Lifetime Guarantee My Arse.....

[Old Skool Neil]

Wouldn't Maine Sail be gushing if they simply honored their warranty and sent him a replacement Dinghy Dolly kit? Isn't that the issue, honoring the warranty?

This will be far cheaper than the legal fees they will pay when he sues them for failing to honor their warranty.

Oh, I'm pretty sure Maine Sail isn't thinking lawsuit.

 

[badsanta]

A lifetime is the expected life of an item. What ever it was desinged for, one year, two? Or a week or one use. Not your lifetime and not forever.

 

[anchorclanker]

Read the fine print of the receipt. Does it say life of product, or life of the consumer? I would also look at your states laws, some dont allow exclusions.

And Badsanta, I have lifetime tools, many from Snap on and Craftsman but others as well, and they are warranted for life to the original purchaser.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

Since the issue here seems to be their warranty rather than their product quality, can anyone report a single case of Pelican not living up to their warranty?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
[sound of crickets]

 

[JohnS]

As Maine Sail stated, "So I call the manufacturer, they are very much still in business, and ask to purchase some parts. I did not ask for warranty because the wheel completely fell off and I never found it."

If I were a manufacturer, knowing that I've got to maintain stock of discontinued parts to fulfill warranty claims, I would refuse to sell any parts for that product. The parts aren't for sale, they're for warranty replacements.

According to Maine Sail:
Their answer; "We no longer make that product and don't offer parts either. Try google."...

They didn't say they didn't have any more parts. Just that they don't offer them for sale.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

Maine, isn’t there something you want to say? Or should have said a few days ago? At least before my next post (if it’s even necessary)?

This is about Pelican Products and setting the record straight.

 

[Ron20324]

...This is about Pelican Products and setting the record straight.

Maybe tell us if and how much you have invested in Pelican? Someone had to say it.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

[FONT=&quot]For the record, contrary to how it may appear I have no professional or business relationship in any way with the company. Nice zinger although it missed the mark.
[/FONT]

 

[Maine Sail]

They didn't say they didn't have any more parts. Just that they don't offer them for sale.

Yes they told me flat out that they had no more parts or complete wheels to honor the warranty. It is all in this thread. In the end that tuned out to not be true but that was what I was told when I called the support / warranty line..

Due to this thread it apparently caused quite a stir at the manufacturer. I was contacted by the director of lighting products, Scott, who offered to help in anyway he could. He offered to send me some other free product, as a good will gesture, to which I politely declined.

I explained to him I would be much happier if they could come up with a plan to deal with future Dolly Wheel customers who call in with issues and to hopefully address how to deal with lifetime warranty products that get discontinued.

I declined the free parts that were not dinghy wheels as I have no need for them, after the fact... Had they made a good will gesture when I initially called it may have been a different story.. He then offered to fully scour the warehouse for a set of wheels for me and I offered to PAY for the parts. A day later he emailed and said he found what may be the last set of Dinghy Dolly Wheels and is shipping them to me free of charge. This is great! Scott bent over backwards but my initial call was a complete FLOP.. With most issues like this that initial call can make or break a customer for life. IMHO they got a "F" on my initial communications with them.

My real hope is that the manufacturer understands that they need a plan in place to deal with these issues, the minute a customer calls in, other than "sorry, try google." It sould not take internet threads to cause a manufacturer to bounce into action.

Had I not posted my frustrations about "lifetime warranties" here none of the hoopla would have happened and my "try google" response would have been the end of it. I would have been a disgruntled customer and probably never purchased another Pelican product. That is sad. My warranty would have never been fulfilled had I not posted this and had someone alert the manufacture to it. I was lucky to deal with Scott but not lucky to deal with the intial contact person I talked to about the wheels. Oh he was polite, and courteous, but he clearly had no plan as to how to deal with an event like this.

