To start off with, you all know, I have several Orvis products right down to the socks I wear.
I love their gear, so this ISN’T a bashing thread, but what now thread.
I have a T3 rod that I bought shortly after they came out in 2001. Price on this rod was $610. Nine foot, six weight, tip flex, four piece, with aluminum tube, Titanium guides and nickel silver reel seat and ambonia wood insert.
The serial number tells when the rod was built.
Okay, I need to send it in as the finish some how is coming off on the third piece and the connection on the third and forth piece (ferrule) is almost gone. The pieces are touching.
I sent it in to get it fixed, but then it occurred to me, they might replace it.
This isn’t good as they have now done the same thing with the T3 as they did with the Helios/Hydros (cheaper parts - lowered the price) except they are discontinuing the T3 (price after hardware change $495, / closeout price $400.)
I am pretty sure the rod is fixable, but I called to out what if.
After bantering back and forth that the new T3 was unacceptable, I was told the Hydros would be the replacement.
I told them, as much as I would like to try the Hydros, this too is unacceptable as it list for $495. and the replacement I want (as per the Orvis warranty of AT LEAST equal value) must be in the $610. price range.
They don’t have anything anymore in that range! So not sure what the answer is on this and what about My Zero Gravity?
Does the warranty cover the price at the time you purchased it, or the current price of the rod?
In my non-legal, computer programmer educated, terms I would guess they believe it to be current price, while the rest of us expect price at the time it was purchased.
Please keep us updated. I would also be curious to see how others have experienced warranty claims from other companies… Did they get current price, or original price that they paid for a product?
They want to sell the Hydros for $600 but know that they can’t sell a rod for $600 anymore. If the components are truly inferior however, I would tell them to keep the rod and send me a $600 gift card and inform them that you might switch to another company for rods. (I recommend St Croix…hehe)
FG, you would think that when you pay those prices you expect to get what you pay for, including customer service. Sorry for your dillemma. Since I can’t afford those rods anyway I’ll stick to the one’s I can. I just sent in a warranty claim on a broken Cabela’s Traditional II rod ($39.00 on sale for the blank) and they are fitting a new tip piece and sending it all back to me. I Broke my Dan Craft Sig V this fall at Henry’s and Dan is going to find the middle piece of a three-piece rod to replace the broken part and send it back to me. I received a gift of a Sage RPL, 9-ft, 5-wt and have broken it three different times and have always been happy with the warranty coverage, especially since they sent back the same model rod as originally purchased.
Please, no commentary on how hard I am on rods, just a klutz. Anyway, I would think that with such a rod as you’re trying to repair/replace, that Orvis would bend over backwards to make it right, right down to the exact new rod as a replacement. Go figure.
I seem to hear this quite often among people who own top end Orvis gear. I hear about it from other companies too, but Orvis is the name that continues to pop up.
Me, I own several of their reels and a pair of their low end waders, and have dealt with their customer service on several occasions. Each time I was very highly pleased with the service.
From these observations, I can only guess that as long as your request isn’t out of the ordinary (in the sense of wanting to keep the older model rod/not wanting latest & greatest/etc) then the Orvis service will seem great. But as soon as you stray off the beaten path of customer service, you’re gonna get tangled in the briars.
To answer the post title question, no it’s not just Orvis. I was on the horn last evening discussing this topic ( concerning a different company ) with a very old friend, who was also a customer back when. It’s a fairly common circumstance with many companies, not just Orvis or rod manufacturers.
If you haven’t run into this before, stick around a while and you’re bound to run into it again.
why is retail price of the original and replacement rods even an issue?
the cosmetic aspects of a rod have very little bearing on how the rod fishes. and the way you were gushing over the hydros model, it seems as though you’d be pleased to receive one as a replacement for yer worn out T3.
First off, as I mentioned on the Helios/Hydros thing, they put less expensive hardware on the T3 and lowered the price. Granted the blank is the same, but how long is it going to be around.
I would also like to point out, the rod did not break. I have broke two rods in…well, the many years I have been ff.
I would love the Hydros, but like most that buy UPPER end rods will tell you, they are also an investment. Why would I take less?
