My worst experience so far happened last month. I had a customer send me a brand new Sage Xi3 and a Struble U-21 reel seat with matching fighting butt to install on the brand new never been lined up, cast, or fished $750 Sage rod. The reel seat is solid titanium and with the fighting butt retails for over $160 all by itself. I swap everything out and send it back. He can't mount a reel on the rod. Any reel. Now, I use a reel mounted in the seat to align things when I glue the seat on a rod. The reel I used was an old one but mounted up without undue problems. I have him send the rod back with the reel he is trying to mount. Sure enough. It won't go. I tried 3 or 4 reels and the only one I could mount was the one I had used to line things up. I removed the new seat and called Struble. Before shipping it back, I did a ton of measurements of reel feet, and this seat along with a couple of other seats I had on hand. The U-21 was nowhere close as far as room in the hood or slide. To top it off, the body was short, too. I sent the whole works back to Struble.
As it turns out, the CNC machine had been setup wrong. They sent me a new seat and butt which I assembled and mounted his reel and any other reel I could get my hands on to be sure it was going to work before mounting the seat. Struble had machined a new seat for me that was top notch.
While everything worked out and I was taken care of to my satisfaction, it shouldn't have happened with a high end seat like that. Will I buy Struble seats again? Absolutely. This was handled with true concern and professionalism. Poop happens but given the chance most companies will fix it.