# Leatherman warranty



## nyyanks (Jan 12, 2003)

How does Leatherman know you haven't had the product for more than 25 years and sent it in for service? I mean they dont even ask for a receipt when you turn it in (most people probably don't even have their store receipt anyway).

Is it by the new release of new tools and discontinuing old ones, a way for them to determine warranty time?


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## SurefireM6 (Jan 12, 2003)

I think they factor that in as cost of the product. Say you have a product offering Lifetime Warranty and 5% of the product gets sent back for warranty repairs. You just have to build that into the product cost. 

M*glight does the same thing, when I took one in for repair, they just grabbed mine and fixed it as well as replacing the lens and switch even if nothing was wrong with those parts. 

A Surefire charger is in for repair right now and they didn't question me at all on how old it is.


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## Anarchocap (Jan 13, 2003)

It is certainly factored into the cost of the products. The real production costs of just about anything made today in quantity are quite small relative to their MSRP. The price you pay as the consumer factors in the R&D, marketing, packaging, warranty, tooling and distribution.

Would it surprise you that the price of any Intel P4 currently produced is about $15-20? But that doesn't consider the company has to pump out millions of them to get to that cost level. You also probably don't know that a Fab costs about $2 Billion dollars to build to start making 300 mm wafers in high volume. And that doesn't include the money it costs to develop the process and equipment to etch .09 micron lines on a purified disc of sand.

As with any company ramped up, established, and producing products in a volume capacity, the incremental cost of replacing your defective part is small as long as defects/replacments are a statisically insignificant part of the process.

And even if you have a high reject rate in a product like Luxeon Stars, you just raise your sell point to compensate for it.


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## Chris T (Jan 13, 2003)

In addition to the technical aspects of production there is the customer satisfaction aspect. The cost of repairing/replacing a product is a lot cheaper than the damage that can be caused by an unhappy customer. The "Cheers N' Jeers" section of this forum is proof of that.

Chris


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## Albany Tom (Jan 13, 2003)

The nice thing about a lifetime warranty is that the manufacturer is betting their money that most of them won't break. I like that. You'll never see a car with one of those. Hell, you'll never see a wiper blade with one of those, but I keep hoping.


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## Wits' End (Jan 14, 2003)

I think sometimes the manufacturer assumes that people won't bother sending them back. There was a PT Aurora on ebay that wasn't working right, the seller decided to get rid of the light rather than returning it for repair. One factor in a Lifetime (any) warranty, the manufacturer still has to be around.


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## ab (Jan 14, 2003)

In the early 90's I was the customer service manager for a chain of bike stores. We used to give every customer who bought a bike a little folder. In there was a service checklist for their bike, their receipt, any warranty papers, a couple of 25% off coupons for a helmet, pump, etc. 

There was also a postage-paid comment card. The customer could fill this in if they wanted to and drop it in a mailbox. The customer cards came to me and I read every single one of them. I particularly paid close attention to the complaints (happily there weren't too too many of these!). My policy was to send any unsatisfied customer a $10 gift certificate, my business card and another one of those comment cards. With this package they'd get a little note saying:

"We're very sorry your shopping experience at our store in ____________ wasn't satisfactory to you. I want to make sure our customers are satisfied with our stores, our staff and our service. Please allow us another chance and use this gift certificate at our store in ____________ the next time you shop there. I'd love to hear from you again about your next experience."

The thinking behind this was that the $10 gift certificate was really only costing us $5 since accessories all had a 100% markup. $5 was a very cheap way to avoid damaging negative press! I'd rather spend $5 to help someone be happy and get them to tell their friends about how we made sure they were satisified and were so attentive to their concerns than have them complaining to everyone they met about how we didn't do right by them. Also these customers were now bringing back some very valuable information to me about our stores and staff - information I would never have been able to gather firsthand.

It's axiomatic in retail that bad press is BAD NEWS. Really the only offset for bad customer relations is cheap prices. If prices are cheap customers will tolerate poor service... ***During the sale*** - they will complain afterwards.

Bad service always garners complaints, even if the customer goes back to purchase again. This may seem neutral to the business in question but it's really not. The friends/family/audience/readers-of-the-letters-to-the-editor hearing all of the customer's complaints are all commenting "Then why do you buy from those guys?" and promising themselves to never make the same mistake.

Good service can sometimes be a bit of an investment in time and $ but there's no doubt that it is FAR FAR cheaper than even a single unsatisfied and articulate customer. Witness Botach as an example - see how many CPF'ers are wary of shopping there regardless of price!

disclaimer - I haven't bought anything from Botach - very high shipping prices and negative international shipping policies keep me away.

A.


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## Chris T (Jan 14, 2003)

ab:

Any stats on how many of those gift certificates or discount coupons were used? The reason I ask is that when I worked retail in small stores (Mom and pop operations) we knew that a good number of gift certificates would never be redeemed. Other store owners I've talked to have realized the same thing. 

