Goodbye Cold Steel - Won't Provide Replacement Parts

I couldn't argue with any company that won't get involved with replacement parts if only because of liability. Like it or not they have to be realistic. Spyderco for instance will provide stuff for the clip but anything involving the internal workings needs to be done at the Golden plant.
 
kreole said:
I don't think the argument is whether they should provide them *free* but whether you should be able to get them at all. The OP was about the total inability to get parts, not that they wouldn't do it free.

If you brought in your truck would you be happy if they told you, "Sorry, we don't have parts for service. You need to buy a new truck"?
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that happens with Ford now. I got a handful of mavericks on a faulty parts fire potential recall and Ford has no parts to fix the recall and haven't for over a year plus now.....I've seen problem with no parts for recalls and repairs in the past with chevy and dodge also.....

ford does send a lot of notices though all the time to get the recall done....its pretty comical......


this is an apples to oranges though......so has no relevance to not selling parts.
 
Their CS has always been pretty meh. For me, when I buy a Cold Steel, I am expecting a tough, hard use knife that probably punches above the $100-$150 price range. I feel like you get a lot for money with some of their mid-tier folders. However, I sometimes think that folks often overlook that CS has always basically been a marketing company that designs things, has things made overseas, and then sells them out of their warehouses.

It would be nice if they could provide parts, but I get why they don't. In contrast, i recently reached out to Boker about a stripped pivot from the the factory on a knife and offered to replace it myself since it came with the tools to adjust the knife. I got an email back withing 24 hours apologizing that they didn't have spare parts, but that they would repair it for free if I shipped it to them. So, $9 to have a knife fixed that should have been perfect from the factory, but I still think that's about as fair as I can expect for a sub $100 knife these days.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
Their CS has always been pretty meh. For me, when I buy a Cold Steel, I am expecting a tough, hard use knife that probably punches above the $100-$150 price range. I feel like you get a lot for money with some of their mid-tier folders. However, I sometimes think that folks often overlook that CS has always basically been a marketing company that designs things, has things made overseas, and then sells them out of their warehouses.

It would be nice if they could provide parts, but I get why they don't. In contrast, i recently reached out to Boker about a stripped pivot from the the factory on a knife and offered to replace it myself since it came with the tools to adjust the knife. I got an email back withing 24 hours apologizing that they didn't have spare parts, but that they would repair it for free if I shipped it to them. So, $9 to have a knife fixed that should have been perfect from the factory, but I still think that's about as fair as I can expect for a sub $100 knife these days.
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boker ain't so great. I had some boker fellows with factory cracked and separated bone scales. dealer had no more so said refund or deal with factory. I picked factory. one was grey and one was yellow bone. I had to pay for shipping. boker usa sent them to Germany as they couldn't replace or fix them. they came back many months later replaced with white bone. I complained, and they'd said that's all they could do.
 
jbmonkey said:
boker ain't so great. I had some boker fellows with factory cracked and separated bone scales. dealer had no more so said refund or deal with factory. I picked factory. one was grey and one was yellow bone. I had to pay for shipping. boker usa sent them to Germany as they couldn't replace or fix them. they came back many months later replaced with white bone. I complained, and they'd said that's all they could do.
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Good to know, and thanks. I've never had an issue short of that with any of my Bokers, and honestly, I had already set up a return for the knife with Amazon where my wife bought it for me for christmas. I just figured that if they sent me the screw, then I would go ahead and keep the knife if I could fix it myself. Since it had to go back to the Mothership, it became Jeff Bezos' problem.
 
Danke42 said:
Well it is better than the old days when they're all just pretend nothing was wrong.
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My grandpa had a Ford work truck that gave him fits while the rest of the fleet was Chevy. This mostly had to do with my dad running Chevies and being able to fix them easier since a lot of the parts interchanged. Grandpa had this truck back when the jingle was "Have you driven a Ford....Lately?" He used to grumble all the time "Have I driven a Ford lately? No I have not because this gotdayumsumbetch is sitting in the driveway and won't start!"
 
tony281sc2 said:
Probably the best customer service out there, so I’ve heard. But I know ZT keeps older parts, like clips & hardware, if you need them.
I’ve heard really good things about Benchmade too.
I’ve only had to use Microtechs repair service (once), and they were good to deal with, and fixed the problem I was having.
Just gotta pay shipping (one way) which is completely understandable
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Benchmade also refuses to send out replacement parts, no matter how much you beg or offer to pay, unless you are an overseas customer.
 
I don't know about receiving replacement parts, but pre-GSM Cold Steel's warranty program was acceptable for me when I had a defective SR-1 (edge contacted the back spring) and they replaced it outright. I kind of doubt GSM will do something like that now, based on what I've heard about their customer service.

That being said, it wasn't like Cold Steel sent me a replacement part or fixed my knife. They just replaced it outright.
 
marrenmiller said:
I don't know about receiving replacement parts, but pre-GSM Cold Steel's warranty program was acceptable for me when I had a defective SR-1 (edge contacted the back spring) and they replaced it outright. I kind of doubt GSM will do something like that now, based on what I've heard about their customer service.

That being said, it wasn't like Cold Steel sent me a replacement part or fixed my knife. They just replaced it outright.
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I’ve heard one story here where GSM sent a replacement back along with the original knife. Not too shabby, but I wouldn’t count on that being the norm.
 
JohnnyGalt said:
Not true. Benchmade offers replacement parts for their knives.


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"We do not send out any internal parts, including springs, washers, liners, spacers of any kind, and latches. If you require any of these internal parts, we suggest sending your knife in for warranty service so that we can evaluate why the part broke and make the necessary repairs."

Per second link.
 
JohnnyGalt said:
Not true. Benchmade offers replacement parts for their knives.


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Interesting, this looks like a slight improvement to their "F You" policy when I contacted them a couple years ago.
However, they are still not providing the #1 thing their customers actually need to replace:
"Internals: All internal wear parts are covered under warranty, provided the working tolerances of the knife have not been altered. We do not send out any internal parts, including springs, washers, liners, spacers of any kind, and latches. If you require any of these internal parts, we suggest sending your knife in for warranty service so that we can evaluate why the part broke and make the necessary repairs."
 
Alpha knife supply and others all sell pivots, unless you plan on reselling the knife I don't see how it's a big deal. Unless of course you plan on modifying the knife in which case we need hand drawn diagrams, engineering specs and at least three complicated paragraphs of your plans.
 
Reswob said:
Interesting, this looks like a slight improvement to their "F You" policy when I contacted them a couple years ago.
However, they are still not providing the #1 thing their customers actually need to replace:
"Internals: All internal wear parts are covered under warranty, provided the working tolerances of the knife have not been altered. We do not send out any internal parts, including springs, washers, liners, spacers of any kind, and latches. If you require any of these internal parts, we suggest sending your knife in for warranty service so that we can evaluate why the part broke and make the necessary repairs."
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So the OP should have sent it in with a note that the pivot fell out somehow. See what honesty gets ya? He told the truth and got beat out of a screw they would have replaced. They have spare pivots, they just saw the opportunity to easily get out of doing anything for the guy.
 
DocJD said:
Maybe if you know the exact specs , but can you just order by knife brand , model and part needed ?

If so ...great ! :cool:
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No but seriously if it were your knife would you be able to figure it out? There's gotta be video of someone taking one apart. I know it's a PITA and I think CS should send the part but if they won't it will still need a pivot.
 
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