Catastrophic failure of a Fox 599-XT. Customer service only made excuses. My opinion: stay away.

NG VI said:
Is there a secondary lock on that knife?
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I see what you're referring to and, yes, there is a slide lock on the 599-XT.

So, the question is whether the OP tried to open/close the blade w/the lock engaged or not. But, even if he did, that should not have caused the blade to break at the pivot w/o some defect in mfg, unless really EXTREME force was applied.

Just no way to know how it happened in either case but it does raise the question of whether the movement of the blade was impaired because the lock was either fully or partially engaged.
 
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Seek_Equilibrium said:
Thanks for expressing your opinion again. Regardless, I’ll be spreading this story so that others are aware of the dangerous design/manufacturing flaw that this company produced. You may think it’s not a serious issue and is merely “unfortunate” but I think it’s a pretty big deal. Someone else may end up with worse than the papercut I received from this BS.
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If just making people aware of it was all you were doing, I could see your motivation, as you are entitled to be upset about what happened. But you’re going around to every forum you can to lament about how poorly they treated you (they did not), and how you were entitled to, as you put it “extraordinary efforts” by them to make it right. So because they didn’t try to pay for your silence you’re doing exactly what you threatened them with. They acknowledged what happened, they informed you the dealer would make it right, which it sounds like they have, what more do you want? You’re not gonna get the pitchfork brigade you’ve been looking for on this man. The best thing to do is count your loss, and let it inform you’re future purchases. After all, this is a hobby that involves collecting sharp things. Getting nicked from time to time comes with the territory whether it’s user error or manufacturing error. This appears to be both.
 
Yeah I remember another guy complaining about fox knives. The lock wouldn't stay.

I haven't had a good opinion of them since then.
 
No problem with OP providing visibility to the issues. This is the first thread I’ve seen about this.
We are all in control of our hand whether to click on a thread or not.
 
Not a design issue, there's enough material around the pivot. And one example of a broken blade can't doom the entire inventory, esp. with Marcaida's name on it, and the number sold just due to that; there's no pattern of failure with the model.
 
Threads like this really need documentation of the correspondence going in each direction. Without it, the claims of poor treatment are finger-pointing. It’s obvious the knife broke, what is not obvious is the presence of operator error and how each side responded to bring us to the point we’re at.

OP, I encourage you to back up your claims.

…and, this is the wrong part of the forum for this, it should be in GB&U.
 
sgt1372 said:
Agree that it's an unacceptable event but . . .

Why did you bother calling Fox customer service when all you needed to do was contact the dealer for a refund or replacement in the 1st place?

Just to rant? 🤯

FWIW, I've got a Fox 479 and a Fox 599TICS -- both ends of the price spectrum for a Fox karambit -- and have had no problems with either one.
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He was hoping for a big settlement for his paper cut?
 
That break looks perfect, no jagged edges or splits. I'd love to see a pic op if possible of the grain.

Also, not casting any judgment. The story of blade going up in the air I don't see, waving out of the pocket directly puts force to the side then down, not up. I don't see the blade flying against this force as possible.
 
The blade would have to have been cracked around the pivot hole, that could easily cause a rough and grindy action if it was digging into the washer. It may not be immediately visible, but close inspection might reveal something like that. In a manufacturing environment there's no way you'd have time to check every blade under magnification, but you would think that if the action was that rough that they would have looked at the blade or pivot. These are not exactly $20 knives and it's reasonable to expect a level of quality from them.

If I owned a company and something like that left the shop I'd want it back and would pay shipping. Taking it back for failure analysis would make me as a customer think they wanted to make sure it did not happen again. It's happened with a lot of different manufacturers, how they respond to it is the key.
 
sgt1372 said:
You were entitled to be upset but what did you expect the people at Fox to say, especially if they hadn't seen or examined the knife yet?

And what did you expect would happen if you continued to force the knife to open/close even though its ability to pivot was obviously restricted?

If adjusting the pivot and the backspring didn't help, the other course -- having already gone that far -- would have been to fully disassemble it rather than to continue to force it to open/close, despite the restriction, to try to find out what was causing the problem.

I'm not saying that you are to "blame" for the blade coming apart at the pivot and cutting you BUT . . . if you hadn't done that, the blade would NOT have been damaged and you would NOT have gotten cut.

If you had just left it alone and retuned it to the dealer w/the obvious defect, the dealer could have pre-tested and sent you back one that worked properly and you would not now be a Fox "hater."

Oh well . . .
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Assuming OP story is true , he could have been seriously injured .

Likewise , anyone in the vicinity .

You might feel different if this thing flew apart on you ...and stuck in your (or someone else's) eyeball ? :eek:

Of course , if he actually was beating on the knife, in a vise , with a rubber mallet ...that's different . ;)
 
fishface5 said:
That is unacceptable and I see no problem with alerting folks to a serious safety issue, or being pissed about it
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I agree that there's no problem w/the OP being "pissed" and, based on this experience, he is certainly entitlled to swear off buying any Fox knife ever again.

However, what's NOT ok to me about the OP's post is that he is recommending that everone else "Stay Away" from Fox knives based upon this single experience, which has NOT been proven to be due to a "serious safety issue" caused by a defect in the mfg of the knife and which MAY have been attributable (at least in part) to user "error."

As I've posted previously, I own 2 Fox karambits and have had absolutely NO problems w/them.

Would it be fair for me to say that ALL Fox products are perfectly safe based on my experience. Of course, not.

Nor should the OP be entitled to condemn all of Fox's knives based on his sole experience either.
 
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sgt1372 said:
Agree that it's an unacceptable event but . . .

Why did you bother calling Fox customer service when all you needed to do was contact the dealer for a refund or replacement in the 1st place?

Just to rant? 🤯

FWIW, I've got a Fox 479 and a Fox 599TICS -- both ends of the price spectrum for a Fox karambit -- and have had no problems with either one.
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i also own the 599Ti frame lock model, only have good things to say about it, feels like a premium knife in my hand. I previously had the liner lock model and had heard but never personally experienced that lock fail was an issue with that one. Never heard about such a catastrophic blade snapping though, quite disturbing!
 
Well since OP didn’t find it necessary to provide context for his conversation, I guess I will. It’s very unfortunate this happened to him, but I don’t believe he is being authentic about his correspondence.

FB708D0D-55C9-4E3F-80BC-DF4A5002CA96.jpegF8B3B08F-C937-4F7F-9362-79442E131D01.jpg


Also, here is the piece that broke off. It appears that by how tweaked this looks that it was either already mangled and broken (possibly causing the stiff action OP mentions) or that it had a fracture and was mangled by excessive force causing the full break. Either way, this serves as a good reminder for me to be careful with my blades and never force an opening, no matter how frustrating.

2723F980-19F1-44C9-9A16-00A5488FDCA7.jpeg
 
sgt1372 said:
However, what's NOT ok to me about the OP's post is that he is recommending that everone else "Stay Away" from Fox knives based upon this single experience, which has NOT been proven to be due to a "serious safety issue" caused by a defect in the mfg of the knife and which MAY have been attributable (at least in part) to user "error.".
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Exactly. It came from a dealer and they’re going to exchange it. I don’t see the need to bash a company all over the internet.
Plus, he said that he loosened up the pivot which could certainly be a factor in the knife breaking, while waving it open repeatedly like a maniac. It sucks to get a brand new knife and something is wrong but the guy is acting like they sent him anthrax.
 
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