All I ask is that a manufacture have a plan in place when marketing and selling a product as "lifetime"... Craftsman does, Snap-On does, LL Bean does, Yandina does, Tilley Hats does, Costa Del Mar does, Maui Jim does, EMS does, Patagonia does, Tupperware does, Orvis does and many more..

It is my hope that the manufacturer actually does discuss this and does put a plan in place so others like me don't get the same initial response I got.

It is also completely unacceptable that I bought a product with that lifetime warranty well after it had been discontinued. I don't know who is at fault for that but I do know at least one of the parties in the distribution chain knew the wheels were discontinued long before I even purchased them.

I like their products and consider them extremely well built. This case certainly turned me off as to how they dealt with these matters at the customer service level. I know they nbormally do a much better job but in this case I feel they certainly dropped the ball.

They made right in the end but all because of the wrong reasons and not because they had a plan in place to do so up front..

Maine, isn’t there something you want to say? Or should have said a few days ago? At least before my next post (if it’s even necessary)?

This is about Pelican Products and setting the record straight.

I just did.

I do work and I walked in the door tonight at 10:05 and left early this morning. I was waiting for the wheels to arrive before sending Kudo's to Scott director of lighting.....

There is nothing to "set straight" in the record. The manufacture only stepped up because someone notified them of this thread. IT SHOULD NOT BE THAT WAY. My initial call to warranty support should have been handled at that time and not just because of an internet thread talking about frustrations of warranties. Hopefully in the future they will be handled better.

I will now self insure my "lifetime warranty" and perhaps that of others because I now have lots of spare parts. If anyone needs Dinghy Dolly parts I may have them for you....

BTW this is where some of my frustration stems from:

Side #1

Side #2

Side #3

 

[Old Skool Neil]

Thank you Maine

The information that Pelican made good on the warranty was an important part of the discussion. Once Scott at Pelican was aware of the issue he did whatever he could to make it right.

Hopefully all parties can learn something from this. I certainly did.

 

[JRacer]

It's the lifetime of the wheels that they warrant! ;-)

 

[jibes138]

So you are suggesting they are guaranteed not to break until they do?

That's about as ironic as Lou Gehrig catching Lou Gehrig's disease.

If it is the lifetime of the wheels then they need to specify a time period Every customer will use them in different conditions and different frequencies. There is no way a company can predict this, so if they have some design criteria to calculate life then they would have to specify it. Perhaps it was a bear attack, this is Maine we are talking about?

 

[Chris Patterson]

Seems to me that they went to reactionary measures once the company figured out that 2000 people have now seen how "they" work.

I contend that they were perfectly happy to run with the "try google" approach had it been just the one occurrence. I would have interpreted it as "try contacting your attorney".

And it really tells me everything I would want to know about them..

Especially now.

Poor form..

 

[txtowman]

Hopefully they spent some time making sure no person gets that "Try Google" response again.
I would have blown up at that point most likely.
I am uneducated and have a fairly abrasive personality, but there is no way I would ever respond that way.

I have heard about a few other dissatisfied customers of Pelican Products before and this one pretty much, sealed their fate with Me. I will seek other branded products.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

I have heard about a few other dissatisfied customers of Pelican Products before and this one pretty much, sealed their fate with Me. I will seek other branded products.

Well then, it seems the intent of the thread has been achieved. Does this forum tolerate minority opinions? We’ll see.

This started out as brand bashing pure and simple and there is a forum rule against it. It was immediately reported to the site administration as a violation of the rule. Minor vocabulary edits were made but the bashing nature of the thread was allowed to remain. Had this been started by someone else and targeted, for example Catalina, it would have been bounced in an instant. Remember the asbestos thread? Posts were deleted, members banned and the thread locked.

The initial complaint was resolved within 3 days yet that information was withheld for several more days while the thread continued to trash the company. I have doubts the disclosure would ever have occurred had it not been baited out or disclosed by others.

