Everyone has heard of TFOs warranty policy being top knotch. Well.. I just got some first hand experience with it and another companies, so I figured I’d share.
I broke my brand new 2 day old A2X, completely my fault.
I called TFO on Friday afternoon. I told em what happened, and that it was absolutely my fault, and that I needed both of the top sections. Yes..2 sections..
Guy on the phone said, no problem. Being the rod is new, I’ll send em out for free, just shoot us an email with pics. I hung up the phone, sent the pics immediately. Within 15min I had two confirmation emails, and within another 15min had shipping confirmation and a tracking number. Two working days later (Tues) I received both sections at zero cost.
Then I thought, Hey Reddington offers offer a Lifetime warranty, let’s see if they will honor a “new to me” but 25yo old rod. I did buy the rod new, but it was NOS. Again the break was completely on me. I emailed them on Friday as well through their online warranty service.
Monday afternoon I still had no response, so I called. Nobody answered and I had leave a callback number. About 30min later I get a call back. Dude is super friendly, I tell him what happened and he tells me to send in the broken section and they’ll inspect it, and make the determination if it was on them or me. If it’s me, it’ll be $95 to send the replacement. So I tell him, well cant we skip all that, as I’ve already mentioned it was my fault, and I’ll just pay you the $95. He tells me that he doesn’t know if “they” will let him, but to he’s going to send me an email, and to respond to it with clear pics of the damaged section. About 2 hours later I get the email, and I respond. Then it’s crickets till yesterday.
He finally responded and says they’ll except the pics and send me a new replacement rod for $95 and that it’ll ship out sometime next week.
In the end the rod is being replaced, and the representative was really nice and made it happen, but in comparison to the TFO warranty dept.., Man talk about night and Day.
Last few Orvis rods I’ve broke I’ve called the rod shop, talked to a US based person on the second ring, read a serial number and the new section is sent out that day and usually at my house in 36ish hours. It’s been pleasant enough I’ve actually sat on the phone after the process to BS with them about fishing a few times.
Thats really good info, @MikeCockman 95 is a pretty good deal on a new rod, but TFO sounds like Power Pole level service.
Speaking of PP, Minn Kota must be feeling the heat because my last few experiences with them have been night and day better than previous ones. You gotta love when one company raises the bar and forces other ones to follow!
Some of the Redington story reminded me of my experience with Hardy. I had a stripper guide eye pop out of the frame and they wanted me to send them the entire rod! I looked it up and they are both owned by Pure Fishing. The warranty experience is likely to be pretty similar across their brands.
I snapped a tip section on an Echo rod and their response was very different. I paid the replacement cost for the tip section and they sent it out pretty quickly.
I guess the lesson is that the smaller brands are more responsive (out of necessity?) than the big corporate ones.
I finally broke my Scott Meridian enough that I needed to send it to Scott rods. My Meridian was self repaired by me on three of the four pieces, I broke the tip on a tree, so I decided to send it to Scott. I got the address and instructions, sent it in, 2 weeks later I get a call telling me my rod is ready, 95$. I unpacked the rod and realized they sent me a new rod. And the old grip piece as well, with a nice note, saying anyone that repairs their rods to that extent to keep fishing deserves a new rod…
I had good luck with Scott too, I sent the rod in with one section damaged and they sent two new sections back. It was not as quick as Orvis, but quality service for sure.
Orvis has always been very very good. Glad to hear TFO is good too. Sage used to be good but is not good anymore. Had to ha e an able reel fixed. No charge and quick service. Tibor was ok but took a long time.
I bought a new Loomis NRX on ebay that was never fished. I got it and it didn’t have both reel seat rings. I sent it in the repair guy said he’d never seen that before, but they didn’t repair rods anymore, so he sent me another new one.
I have lots of Winston Rods and their repairs do take time since the honor some pretty old rods. My last repair was going to take 2 months, but they sent me a out a loaner at no cost, including a repaid return label.
My experience with scott was good but was pricey. By the time you ship it to them and pay the fee you’re almost a couple hundred deep for a new section. Service was good and communication was there so I guess I can’t complain much lol
I’ve also had really good experiences with tfo. I broke the tip on my ticrx and they didn’t have any on the webpage so I called customer service and the guy I talked put me on hold and found the last one for me.
Orvis, just repaired my Hydros 9 wt as well for 60 bucks, second time! And it only took two weeks. I broke the third piece into four pieces landing a big one…totally my fault. So I’ll give Orvis a big thumbs up as well.
