect warranty or insurance to cover me for own mistakes.
But it's nice when they appreciate honesty and do you a solid.


Irobot was pretty chit tho.. took forever to get an answer, they ignored what I had said and wasted my time.. "We wanna do a full investigation on this to see if the robot is at fault"
ffs it's not.. I told you what happened. I messed it up. Just need a new part.

They go, you can send it in, 50 euro inspection charge then we tell you what's the repair cost is out of warranty

Told em to go pound sand

in the end i got the part for 49.99 euro on the grey market And the tard-bot is back in business.. All they did .. was waste my time.
To bad, becaus the product itself is pretty good and durable..
IT fell 9-10 feet vertical on a tile floor.. and isn't totalled.. go figure.

[pwd72s]

Stijn's experience is probably more typical than most listed here. I'll confess that I was pretty amazed to actually get a phone call from a zippo customer service rep. First time that has ever happened to me...

[Jeff Higgins]

Leupold scopes.

A hunting buddy's son was unfortunate enough to roll his old Bronco down a sidehill while elk hunting in Oregon. His rifle was in a rack in one of the rear side windows, and both the stock and the scope got broken. He doesn't live far from the Leupold facility, so he ran over with the scope just so he could match it up and buy a replacement. It was bent like a banana and all of the glass was broken.

The nice lady behind the counter took a look at it, listened with great interest to his story, and told him that yes, indeed, they still made that model. She went in back and grabbed one. When he reached for his wallet, she simply said "have a nice day".

"But... I rolled my truck over on it and broke it. Totally my fault."

"Sir, it's a Leupold that no longer works. We can't have that. Have a nice day."

I sent one in myself many years ago that I had broken when out hunting. I spoke with probably the same nice lady before I sent it, explaining the whole situation, telling her that I just wanted it repaired and to send me a bill when they see what it needs.

I'll never forget this - I mailed it on a Monday. It was back in my mailbox that Thursday, repaired. With no bill. So I called the nice lady again, explaining that there must have been a mistake, that they had forgotten to bill me.

"Sir, it's a Leupold that no longer worked. We can't have that. Have a nice day."

[pwd72s]

I have 3 Leupolds...that's nice to know.

[Robert Coats]

Originally Posted by Cairo94507

Last year I had an old, mid-70's Craftsman 1/2" ratchet that broke. Sears, where I bought it, of course is out of business.

Both Home Depot and Lowe's will swap your broken/damaged Craftsman tool for a matching Husky (Home Depot) or Stanley (Lowe's) version. Pretty sure Husky has a lifetime/no questions replacement warranty, just like Sears used to offer.

[wilnj]

A buddy bought a new bike frame and was moving his components onto the new frame.

I bought his old Specialized Rockhopper HT frame from him for about $50.

So we spent a Saturday building our bikes, we stripped down the old bikes and started swapping components on to the new frames when I noticed the head tube was cracked on my new to me frame.

Found a Specialized dealer who took a look at the frame and said he didn’t have a replacement in stock but he’d call me when it was in. Cost me nothing.

My kid brother is still riding that bike, it’s been almost 25 years.