Even after the warranty was honored the complaining continued. Now it’s about how it was honored, who said what, how they said it, they did it the wrong way for the wrong reasons. As was suggested in the thread, try pressing that position in a lawsuit. What exactly are the damages?

A suggestion was floated that a multinational company reacted in fear of the market impact of this forum. Get over yourselves. This was a case of someone inside the company doing a friend a favor by looking into the problem. A single friendly email was all it took; there was never a need for pitchforks and torches.

 

[Chris Burti]

A lifetime is the expected life of an item. What ever it was desinged for, one year, two? Or a week or one use. Not your lifetime and not forever.

Certainly not 'forever'. However, if they indended the design life of the product to be the limiting period of warranty of the item they should state that period, 90 days, one year, five years, ten years, etc. 'Lifetime warranty' is meaningless in the context of such a standard as 'design life' as it is an amorphous, subjective and changeble standard. Lifetime of a product to which the item will be attached or the duration of the purchaser's ownership of the item or even the lifetime of the original purchaser are all clearly ascertainable and objective standards.

The Federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act regulates consumer product warranties and it requires manufacturers and sellers of consumer products to provide consumers with detailed information about warranty coverage

The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act does not specifially regulate advertising of warranties. However, Congress also directed the FTC to adopt rules to implement the Act. The FTC Rules do regulate advertising and to assist advertisers in understanding thier legal requirements, the FTC has issued Guides for Advertising Warranties and Guarantees

These Guides advise that to avoid confusing consumers about the duration of a "lifetime warranty", advertisers should tell consumers which "life" measures the warranty's duration In that way, consumers will know which meaning of the intended "lifetime".

 

[jibes138]

A suggestion was floated that a multinational company reacted in fear of the market impact of this forum. Get over yourselves. This was a case of someone inside the company doing a friend a favor by looking into the problem. A single friendly email was all it took; there was never a need for pitchforks and torches.

Get over ourselves? How a company interacts with their customers is crucial to customer loyalty and future sales. This was obviously a terrible interaction with a completely inappropriate response by the company. I had a new chevy once with a bad transmission. I was treated horribly by the company and had to start lemon law proceedings before they installed a new tranny (five rebuilds on the first one in 15K miles). I vowed never to buy another GM product as long as I lived. Guess what I never have and never even look at them or price them when buying a new vehicle. They lost me for life, that is how people react to this kind of response. Should I be happy they finally put in a new tranny...no, I had my vehicle tied up getting rebuilt for weeks, never given a loaner, often being told it was fine until I took the service manager for a test ride and almost got killed by an eighteen wheeler. Even if they totally reorganized the company I would never give them another dime of my money again. They blew it and I make sure I let everyone know so they don't also have the same bad experience. On the other hand if Pelican had refunded Maine Sail his hundred bucks or went out of their way to help him, he would be tooting their horn all over the internet and to all his friends. People would be lining up at the stores to buy Pelican products and the stores would be stocking out all over the country. This lesson was taught all over the world by Toyota in the 80's and 90's. Some were paying attention, others apparently not.

 

[Old Skool Neil]

Like I said, all it took was one friendly email. Just one. No threats, no "thousands" of disgruntled forum members. After the replacement product was already on its way within 24 hours after the friendly email, a second email was sent. It was brief and to the point: "Thank you."

edit:
Interesting discussion on this thread
http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=153876
criticizing Defender, post #35 in particular with which I wholeheartedly agree.

 

[Freedom77]

Recent case in California. Consumer filed complaint with state consumers affairs division because vendor wouldn't honor "lifetime" warranty on product. Court ruled, in Cali, that warranty expired after seven year statute of limitation. Caveat Emptor and the public be damned! Sears still honors Craftsman tool policy.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Would it be possible to identify the product involved? I'm figuring that it would be somewhat a different issue if it was, say, a Frisbee, as compared to an automobile. And sure, Sears still guarantees Craftsman tools, not a whole lot to break on a screwdriver.