That is like buying an Escalade, having a problem with it and they give you an Avalanche in exchange. They are very close in look and both nice…BUT?!
The solution to this will be to replace the top two sections with the Titanium guides and not the nickel. Then send them and the two original bottom pieces back to me (same serial #)
But, then again the question on the future…what if it does break, and the ZG (at the $600.+ price also)
I like the suggestion of the gift card at replacement value for the rod, but it doesn’t sound like what they have to offer satisfies your needs so does that really get you anywhere closer to replacing the rod? I’ve followed Kelly’s path when it comes to rods - last “new” rod I ever purchased was a Cabelas Stowaway for $89.00. I have a few older Sages, a 490 and a 690 RPL, both on their third tip sections, a couple of late 90’s Orvis PMs I use for saltwater and a handful I’ve built (my favorite 4 wt is a Forecast blank that set me back $25.00). I may have to splurge one day and buy one of the Dan Craft blanks; I’ve heard nothing but good about them. Hope that Orvis does the proper thing and treats a good customer the right way.
Happens all the time…and, in reality, it’s our own perceptions that are at fault.
We want to equate ‘cost’ with ‘value’.
Sometimes, that doesn’t work. It’s obvious with computers…but fishing equipment, we expect them to keep ‘improving’ and thus RAISING the prices. If the ‘replacement’ rod they were offering cost $700+, it would seem to be a ‘better’ rod, and thus they would be ‘upgrading’ you. That’s a ‘deal’, you see, and whether or not the rod is actually ‘better’ would not be an issue to most.
But, the economy has changed…that $610 rod didn’t cost Orvis even 10% of that price to make it…they priced it based on what EVERY company tries to do…whatever the market will bear. Now, even though they believe that their newer rods are better, and even if they cost more to produce than that $610 rod, they know that the market won’t bear that kind of price. They settle for a lesser profit margin and use the appearance of ‘savings’ as an advertising point.
Don’t know what you are going to do, but unless they can ‘repair’ your damaged rod, you won’t have too many options if they no longer have any of the old ones in stock.
According to their warranty if they can’t repair it they’ll choose a current fly fishing rod of at least equal value to replace. To me the key words are at least. So does that mean the value at the time of purchase or value at the time being replaced? I would think value at time of purchase which would mean they should replace it with a ZG Helios.
Post that question to Tom Rosenbauer on their Facebook page and see what kind of reply you get.
If you have a T3 and they’re going to replace it with a T3, I think that’s satisfying the obligation with regards to warranty. Now they’re wicked polite and they’re not going to say so outright but IMHO I’d be okay with that if it were my rod. Since the Hydros replaces the T3 in their line-up, I’d also be good with that since they are, IMHO, a better casting rod than the T3.
Everything evolves and I think the expectation has to be so when you purchase the rod. It would certainly be a challenge for them to replace an eight year old rod with an eight year old rod.
I had a similar problem this year. I sent in my Silver Label II waders this year for repair. After waiting around for a month I was told they were unrepairable. Since the Silver Label II’s have now been replaced by Silver Label III’s, that’s what they sent as a replacement. A nice gesture I thought at first.
But I hate the Silver Label III’s. They have replaced the suspenders with a thin flimsy strap that crosses behind your neck and irritates it. The strap attaches to the waders by looping a velcro fastener through a piece of shock cord that runs around the top edge of the waders. I’m sure that will last all of about three months.
Silver Labels used to come in a nice box. Now they come in a cheap box typical of imported junk. Not that the box is important in and of itself, but it reflects a decline in quality that I’ve seen in Orvis products over the last few years.
I hate to be an Orvis basher as I’ve been a long time customer and un-basher, but I just don’t know what to make of them anymore.
To answer the original question, it isn’t just Orvis. I returned a broken St. Croix spinning rod purchased with a lifetime warranty several years ago. They did not replace the rod and offered a gift certificate for less than the cost of any of their rods. After complaining to the president of the company, he replied the warranty was for the life of the rod.
I now own one St. Croix rod, received as a gift about 1973. None of my friends own any new St. Croix rods. I on the other hand am a huge fan of Orvis because of the service they extended on some waders a couple of year ago. I have told countless people about both incidents.