Chris


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## ab (Jan 16, 2003)

Well, I don't know if I can say with any certainty about how they were used or not. Fortunately I never had to send out many of them, and I did get back mostly positive comments from the customers on their second visits. This system really seemed to work quite well. In fact I realized at one point that $5 is really cheap if you can get someone to shop a store for you and give you back a report! Not a professional "shop" by a professional evaluator but certainly I always felt we got our $5 worth.

You're for sure correct about gift certificates, though. Mail-in rebates are even more of an example of this. I do have stats about these - and it turns out that a major electronics retailer here in western Canada (let's call them Futile Sh0p) has too. They actually pay out on less than 50% of their eligible rebates. 

LESS than 50%. They don't like to publicize this but I have it on 1st-hand information that this is true.

That means that the customer simply can't be bothered to fill in the little form and mail it in to collect their $25 or whatever it is. Or maybe the company never sends their $, or insists on some strange combination of paperwork that can't be sent because it doesn't exist, or...

I also believe that one reason for the customary 6-to-10 *week* turnaround time is to facilitate the customer forgetting about it. I'm sure a company could quite handily manage to send rebate cheques to just 70% of customers who send their forms in and the other 30% would never notice. If any of them did they could call/write/etc. to complain a "replacement" rebate could be issued. 

If that's true then we could be as low as 35% of people who are elible to receive rebates actually winding up receiving them.

There are lots of tricks like this that retailers and manufacturers use to fiddle with pricing. Most of it is pretty bullshitty though. 

Anything you mail in and then wait for is particularly suspect. Or at least put it this way - it's all on the shoulders of the customer to ensure that he or she receives the proper rebate in a timely manner. Keep a photocopy, post a note in your calendar for two months from now, write down the phone number to call with inquiries, etc.

A.


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## d'mo (Jan 16, 2003)

Leatherman warranty: On new Leatherman products a date code is stamped (month and year)inside one of the the handles to indicate when it was manufactured. Since they typically don't spend too long on store shelves, Leatherman has an approximate date of when the warranty expires. Older products don't have the date code so they have to take a guess. Since Leatherman has only been around since about 1984, I imagine everything they've sold to this point is under warranty. 

As to their warranty service, Leatherman is second to none. Case in point: When I purchased a Wave, I did a crappy job engraving it with my name. It served me faithfully for several months, but I ended up breaking a handle so I sent it in to Leatherman for service. When they returned it, not only had it been repaired, it was professionally engraved. THAT'S GREAT SERVICE!


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## krept (Jan 16, 2003)

I used a dremel on my Wave to grind off the sharp external edges. Over the course of five years, I broke the medium screwdriver (prying) and chipped the small screwdriver (prying) and dulled one of the knife blades. I asked them to sharpen the knife and replace the broken med. screwdriver under warranty service, but I would pay if necessary. 

A couple weeks later, I recieved a brand spanking new Wave. Spyderco is the same way. AWESOME warranty service.


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## FNG (Feb 8, 2003)

Would they warranty my Wave if I used the wire cutter to cut something other than wire? Last night I used it to cut the spring inside the Scorpion. I didnt place it on the hard cutter but the wire cutter. The spring was harder than I thought and now I have to use a screwdriver to get between the pliers and pry it out because the cutters hit eachother when closing and opening.


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## Atrick-Pay (Feb 8, 2003)

Just sharpen it out with a file, Try to "draw" the 
folded over steel back up. Oh, and if that is 
the worsed you've done then well............You ain't seen nothing! Wait till you really screw it up before you 
get your ne wone from them!


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## TOB9595 (Feb 13, 2003)

FNG, I did the same thing a couple of months back. Cut the spring off a mag, 4c to 5D. Scored my cutter badly. I ground down the burrs so the Wave would close. I emailed Leatherman explaining what happened and that it was my dumbness. They emailed me back and said to send it in. They replaced The whole wave. I will continue to use Leatherman products. Great product and service.
Send your Leatherman to their warranty dept. Insure the package. It may be cheaper to go UPS. 

Tom


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## TOB9595 (Feb 13, 2003)

forgot to add this.
leatherman warranty


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## jkthomson2 (Feb 13, 2003)

I've got a 2nd hand leatherman that I bought off a guy who snapped the knife blade right off... 

will they fix even that sort of abuse? 

I also have wave that somebody managed to snap off .5 inches of ONE side of the pliers. I ground down the other side so that they match. sort of a 'stubby wave'.

I'd keep the wave the way it is, but the entire plier mechanisim is "sloppy", and of course, it has some crazy fasteners, so I can't tighten it.


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## TOB9595 (Feb 13, 2003)

It wouldn't hurt to try




I've heard worse stories about the abuse that they make good on. It is a tool. Tools get (ab)used. 
For the sloppy one it should be able to be tightened. I don't have my torx or security driver set here. I'll check tomorrow and see what fits. The security drivers are for the tamper proof screws that you see around.
If someone else is able to check sooner than that'll be great.
Tom


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